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3D crosswalk in Iceland helps slow down speeding motorists
- chrischen 9y agoSounds like it'd work until everyone knows about it. What about an actual 3D object there (speed bump)?
- robbrown451 9y agoBecause a speed bump has a different purpose, and has some negatives associated with it (which is why you don't have speedbumps at every crosswalk). This should work even when people know about it, because the real point is to draw attention to the crosswalk. Probably the people who know about it, are less likely to hit someone in the crosswalk anyway, it's the people new to the area that are most likely to be dangerous. Now if they put these everywhere, they'd stop losing their effectiveness.
- icebraining 9y agoIf the problem is tourists, then everyone won't know about it.
- eps 9y agoIt's all smart and clever until someone gets distracted, slams the breaks, gets rear-ended and breaks the neck.
- robbrown451 9y agoIf they are going that fast and it is that distracting to them, they are probably dangerous already.
- bryanlarsen 9y agoThe speed limit is 18mph. No neck breaking can happen at that speed.
- tzs 9y agoThat's faster than you are moving when you are executed by hanging (about 17 mph for long drop, 13 mph for standard drop), so I would not dismiss the possibility out of hand.
- sparrish 9y agoAh... but it's your whole body weight on your neck at that speed that breaks it. Unless you've managed to seriously misplace your seatbelt, I don't think you can achieve the same result.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sitharus 9y agoThen the driver behind was following too closely, which has little to do with an optical illusion on the road.
- saagarjha 9y agoI wonder how well it would work in the dark.
- QAPereo 9y agoWell, if you can’t see the road, there’s a problem in and of itself. Assuming good headlights, which I think you’d want in Iceland, and assuming modern road paints, it should work. If not, just stick a road light over it.
- hanoz 9y agoYes but how well would the illusion work in headlights?
- QAPereo 9y agoIt should work, modern headlights are no joke, but I admit that I’m not sure. If you have enough light to perceive a broad range of colors it should work.
- hanoz 9y agoI mean given where you would expect the shadows of floating blocks to be when illuminated from your headlights.
- ncallaway 9y agoThe shadows would appear wrong when lit by headlights, which might be a little bit disorienting. The shadows are rendered as if a light was high overhead. I think the illusion would still work fine, but feel subtly "wrong" to the driver. Probably good enough to get people to slow down, though.
- StavrosK 9y ago> which I think you’d want in Iceland Why Iceland more than other places?
- rocky1138 9y agoDoes it actually work?
- malgorithms 9y agoThere is an analogy here to the slippery-slope of attention-getting ads on the Internet. Once upon a time an ad was just a static (not even animated) banner of a certain size and shape. 468x60 was one of the earliest, IIRC. Advertisers invented new formats ("skyscrapers", "xl-leaderboards", "300x250", and so on), and also they got animated, and then they started expanding outside their areas, and so on; each new ad temporarily performed literally dozens of times better than the previous due to shock value. A year or two after a new, more intrusive format became ubiquitous, its performance would fall back to the old format's, and, worse, the old format would fall even further because it was too subtle. So in the long run, the money would stay the same, but the pages got uglier, formats got crazier. The game theory is clear: everyone is incentivized to upgrade to the new formats, but once there, no one is better off (neither the publishers nor advertisers), and the readers themselves are far worse off. We're seeing this now with traffic signals: if every crosswalk in the world is replaced with this 3D version, we'll see a temporary boost in safety, but in the long run it may return to normal and in my opinion, our world will be uglier. I don't like our public spaces covered in optical illusions. In my area I've started to see red lights that are so bright you are temporarily blinded at night if you look at them. And they've even begun attaching strobing white LED's to the center of some of them. I would guess these perform great in short-term studies. Just like flash ads with games in them.
- thesagan 9y agoSimilarly, road signs are getting pretty dense in the area I live and elsewhere, too. There are so many warning and notice signs on the road in my new city I've found I've missed some of the more important ones until after more than a few drive by's.
