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Canada unveils new speed bump: optical illusion of a child
news.yahoo.com ^ | Sept 8 2010 | Brett Michael Dykes

Posted on 09/08/2010 1:23:21 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper

Officials in West Vancouver, Canada, apparently aren't satisfied with the driver-slowing properties of traditional speed bumps. On Tuesday, the town unveiled a new way to persuade motorists to ease off the gas pedal in the vicinity of the École Pauline Johnson Elementary School: a 2-D image of a child playing, creating the illusion that the approaching driver will soon blast into a child.

According to Discover magazine, the pavement painting appears to rise up as the driver gets closer to it, reaching full 3-D realism at around 100 feet: "Its designers created the image to give drivers who travel at the street's recommended 18 miles per hour (30 km per hour) enough time to stop before hitting Pavement Patty -- acknowledging the spectacle before they continue to safely roll over her."

You have to wonder if the designers of the "speed bump of the future" considered that drivers might become conditioned to disregard Pavement Patty and her imaginary cohorts, creating something similar to a "boy who cried wolf" effect. Couldn't such conditioning reduce drivers' caution if a real child should cross their path?

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Canada
KEYWORDS: napl
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To: Psycho_Bunny

so now drivers will assume real kids are these painted “bumps”.

stupid is as stupid does.


61 posted on 09/09/2010 5:23:23 PM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: MaryFromMichigan

I saved it and sampled it with a photoshop program at work and it wasn’t but at home the original picture is the same.

I’ll have to check the one at work again tomorrow as the decompression and recompression must have changed it.

Well I’ll be darned!


62 posted on 09/09/2010 5:32:14 PM PDT by Eaker (Pablo is very wily)
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To: Eaker

:)

Eaker, I posted it once before, with the same results!

You really can’t believe your eyes!


63 posted on 09/09/2010 5:38:20 PM PDT by MaryFromMichigan
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To: MaryFromMichigan
It is even neater coloring on the image. The line drawn on it is the same color start to finish.



64 posted on 09/09/2010 5:43:06 PM PDT by Eaker (Pablo is very wily)
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To: Eaker
I know!
How cool is that!
65 posted on 09/09/2010 5:46:05 PM PDT by MaryFromMichigan
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