3-D painted crosswalk slows down speeders

This is so clever! The crosswalk is an optical illusion painting. As you approach it, it seems to present a physical obstacle.

Town in Iceland Paints 3D Zebra Crosswalk To Slow Down Speeding Cars

Check out the picture–very cool (Iceland-cool, get it?). Take a look at the video, too, if you have time.

:confused: No links to the pictures or the video.

I got the pix. That is so interesting, who woulda thunk it?

There’s several pictures with the video embedded at the bottom.

Weird. Some combination of my adblockers was blocking the link. I see it now after turning them off.

Wow! Really good idea, at least for a place with a lot of one-time traffic. I’m guessing if it was on a road you travel every day it wouldn’t fool you too many times :slight_smile:

If the link I imbedded doesn’t work, google

One of those links should work.

No, I got it now after shutting off one of my adblockers. Very cool effect. It even looks like it arches slightly in the middle.

Looks kind of like a Salvador Dali painting…

That is really cool, and so is the music in the video- sounds like Rory Gallagher Jr.

I fear that the cleverness might itself be an illusion. It looks like the 3-d effect doesn’t really kick in until you’re close enough to the crosswalk that a speeder wouldn’t have time to slow down.

The car in the video didn’t slow down.

What does it look like from the other direction?

Do I have to do everything for you? :dubious:

In the second picture in OP’s link — is that a little monkey in the picture or what? in front of the second zebra stripe. It sure ain’t a zebra!

I expect that most SDMB readers, well-read and worldly wise lot that we are, have seen this picture of a zebra crossing.

There’s also this zebra crossing.

Yes. Now, get that bathroom cleaned and do the laundry!

Hmmm…I’m actually at my mother’s assisted living facility doing her laundry. <looks around> Is there a camera in here?

I usually come on Saturday, but today they’re having the annual Dog Halloween Costume Contest, and it is a [del]hoot[/del] woof. If I get some good pics, ill post them.

Carry on.

Is that a one way street? The effect is only maintained from one direction. From the other direction it seem less clear than a standard crosswalk that it’s meant to be a crosswalk.

I’ve seen a picture of a crosswalk with a tromp l’eye :wink: painting of a child in walking across it, meant to accomplish the same thing. At the right angle of approach it was quite striking.

Tangentially, I remember from the book Traffic that localities have used child-associated physical objects placed near intersections to slow traffic (eg tricycles).

(Even more tangentially, they just put a tiny roundabout on the intersection near my house, and I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how the traffic engineers could sign the damn thing better. I’m coming to the conclusion that speed bumps on the approach would be the best — people are taking the damn thing too fast. But maybe creative street painting would work…)

PS: I guess it’s trompe l’oeil, and googling “trompe l’oeil crosswalk” gets some interesting image results.