Illusion Speed Bump - Pavement Patty

[dystopia]

Canada unveils new speed bump: optical illusion of a child
http://news.yahoo.com/s/y...cal-illusions-of-children

Officials in West Vancouver, Canada, apparently aren't satisfied with the driver-slowing properties of traditional speed bumps. On Tuesday, the town unveiled a new way to persuade motorists to ease off the gas pedal in the vicinity of the École Pauline Johnson Elementary School: a 2-D image of a child playing, creating the illusion that the approaching driver will soon blast into a child.

According to Discover magazine, the pavement painting appears to rise up as the driver gets closer to it, reaching full 3-D realism at around 100 feet: "Its designers created the image to give drivers who travel at the street's recommended 18 miles per hour (30 km per hour) enough time to stop before hitting Pavement Patty -- acknowledging the spectacle before they continue to safely roll over her."
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[Blader]

this snark sorta requires a longer explanation than you'd like, but should be worth it:

Back in the day, a group of  concerned volunteers at concerts/festivals were deputized to roam about looking for those of us who might be ODing or in the throes of a bad trip.  I imagine many of these inherently empathetic folk went on to become EMT's, nurses, mid-wives and even the occasional internist or two.

But the way they went about it was pretty annoying.  What they would do is suddenly pop up out of the dark from right behind you, typically with a super bright flash light, calling out, "Acid Rescue!"  I mean, imagine if you just bought a bucket of pop corn at the ball game and then suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, someone suddenly screams, "HEY! COLD BEER HERE!"

You'd spill your popcorn, wouldn't you.

In general, if you were not tripping just before one of these apparitions, you damn well were afterwards, and it was usually a bad trip.

Which is a long way of saying that this method of speed control you cite is probably going to bring up some vaguely familiar feelings and emotions in drivers who might have done a little lsd back in the day, if not an out and out flashback.   

[twoiron]

I wonder if that image would work at night... that thing could scare the bejesus out of someone at 2am in the morning