Intelligent Road Studs

Copley writes "The BBC have a short story about 'intelligent' cat's eyes (reflective road studs). I remember reading about the principle of these years ago. It seems that they've reached the real-world trial stage. The whole concept is pretty cool - the studs monitor weather and traffic speeds and change their colour accordingly. As you drive along, rather than see your own headlights reflected, you see a line of active lights indicating what you can expect ahead of you: stationary traffic, ice, etc. As I recall, one idea proposed was for your own car to leave a trail of lights behind it, the length of which related to your speed. The trail thus indicated the 'danger-you-are-too-close-you-moron' zone behind you. Drivers could then avoid driving within another car's trail. Neat idea, but I somehow doubt even the most technical of safety systems is ever going to change the driving habits of some of the brain-dead, tail-gating idiots I often have to share the roads with... Perhaps intelligent road studs with assault weaponry to take out bad drivers would be more useful!"

Comments

it's not the tailgaters

[glassesmonkey]

..going to change the driving habits of some of the brain-dead, tail-gating idiots I often have to share the roads with... Perhaps intelligent road studs with assault weaponry to take out bad drivers would be more useful!

Maybe if you'd stop driving too slow in the left lane, you wouldn't have to worry about tailgaters. I have yet to see a speed demon come up on a car in the furthest right lane and tailgate them when the passing lanes are wide open. I'm willing to bet a front mounted loud speaker system that says "LEFT LANE IS FOR PASSING, MORON" would be more useful.