Robocones

Anonymous Meoward writes "Researchers at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln have come up with robotic traffic barrels ('bollards', for our British readers) that can be repositioned by remote control, thus minimizing a road worker's time in harm's way. Apparently, the barrels can be grouped and positioned by an autonomous 'shepherd' unit, that is also smart enough to also remove an errant barrel from its herd. The barrels themselves are about as intelligent as.. well, orange barrels. Okay, let's cue the more obvious jokes..." Reader zombieflesheater submitted this previous attempt to mobilize road furniture.

Comments

Original Article

[moon_monkey]

The original article can be found here.

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[Re-Pawn]

From the CDC (1998):
Among the 492 work zone fatalities, the leading occupations were construction laborer (42%), truck driver (9%), construction trades supervisor (8%), and operating engineer (8%). The most common primary sources of injury were trucks (45%), road grading and surfacing machinery (15%), and cars (15%). Seventy-four percent of the work zone fatality victims were employed privately, the remainder by state or local governments (13% each). In 318 of the 465 vehicle and equipment-related fatalities within work zones, a worker on foot was struck by a vehicle. Victims of these events were as likely to be struck by a construction vehicle (154 fatalities) as by a passing traffic vehicle (152 fatalities). Incidents involving backing vehicles were prominent among the 154 worker-on-foot fatalities that occurred within the confines of the work zone (51%).

Definitely not an epidemic, though it appears that the workers themselves cause about half of the accidents.