[Thad E Ginathom]

The idea has come up again. Yes, I believe it is dangerous, as locals know which speedbreakers are fake and will not slow down, whereas non-locals may brake hard.

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

rumble strips work very well, and they don't cause any crash. here I see them installed before bridges, tunnels, and on shoulders to alert drivers.

Originally Posted by sgiitk

This was tried in the UK as a series of stripes with varying spacing to slow down traffic at bad junctions in the 70's. The problem is that the locals and regulars get used to it pretty fast and then ignore it.

The stripes work to some extent, even when one is familiar with them. The decreasingly-spaced rumble strips are almost impossible to ignore. It is like trying to talk normally with a slightly delayed echo of yourself being played into your ear. You cannot help slowing down.

Psychologically, I could never beat those rumble strips. However much I told my conscious self to do so. Of course, they tend to be in places where one should slow down, but still, as far as I safely could, I tried to play the psychology game and always lost.

[bhandary]

Originally Posted by snaronikar

Ummm...do we really need this (in India)? BTW, what would be the cost involved in this type of virtual speed breakers ?

In India we need Optical illusions Potholes (deeper the better). We are accustomed to not slowing down on humps but will really think twice about a driving over a big deep pothole.

[wrongturn]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Or do like India. Make a camouflaged speadbreaker. After a few broken suspensions, people will naturally drive carefully

You read my mind
Considering the high costs of labour there, they will become paranoid and keep searching for speed breakers everywhere. Much like we do here in India

[Jeeper1941]

Just wondering whether these will actually work. People might slow down the first couple of times, but once they figure out that these aren't real, then why would they bother slowing down?

Didn't they do a similar sort of thing in Philadelphia? Once people figured out what was happening, no one bothered to slow down, and since these virtual speed bumps no longer exist in Philly, I'm assuming they scrapped the whole idea.

And what if someone swerved and mounted the pavement and ran over pedestrians because of these 'optical illusions? Or what if a stranger, unaware of these slowed down, only to be rammed from behind by a local who knows that the speed bump is a fake and did not expect people to slow down for them?

These kind of gimmicks are a waste of time and expense and quite frankly, dangerous. They did a trial here with lines which were painted across roads on the approach to roundabouts which got closer together as you got nearer the roundabout, these lines were meant to convince you that you were going faster and faster, the nearer you got to the roundabout so you would slow down sooner than needed. Once people realized how they worked they learned to ignore them and take cues about the speed as they normally would from the surroundings. The whole idea was scrapped.

Gimmicks never work in the long run and the money could be better spent on removing road dangers than adding ever more distracting visual clutter to the roads.