7 ms·

New Mexico's Singing Road

PostThisTooFast 6y ago
"go to slow or too fast and it won’t work." How does one "go to slow?"
szszrk 6y ago
There is an awesome short video on such roads by Tom Scott, where he explains how it went badly in Lancaster, California [1]. Twice. That one plays off key. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef93WmlEho0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef93WmlEho0
- s5300 6y ago
  Lancaster is awesome. Despite it being y'know, the high desert, they're total fucking hillchucks out there (I say this as an Appalachian, and the poorer part of the poorness that is Appalachia at that...) They shut down a sizeable portion of downtown for a weekend every year. Literally shut it down. For a fuckin Grand Prix. Last year, they out of the blue ran into an acquaintance of mine who builds/races custom electric skateboards that can hit 60mph+ (our new speed trap record is 57mph uphill, dude is insane) and invited us out on a whim to race ~45mph on a winding 0.7mile track. Was cool, and the methed out crowd that is the high desert seemed to enjoy it, despite it being quite different from karting... Invited us out again this year and most likely will for the foreseeable future. I never got wind of the price the organization had to pay to the insurance for adding a few dozen random people averaging 42mph on pieces of wood (and chromoly...) on a short track with several tight hairpins a week before the race (which is always finalized at least a year in advance...)
  - cameldrv 6y ago
    There's all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff going on in that general part of the Mojave. Lots of tinkerers. Some of them are brought there by Edwards or the Palmdale plant, but now there are a bunch of scrappy and not so scrappy anymore aircraft companies at the Mojave airport, and loads of people trying out strange and fast machines over on the El Mirage lakebed.
  - jasonlingx 6y ago
    > They shut down a sizeable portion of downtown for a weekend every year. Literally shut it down. For a fuckin Grand Prix. They do this in Singapore too. They used to close all the roads in the city for 2 weeks just for the F1, but slowly got more efficient (or less over abundantly cautious) over the years. It’s all for the $$$ here though.
- globular-toast 6y ago
  > That one plays off key Out of tune. The key is determined by the speed of the vehicle and reasonable variance wouldn't affect the perceived quality of the music.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    Speedometers indicating your speed by going C, C#, D, D# and so on would be really neat. Would work in only a couple of places. And those with absolute hearing wouldn't need to look at their speedometer at all!
  - weitzj 6y ago
    There is an explanation why it is not the speed of the vehicle alone but the gaps distance
ChuckMcM 6y ago
I've not seen this one, but have seen others. I much prefer this sort of technique to change behaviors (get people to drive more slowly, or take the stairs by turning it into a piano keyboard kinds of things), than threats of enforcement fines or jail time.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  In a similar vein, I've heard of a building addressing the problem "everyone complains about how long it takes to wait for the elevators" by, instead of trying to speed up the elevators, installing mirrors next to them.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    Airports also do this, by making the walk to baggage claim rather indirect. It turns out that people don't really mind the walking, but they do mind the waiting, so the solution is to make the walk match the time it takes for your luggage to actually get to the claim.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      That only works in airports where the distance from the various gates is roughly equal to the reclaim area. Schiphol is definitely not one of those, from some gates it is 30 seconds to baggage reclaim, from others a stiff 10 minute walk.
      - RyJones 6y ago
        Delta always seems to land at the gate in Belgium, you walk over to Amsterdam, then walk to the baggage claim over in Rotterdam. Every time I fly in, I’m amazed at how much time we spend taxiing and how far from passport control our luggage claim is
        jacquesm 6y ago
        That's the fifth landing strip, it is closer to Haarlem than to Hoofddorp (where Schiphol really is). 15 minutes taxiing is not exceptional there. You also cross two highways (A5 and A4) to get there.
theodric 6y ago
Comply with the law to experience jingoism? Cool, pass.
- recursive 6y ago
  You get the experience at any speed, just in a different key.
  - rob74 6y ago
    I'm a bit worried that there will be a challenge to drive there with 90 mph instead of 45 mph, to be able hear the song a full octave higher...
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo6atXeqyMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo6atXeqyMQ
