Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

3D crosswalk in Iceland helps slow down speeding motorists

icelandmag.visir.is

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 164 posts

Re: 3D crosswalk in Iceland helps slow down speeding motorists

#101

Post by celticninja »

malgorithms wrote: post #10

There is an analogy here to the slippery-slope of attention-getting ads on the Internet. Once upon a time an ad was just a static (not even animated) banner of a certain size and shape. 468x60 was one of the earliest, IIRC. Advertisers invented new formats ("skyscrapers", "xl-leaderboards", "300x250", and so on), and also they got animated, and then they started expanding outside their areas, and so on; each new ad t…

Public spaces covered in advertising is considerably worse that optical illusions yet we have been putting up with it for years.

Re: 3D crosswalk in Iceland helps slow down speeding motorists

#103

Post by lozenge »

vostrocity wrote: post #68
chrisseaton wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Santa Clara, California, there are several crosswalks at intersections not controlled by a traffic light. Isn't that what a zebra crossing is for? Give pedestrians permanent right of way so they can always go and don't need a light and everyone understands that they need to yield.

On a road with high traffic speed and not enough visibility of pedestrians waiting at the side of the road, most motorists won't yield

What about a pelican crossing? Red yellow and green lights for cars like at a junction, activated by pedestrians pressing a button. Wikipedia says these only came to the US in the year 2000, which seems ridiculous.

Re: 3D crosswalk in Iceland helps slow down speeding motorists

#104

Post by lozenge »

tarr11 wrote: post #29
jorjordandan wrote: post #12

These 3d perspective drawings are much less convincing in real life than they are in images, because in real life we have depth perception and our viewpoint is constantly moving. This only looks good from that exact viewpoint.

The article shows pictures of 5 different angles on that crosswalk, and they all seem to work.

All of them are in the very middle of the road. The illusion will be broken if you aren't driving through the centre.

Re: 3D crosswalk in Iceland helps slow down speeding motorists

#105

Post by lozenge »

jon_adler wrote: post #93

In the UK, we have "New Layout Ahead" signs everywhere. Once erected, they seem to stay in place forever and increase noise. Is there any evidence that these are beneficial?

While researching this thread, apparently those should have a date on the back that they can be removed, which is three months from when they are put up. Tell your local council!

Re: 3D crosswalk in Iceland helps slow down speeding motorists

#106

Post by shezi »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #44
malgorithms wrote: post #10

There is an analogy here to the slippery-slope of attention-getting ads on the Internet. Once upon a time an ad was just a static (not even animated) banner of a certain size and shape. 468x60 was one of the earliest, IIRC. Advertisers invented new formats ("skyscrapers", "xl-leaderboards", "300x250", and so on), and also they got animated, and then they started expanding outside their areas, and so on; each new ad t…

I have wondered if anyone has studied the 'Dole light' which in the US was the additional brake light added for additional visibility and to cut down on rear end accidents.

The actual use-case for those is that you can see the brake lights coming on for not only the vehicle in front of you, but at least the one in front of that as well, since you can see through the passenger space of the car in front of you. So it's not just a psychological issue here, but an actual visibility issue.

The same thing applies to blinker lights on side-view mirrors. They are much more visible at wider angles.

Re: 3D crosswalk in Iceland helps slow down speeding motorists

#108

Post by hrktb »

userbinator wrote: post #30
llukas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This illustrates that if drivers feel less safe then they drive more safely and pay attention more. It is one of motivations for removing all signage so drivers feel less safe permamently. http://thecityfix.com/blog/naked-streets-without-traffic-lig... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/04/remova...

One only has to look at huge crowded Asian cities, where signage is present but effectively ignored, to see that removing signage doesn't really help. The accident rates are just as high if not more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

This list is interesting bu difficult to interpret as cultural context is completely different.

Most of the countries with huge crowded cities where road rules are basically ignored also have a huge amount of people scrapping by and who could just disappear the next day for any other reason (hygiene issues, hunger, criminality, social status)

Looking at the list of countries with 15+ deaths by 100 000 people, IMO the price of a random single life is perceived as way lower than in Switzerland for instance. People in that context won’t de driving the same way as they would in a different country, or their government wouldn’t let people ignore circulations rules in the first place.

Re: 3D crosswalk in Iceland helps slow down speeding motorists

#109

Post by BoorishBears »

hellofunk wrote: post #100
SeriousM wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like speedbumps, but they work.

You're not supposed to like them; and really the only people that are inconvenienced by them are those going to fast anyway.

That's not true, my car scrapes on them at practically any speed.

People with slightly higher cars than mine scrape because they try to brake, forcing their suspension to compress, then go over the bump.

There's so much ceremony to going over a speed bump that I think plenty of people not going that fast are inconvenienced. whether that inconvience is worth the net benefit is a separate issue.

Re: 3D crosswalk in Iceland helps slow down speeding motorists

#110

Post by dsego »

dsego wrote: post #49

In my city a lot of new crosswalks have white stripes on a bright yellow background, a lot of them with blinking LEDs. In several places even the sign has a flashing light. Nobody will stop on an ordinary zebra crossing anymore, it doesn't even register. As for the interesting patterns to draw attention, they tried it in a different town in my country near a school, painted the stripes with different colors. Didn't l…

This is the original crossing near the zoo in Zagreb:

http://www.portaloko.hr/clanak/promotrite-najzebrastiju-zebr...

Post reply on HN