What are these strips of metal I keep seeing alongside the road? As shown, they are about seven inches long. There are usually only one or two of them, though there may be more. They are usually, but not always, near driveways.
Does it appear to be spring steel that bends back? Likely from a streetsweeper.
AKA lock picking tool pupae.
It does, and that might be the answer.
Thanks.
Ahh, to be a teenager with a copy of the Anarchist’s Cookbook again…
Definitely from a street sweeper. Used to collect them on the way to school in the 1960s.
I used to make weapons for G.I. Joe from them.
such a steel strip is also used in windscreen wiper blades. So very similar. But they won’t be broken, they would just have fallen out of the blade.
This. Do a google-images search, or a YouTube video search, and you’ll see them.
The same bristles get used on machines for brushing snow off of city sidewalks in the winter.
The steel insert of a windshield wiper is typically Stainless Steel.
it would make little sense to make a “rain repeller” out of something that rusts.