injidup 6y ago
And when you drive the wrong way down the road it sings "worship satan ... worship satan"
- msla 6y ago
  No, you hear people screaming at you to stop and pull over.
wizardforhire 6y ago
I’ve thought of a similar idea only with graffiti and still images along the concrete barriers with the images spaced and timed with the flicker of street lights to give drivers passive information in the peripheral to indicate when their driving the speed limit. Essentially like the strobe pattern on turntables.
juliushuijnk 6y ago
Here is a singing road that was quickly canceled as it was driving people crazy who lived nearby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTSZLvcQXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTSZLvcQXY
- rob74 6y ago
  Yeah, you should only do stuff like this where nobody's living in earshot - which is easier to do in the US than in the Netherlands of course...
anderskaseorg 6y ago
> You must drive the speed limit in order to hear the road “sing”; go to slow or too fast and it won’t work. That’s not how physics works, though. Go too slow or too fast and you’ll hear the same melody in a different key (before you crash).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- TheRealSteel 6y ago
  I'm fairly sure this would only work within a certain speed range, cars have suspension, there's other noise to contend with, and human hearing is limited.
  - jtbayly 6y ago
    Sure, at 450MPH all bets are off on the high notes, but rumble strips don't suddenly stop making noise when you drive 90 MPH.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  Absolutely right. I can't believe you're being downvoted for. Haven't people driven on rumble strips before? The note is dependent on your speed and how far apart they are spaced. Change your speed and it'll change the note, but it won't affect the relative distance between the various notes.
awiesenhofer 6y ago
Reminds me of this Top Gear Clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zcgdoyinus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zcgdoyinus
yellowapple 6y ago
I wonder if this has an impact on tire wear? I'd imagine the bumps would wear down the tread faster. Probably negligible for such a short stretch, but still curious if there's been any sort of analysis to that effect.
- pp19dd 6y ago
  Studies of rumble strips - this being one - have rather focused on crash reductions, noise pollution, effect on cyclists and roadway cracking. By all accounts, tire wear is beyond negligible unless you're driving on a flat tire. Only measurable damage in studies appears to be road wear (edge cracking) and the effect of migrating cluster of accidents to stretches of road without rumble strips. Vehicle crash reductions vary from state to state but averages lean toward 20% overall, 45% head-on and sideswipes, and 65-70% on long highways. Of those reductions, 20% less alcohol and drug related run-offs, 40% less sleep-related incidents. The best rumble strip design is the one most hated by cyclists. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1996681416300670 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S199668141... https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/roadway_dept/research/conts_rumble/conts_rumble.pdf https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/roadway_dept/research/conts_rumb...
  - burlesona 6y ago
    I didn’t realize there was more than one rumble strip design. Which one is most hated by cyclists, and why?
    - pp19dd 6y ago
      "Bicycle-friendly rumble strips" (PDF): https://www.codot.gov/programs/research/pdfs/2001/bfrs.pdf/ https://www.codot.gov/programs/research/pdfs/2001/bfrs.pdf/ May 2001, Colorado DOT research. There's a clear table 7, "bicyclist preference versus vehicle sound and vibration levels" but the conclusion is basically: "There is no ideal solution. The motor vehicle tables are very nearly opposite the bicycle table for all configurations of rumble strips."
  - SECProto 6y ago
dreamcompiler 6y ago
Great example of sigma-delta modulation. (Or it might actually be PWM. I should get out and look at it some time.)
RickJWagner 6y ago
That's awesome! But how did they resist the urge to make it sing "On the road again"?
aklemm 6y ago
I just drove past this with my kids on I40 three days ago. Didn't know about it! How disappointing.
carapace 6y ago
There was an advertising gimmick I saw once that consisted of a plastic ribbon that you attached to a balloon. The ribbon had ridges on it that encoded an audio blurb. You pinched it at the top and pulled down, running your thumbnail over the ridges, and the balloon acted like the diaphragm of a speaker to play the audio.
burlesona 6y ago
Here’s a YouTube video of the road in question. Pretty cool! https://youtube.com/watch?v=E6Nl53bCC78 https://youtube.com/watch?v=E6Nl53bCC78

"go to slow or too fast and it won’t work." How does one "go to slow?"

