Oh, Canada. In an inventive, but frightening effort to slow down motorists, the city of Vancouver is deploying a new type of optical illusion speed bumps that look like children.
The “speed bumps” feature an image of a child chasing a ball painted onto the street. Through an optical illusion, the children appear to be three dimensional when cars get within 100 feet of the image.
As you can imagine, there’s plenty of controversy around these optical illusion speed bumps and the global press is going crazy over this story.
Many people find the optical illusions too shocking. We wonder how many motorists might panic at the sight of the illusion and ironically swerve away and cause an accident.
Optical Illusion Speed Bumps Of Children Playing In The Street
In case you are curious, here’s what these optical illusion speed bumps look like. They are very realistic and often cause drivers to stop unexpectedly.
Preventable, the non-profit behind the controversial “kiddie bumps,” posted the following information on their website to help inform people about their efforts to slow motorists down:
- Preventable, BCAA Traffic Safety Foundation, and the District of West Vancouver launched this pilot project as a back to school initiative to raise awareness about more kids on the streets this fall and drivers’ awareness in school zones during the critically important first week of back to school. This project will exist for one week only to capture drivers’ and pedestrians’ attention.
- The 2D decal gradually appears 3D to drivers approaching the image. A risk assessment of this project shows that drivers do not mistake this image for a real girl and can see the image 100 feet away. The image does not “jump-out” at drivers and there is no “startling effect”, the road conditions on 22nd Street are very good for this project, which is precisely why this location was selected. Sight lines are perfect northbound along the road and to the cross streets. Although the community continuously grapples with unsafe driving behaviors in this particular school zone, twenty-second (22nd) Street in West Vancouver has a very good vehicle crash record. The number of crashes since 1996 (the earliest year for which we have records) is insignificant. This was also an important factor in choosing the site as the best location for the project.
- A public awareness program was started in advance of implementation of this project to inform drivers and the public of the image.
What do you think? Please leave a comment below.
New optical illusion speed bumps, featuring a child playing in the street, are slowing drivers down, but also generating controversy. Share on X
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Frank Wilson is a retired teacher with over 30 years of combined experience in the education, small business technology, and real estate business. He now blogs as a hobby and spends most days tinkering with old computers. Wilson is passionate about tech, enjoys fishing, and loves drinking beer.
Pranksters Deface “Canal Street” NYC Subway Stop Sign To Read “Anal Street”
This is so dumb. I hope know one swerves to avoid it. Most people, say 99.95% probably wont react inappropriately on the road BUT it’s the .05% that might be vision impaired, slow reflexes (old or drunk), texting or a combination of the three and swerves to avoid it. How stupid. I think Antoine Dodson says it best “You are so dumb. No really you are. You are so dumb.”
what happens if someone swerves to avoid the fake image and then accidentally hits a real child on the sidewalk??
oh canada…