- kartan 9y ago> A year or two after a new, more intrusive format became ubiquitous, its performance would fall back to the old format's When Sweden changed driving side, that is exactly what happened. "The relatively smooth changeover saw a reduction in the number of accidents. On the day of the change, only 157 minor accidents were reported, of which only 32 involved personal injuries, with only a handful serious. On the Monday following Dagen H, there were 125 reported traffic accidents, compared to a range of 130 to 198 for previous Mondays, none of them fatal. Experts suggested that changing to driving on the right reduced accidents while overtaking, as people already drove left-hand drive vehicles, thereby having a better view of the road ahead; additionally, the change made a marked surge in perceived risk that exceeded the target level and thus was followed by very cautious behavior that caused a major decrease in road fatalities. Indeed, fatal car-to-car and car-to-pedestrian accidents dropped sharply as a result, and the number of motor insurance claims went down by 40%. These initial improvements did not last, however. The number of motor insurance claims returned to 'normal' over the next six weeks and, by 1969, the accident rates were back to the levels seen before the change." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H
- jorjordandan 9y agoThese 3d perspective drawings are much less convincing in real life than they are in images, because in real life we have depth perception and our viewpoint is constantly moving. This only looks good from that exact viewpoint.
- einrealist 9y agoThe driver's attention is not focused solely on the crosswalk, but on many different things at different times during the approach. Once the driver reaches the point where the brain is tricked most by the illusion, the attention will be on the crosswalk, with a greater probabilty. That's all what matters, these milliseconds where the brain perceives the illusion as an obstacle.
- tomjakubowski 9y agoCAVE style VR suffers from the same problem if you don't want to use stereoscopic shutter glasses. You can track one user's head position and update the renderer's camera accordingly, but with multiple users you can't do that without shutter glasses. Even with shutter glasses, I'd think there must be some limit on how many users you could have at once without irritating flickering; with 3 users and six different perspectives to render, both displays on an individual user's glasses would be opaque 2/3 of the time, and each eye would see an image for 1/6 of every unit time.
- gt_ 9y agoBeyond approx. 30 ft., depth perception is useless in VR
- tarr11 9y agoThe article shows pictures of 5 different angles on that crosswalk, and they all seem to work.
- freeloop2 9y agoStereoptics ruin the illusion. Just like a 2d vs a 3d movie
- shasheene 9y agoWhy weren't a series of speed bumps suitable?
- radiorental 9y agoPlowing in Winter perhaps?
- protomyth 9y agoYep, plowing and speed bumps don't mix. My workplace bought removable speed bumps. At the first snow, they maintenance folks unscrew the speed bumps from the roads / parking lot that are owned by the college. When the snow melts, they put back the speed bumps. Also, speed bumps with ice accumulations are just nasty.
- dsego 9y agoWhere I live they sometimes put a series of raised "vibrating" white strips before a crossing. In some places it's even only painted lines.
- drunkonvinyl 9y agoHelps to have a concept of scale here. This is a tiny town in the remote fjords in northern Iceland. The speed is likely caused by tourists looking around and not paying attention, so grabbing their attention will probably work in this case. Starting point in maps street view - zoom out and walk around the town for 5 min - you'll gain a better perspective on what's going on here: https://www.google.com/maps/@66.0739609,-23.1207479,3a,75y,315.36h,80.84t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sHv3QpAr4H10qxhPyZvd8Og!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@66.0739609,-23.1207479,3a,75y,3...
- Tomis02 9y ago>The speed is likely caused by tourists looking around and not paying attention I suspect it's Romanians, as they're really bad drivers. For example, in Romania drivers will not stop at a crosswalk to let you pass unless you stare at them for a few seconds to make eye contact, and even then it depends on their mood and how hurried they are. They're basically a menace on the roads.
- snowAbstraction 9y agoWhy would you suspect Romanians in particular in Iceland? Why not citizens from other European countries who as have relatively many road fatalities per capita? I am usually most worried about Americans since many have little experience with roundabouts and they are used to turning right on red, often in practice without a full stop. This is very dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians.
- Tomis02 9y ago> Why not citizens from other European countries who as have relatively many road fatalities per capita? When it comes to pedestrian safety, the only EU country with a record that can match Romania's is Latvia, but it has a population that's 10 times smaller. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Road_accident_fatalities_-_statistics_by_type_of_vehicle#Pedestrians_particularly_at_risk_in_Baltic_countries_and_in_Romania http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/... > I am usually most worried about Americans since many have little experience with roundabouts and they are used to turning right on red Except the crossing in the article has nothing to do with roundabouts and turning, just stopping to give way to pedestrians, which is something Romanian drivers are very bad at. I'm speaking from experience.
- ThomPete 9y agoFor how long though? This will become normalized after some time.