There is an awesome short video on such roads by Tom Scott, where he explains how it went badly in Lancaster, California [1]. Twice. That one plays off key. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef93WmlEho0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef93WmlEho0

s5300 6y ago
Lancaster is awesome. Despite it being y'know, the high desert, they're total fucking hillchucks out there (I say this as an Appalachian, and the poorer part of the poorness that is Appalachia at that...) They shut down a sizeable portion of downtown for a weekend every year. Literally shut it down. For a fuckin Grand Prix. Last year, they out of the blue ran into an acquaintance of mine who builds/races custom electric skateboards that can hit 60mph+ (our new speed trap record is 57mph uphill, dude is insane) and invited us out on a whim to race ~45mph on a winding 0.7mile track. Was cool, and the methed out crowd that is the high desert seemed to enjoy it, despite it being quite different from karting... Invited us out again this year and most likely will for the foreseeable future. I never got wind of the price the organization had to pay to the insurance for adding a few dozen random people averaging 42mph on pieces of wood (and chromoly...) on a short track with several tight hairpins a week before the race (which is always finalized at least a year in advance...)
- cameldrv 6y ago
  There's all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff going on in that general part of the Mojave. Lots of tinkerers. Some of them are brought there by Edwards or the Palmdale plant, but now there are a bunch of scrappy and not so scrappy anymore aircraft companies at the Mojave airport, and loads of people trying out strange and fast machines over on the El Mirage lakebed.
- jasonlingx 6y ago
  > They shut down a sizeable portion of downtown for a weekend every year. Literally shut it down. For a fuckin Grand Prix. They do this in Singapore too. They used to close all the roads in the city for 2 weeks just for the F1, but slowly got more efficient (or less over abundantly cautious) over the years. It’s all for the $$$ here though.
globular-toast 6y ago
> That one plays off key Out of tune. The key is determined by the speed of the vehicle and reasonable variance wouldn't affect the perceived quality of the music.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Speedometers indicating your speed by going C, C#, D, D# and so on would be really neat. Would work in only a couple of places. And those with absolute hearing wouldn't need to look at their speedometer at all!
- weitzj 6y ago
  There is an explanation why it is not the speed of the vehicle alone but the gaps distance

ChuckMcM 6y ago

I've not seen this one, but have seen others. I much prefer this sort of technique to change behaviors (get people to drive more slowly, or take the stairs by turning it into a piano keyboard kinds of things), than threats of enforcement fines or jail time.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
In a similar vein, I've heard of a building addressing the problem "everyone complains about how long it takes to wait for the elevators" by, instead of trying to speed up the elevators, installing mirrors next to them.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  Airports also do this, by making the walk to baggage claim rather indirect. It turns out that people don't really mind the walking, but they do mind the waiting, so the solution is to make the walk match the time it takes for your luggage to actually get to the claim.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    That only works in airports where the distance from the various gates is roughly equal to the reclaim area. Schiphol is definitely not one of those, from some gates it is 30 seconds to baggage reclaim, from others a stiff 10 minute walk.
    - RyJones 6y ago
      Delta always seems to land at the gate in Belgium, you walk over to Amsterdam, then walk to the baggage claim over in Rotterdam. Every time I fly in, I’m amazed at how much time we spend taxiing and how far from passport control our luggage claim is
      - jacquesm 6y ago
        That's the fifth landing strip, it is closer to Haarlem than to Hoofddorp (where Schiphol really is). 15 minutes taxiing is not exceptional there. You also cross two highways (A5 and A4) to get there.

theodric 6y ago

Comply with the law to experience jingoism? Cool, pass.

recursive 6y ago
You get the experience at any speed, just in a different key.
- rob74 6y ago
  I'm a bit worried that there will be a challenge to drive there with 90 mph instead of 45 mph, to be able hear the song a full octave higher...
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo6atXeqyMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo6atXeqyMQ

injidup 6y ago

And when you drive the wrong way down the road it sings "worship satan ... worship satan"

msla 6y ago
No, you hear people screaming at you to stop and pull over.

