London is Using Optical Illusions To Make Cars Slow Down (fastcompany.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: London has an interesting idea to curb speeding -- magic. The British capital has painted optical illusions on its streets as part of a pilot program to get drivers to slow down, podcast 99% Invisible notes. The idea is both pretty simple and pretty clever: use a little sleight of hand to paint the streets to look like they have speed bumps on them, but don't use finite city resources to actually build speed bumps into the road. The 18-month pilot program was launched in September of last year, according to the BBC, and the city is still determining whether the black-and-white stencils are as effective as actual bumps to deter drivers from exceeding 20mph (as if traffic in London ever goes faster than 20 mph).

Comments

As an American driver

[OrangeTide]

I don't slow down in my pickup truck for speed bumps. I think the effectiveness of fake speed bumps depends greatly on what kind of suspension your car has and how little you give a fuck.

Calling Wolf [Re:Sounds dangerous to me]

[Tablizer]

That's what I was thinking. But if the decoy decision is local, then problems at real speed bumps at other places outside your jurisdiction is arguably not your problem. Let them ruin their suspension.

My wife often puts clocks ahead to trick the family into getting ready on time. When we get accustomed to the inflated time, she shifts it even more. Eventually somebody puts them back to normal in protest and everybody is late for a day or two. Rinse, repeat.

Whether it's overall better than always-honest clocks in terms of being on time is hard to say. At least she has some control over which days we are likely to be on-time, being her work schedule varies a bit. (We had to drive kids to school sometimes, so if they were late, we were also.)