- justinucd 9y agoAttention should be drawn to pedestrians, not necessarily to the crosswalk itself
- dsego 9y agoIn my city a lot of new crosswalks have white stripes on a bright yellow background, a lot of them with blinking LEDs. In several places even the sign has a flashing light. Nobody will stop on an ordinary zebra crossing anymore, it doesn't even register. As for the interesting patterns to draw attention, they tried it in a different town in my country near a school, painted the stripes with different colors. Didn't last, police says not according to road regulations. And then someone brought up the famous zebra crossing in the capital near the zoo, where the pattern was realistic zebra stripes. That was promptly repainted as well.
- merraksh 9y agoOnly tangentially related, but here's a piano-inspired crossing in Warsaw, Poland: http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Poland/East/Mazowieckie/Warsaw/photo1335047.htm http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Poland/East/Mazowiec...
- dsego 9y agoThis is the original crossing near the zoo in Zagreb: http://www.portaloko.hr/clanak/promotrite-najzebrastiju-zebru-u-hrvatskoj/0/21849/ http://www.portaloko.hr/clanak/promotrite-najzebrastiju-zebr...
- dsego 9y agoInteresting, apparently this is already a thing in India and China http://tris.com.hr/2016/05/3d-zebra-i-nacrtana-provalija-na-cesti-recept-za-sigurniji-promet-i-pravednije-drustvo/ http://tris.com.hr/2016/05/3d-zebra-i-nacrtana-provalija-na-...
- mrep 9y agoAm I the only one who thinks that humans might be pretty good at adjusting speed for risk? Not to sound cruel, but having everyone slow down might not be worth the cost of all these precautions.
- DrScump 9y agoIn Santa Clara, California, there are several crosswalks at intersections not controlled by a traffic light. There is an ongoing problem with cars not properly yielding to crossing pedestrians (I mean, like, ever). I almost got killed in one twice in one week. As a driver, I get rude treatment (and some near-collisions) when I stop for pedestrians. A pedestrian was killed in the one near Halford a couple of months ago. The city solution: enforcement? Ha! No, they put in a new fancy overhead signal of a style completely unique (and, to my reading, non-compliant with the actual vehicle code) at one of these crosswalks (just west of Kiely). The problem: when a crosser presses the call button, a pair of overhead red lights flash for a fixed cycle of time. But (in CA, anyway), a flashing red light means "stop, and proceed when safe" by law, but the signage simply says "Stop on Red". So, people are confused as to how long to stay (the full cycle? or only as long as it occupied? or only as long as the near half is occupied? or, ?)... and almost half continue to blow through the intersection regardless. Ambiguity in such contexts is inherently unsafe.
- chrisseaton 9y ago> In Santa Clara, California, there are several crosswalks at intersections not controlled by a traffic light. Isn't that what a zebra crossing is for? Give pedestrians permanent right of way so they can always go and don't need a light and everyone understands that they need to yield.
- vostrocity 9y agoOn a road with high traffic speed and not enough visibility of pedestrians waiting at the side of the road, most motorists won't yield
- lozenge 9y agoWhat about a pelican crossing? Red yellow and green lights for cars like at a junction, activated by pedestrians pressing a button. Wikipedia says these only came to the US in the year 2000, which seems ridiculous.
- williamle8300 9y agoThis is a bad idea. Once it loses its effectiveness it'll leave the drivers in a worse state.
- bkyan 9y agoThe concern I have with this scenario, is that I'll get conditioned to ignore this kind of stuff as a driver, and will manage to hit something real that I mistake for an optical illusion.
- gt_ 9y agoalso eye-patch resilient :)
- Animats 9y agoWonder what Tesla's vision-based automatic driving makes of this.
- swayvil 9y agoI want the pattern for this. I suppose it's easy enough to make my own, but a pattern would be nice. I live on a street where people drive too fast.
- bnegreve 9y agoTake this picture from above, that's basically the pattern. http://icelandmag.visir.is/sites/default/files/styles/article_body_image/public/thumbnails/image/isafjordur_7.jpg?itok=tK-k9lUU http://icelandmag.visir.is/sites/default/files/styles/articl...
- microcolonel 9y agoThis is why self-driving cars need lidar (and maybe radar) as well as cameras.
- wavefunction 9y agoArticle captions reference '08 Something Good - Utah Saints Welsh lad the first time e seen a running man -> "IT'S LIKE IT'S FLOATING ON AIR The townsfolk of Ísafjörður say they have never seen anything like it."
- StanislavPetrov 9y agoThe best way to slow down motorists is a 3d speed bump. Not a 3d illusion of a speed bump - an actual speed bump. They have speed bumps littering the side streets in certain areas of Queens and Brooklyn. If you don't slow down, and take care, these large speed bumps will simply wreck your car - and they are much easier to install than these 3-d paintings.