wizardforhire 6y ago

I’ve thought of a similar idea only with graffiti and still images along the concrete barriers with the images spaced and timed with the flicker of street lights to give drivers passive information in the peripheral to indicate when their driving the speed limit. Essentially like the strobe pattern on turntables.

juliushuijnk 6y ago

Here is a singing road that was quickly canceled as it was driving people crazy who lived nearby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTSZLvcQXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTSZLvcQXY

rob74 6y ago
Yeah, you should only do stuff like this where nobody's living in earshot - which is easier to do in the US than in the Netherlands of course...

anderskaseorg 6y ago

> You must drive the speed limit in order to hear the road “sing”; go to slow or too fast and it won’t work. That’s not how physics works, though. Go too slow or too fast and you’ll hear the same melody in a different key (before you crash).

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
TheRealSteel 6y ago
I'm fairly sure this would only work within a certain speed range, cars have suspension, there's other noise to contend with, and human hearing is limited.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  Sure, at 450MPH all bets are off on the high notes, but rumble strips don't suddenly stop making noise when you drive 90 MPH.
jtbayly 6y ago
Absolutely right. I can't believe you're being downvoted for. Haven't people driven on rumble strips before? The note is dependent on your speed and how far apart they are spaced. Change your speed and it'll change the note, but it won't affect the relative distance between the various notes.

awiesenhofer 6y ago

Reminds me of this Top Gear Clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zcgdoyinus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zcgdoyinus

yellowapple 6y ago

I wonder if this has an impact on tire wear? I'd imagine the bumps would wear down the tread faster. Probably negligible for such a short stretch, but still curious if there's been any sort of analysis to that effect.

pp19dd 6y ago
Studies of rumble strips - this being one - have rather focused on crash reductions, noise pollution, effect on cyclists and roadway cracking. By all accounts, tire wear is beyond negligible unless you're driving on a flat tire. Only measurable damage in studies appears to be road wear (edge cracking) and the effect of migrating cluster of accidents to stretches of road without rumble strips. Vehicle crash reductions vary from state to state but averages lean toward 20% overall, 45% head-on and sideswipes, and 65-70% on long highways. Of those reductions, 20% less alcohol and drug related run-offs, 40% less sleep-related incidents. The best rumble strip design is the one most hated by cyclists. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1996681416300670 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S199668141... https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/roadway_dept/research/conts_rumble/conts_rumble.pdf https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/roadway_dept/research/conts_rumb...
- burlesona 6y ago
  I didn’t realize there was more than one rumble strip design. Which one is most hated by cyclists, and why?
  - pp19dd 6y ago
    "Bicycle-friendly rumble strips" (PDF): https://www.codot.gov/programs/research/pdfs/2001/bfrs.pdf/ https://www.codot.gov/programs/research/pdfs/2001/bfrs.pdf/ May 2001, Colorado DOT research. There's a clear table 7, "bicyclist preference versus vehicle sound and vibration levels" but the conclusion is basically: "There is no ideal solution. The motor vehicle tables are very nearly opposite the bicycle table for all configurations of rumble strips."
- SECProto 6y ago

dreamcompiler 6y ago

Great example of sigma-delta modulation. (Or it might actually be PWM. I should get out and look at it some time.)

RickJWagner 6y ago

That's awesome! But how did they resist the urge to make it sing "On the road again"?

aklemm 6y ago

I just drove past this with my kids on I40 three days ago. Didn't know about it! How disappointing.

carapace 6y ago

There was an advertising gimmick I saw once that consisted of a plastic ribbon that you attached to a balloon. The ribbon had ridges on it that encoded an audio blurb. You pinched it at the top and pulled down, running your thumbnail over the ridges, and the balloon acted like the diaphragm of a speaker to play the audio.

burlesona 6y ago

Here’s a YouTube video of the road in question. Pretty cool! https://youtube.com/watch?v=E6Nl53bCC78 https://youtube.com/watch?v=E6Nl53bCC78