- SeriousM 9y agoI don't like speedbumps, but they work.
- hellofunk 9y agoYou're not supposed to like them; and really the only people that are inconvenienced by them are those going to fast anyway.
- sliverstorm 9y agoSome of them are pretty awful, making the whole car shudder even when you creep across slower-than-idle. (This is typically the ones that look more like a 2x4 than a hump)
- BoorishBears 9y agoThat's not true, my car scrapes on them at practically any speed. People with slightly higher cars than mine scrape because they try to brake, forcing their suspension to compress, then go over the bump. There's so much ceremony to going over a speed bump that I think plenty of people not going that fast are inconvenienced. whether that inconvience is worth the net benefit is a separate issue.
- GordonS 9y agoSame hear, Nissan 350Z scrapes most speed bumps even going as slow as is possible. Also, they don't work for a lot of cars - I see lots of cars (presumably without stiff suspension) fly over the things at quite high speed. It seems that at certain high speeds, if you straddle them just right, you don't have to slow down at all.
- rangibaby 9y agoI have seen something similar but not the same around Japan for years. A good idea.
- burntrelish1273 9y agoThat's awesome! :D Palo Alto should try this on El Camino Real. ;)
- jon_adler 9y agoIn the UK, we have "New Layout Ahead" signs everywhere. Once erected, they seem to stay in place forever and increase noise. Is there any evidence that these are beneficial?
- lozenge 9y agoWhile researching this thread, apparently those should have a date on the back that they can be removed, which is three months from when they are put up. Tell your local council!
- GordonS 9y agoNot just new layout signs - we seem to be bombarded with signs! Seriously, some places there are just so many signs that you couldn't possibly take in the information they provide in time. And the majority of the information they provide isn't useful. One of the things I hate the most are the digital signs that are springing up everywhere. These things are expensive, and >99% of the time they are distracting me with pointless messages about watching my speed, not drinking and driving, not driving while tired etc. Such a waste, and surely causing more harm than good.
- Boothroid 9y agoReminds me of the annoying passenger announcements on South West trains: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205027/Passengers-fury-train-companys-31-announcements-32-minute-journey.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205027/Passengers-f...
- ntheont32tnh 9y agoIs that what this sign means? [0] As an American, I couldn't figure out its meaning. [0] https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcardani/3321935026/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcardani/3321935026/
- ygra 9y agoThis means that road priorities changed, e.g. you may no longer have the right of way at a particular intersection. It's a sign you can safely ignore when not driving there daily, since the upcoming signage is accurate anyway. It's a warning to those that have made a habit out of that route.
- laythea 9y agoI predict that the bits of the illusion will deteriorate with the paint on the road, leaving a big mess :)
- GonzaloCamacho 9y agoMUTCD Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices. The US Federal government has its MUTCD and each state has its MUTCD. All of them are generally the same. Uniformity is critical in driver behavior. The lack of uniformity on traffic controls is and will cause random behavior from drivers which likely will reduce safety. Streets are not games. The lives of people and children are in the line.
- ntheont32tnh 9y agoI feel like this points to a bigger problem. Why do drivers feel the need to drive faster than the speed limit? Why do drivers and pedestrians hate each other so much? This really feels like a band-aid on a much larger problem. And it also seems like the type of thing that will make people react even worse once they realize the situation. Like those signs that say, "Drive like your kids live here." Fuck you! I don't have any kids and I don't like kids. (Not really, but I know people who think like that.) I've seen people drive way worse between speed bumps to "show the man" that they can't be controlled. It's ridiculous, but solutions like this engender anger while maybe slightly reducing accidents (if at all). THere's a bigger problem we need to understand and all the games we're starting to play with parking between traffic and bike lanes, and cross walks that are farther back from the intersection, and other such remedies are papering over it.
- Boothroid 9y agoThe sooner we get self driving cars to control the idiots that cannot control themselves, the better. That said, they are trialling fake 3D speed bumps here in the UK and it makes me furious! I would far rather simply have have average speed cameras everywhere.
- Pica_soO 9y agoTo have a continuous effect, this would need some persistent e-inkpaper to redraw cars, obstacles or similar stuff on the road. Also, sorry to say it - but the speed limit is set by the common lowest denominator- meaning, a old guys reflexes, in a fully loaded lorry with the worst possible breaks must stop at the smallest acceptable visible range at clear weather.