Safer roads, but not for frogs
Catseyes – the reflective glass beads that have guided motorists on lonely roads at night for the past 70 years are likely to be replaced over time by more efficient solar-powered studs.
A popular story (there are other versions) says Percy Shaw, their eccentric inventor, had the idea after driving in fog when a cat’s gaze caught in his headlights and saved him from a nasty accident.
He set up a factory manufacturing catseyes in Halifax, Yorkshire, making a small fortune from the venture that must have saved thousands of lives over the years.
But Shaw himself had simple tastes, choosing to live in a house near the factory, spending much of his later life in a curtainless, carpetless room furnished with nothing more than a chair and three television sets, allowing him to watch, all at the same time, what in the 1970s was the full quota of UK terrestrial channels – BBC1, BBC2 and ITV.
It’s just as well he never lived to experience satellite TV. Otherwise his living room would have been crowded with hundreds of TV sets. How would he have coped?
What I'm not clear about, is whether the new invention will be able to replacate the comforting, if irritating, thunk, thunk, thunk of the raised catseyes on your tyres when you stray over the white lines.
I'm wondering whether the same material could be used to make little back packs for frogs. There are a few roads where I encounter frogs every year, particularly when it's raining, but it's difficult to pick them up in the headlights. A reflective frog-coating would be a life-saver. On the other hand it would make frogs more vulnerable to predators, such as cats.
Cats, otherwise distracted chasing reflective frogs, would be unlikely to look towards oncoming vehicles so there might then be a need for a new invention to make them more reflective at night. Who'd be an inventor?
Postcript: A few days after embarking on this flight of fancy I came across this story: glow in the dark cats.
A popular story (there are other versions) says Percy Shaw, their eccentric inventor, had the idea after driving in fog when a cat’s gaze caught in his headlights and saved him from a nasty accident.
He set up a factory manufacturing catseyes in Halifax, Yorkshire, making a small fortune from the venture that must have saved thousands of lives over the years.
But Shaw himself had simple tastes, choosing to live in a house near the factory, spending much of his later life in a curtainless, carpetless room furnished with nothing more than a chair and three television sets, allowing him to watch, all at the same time, what in the 1970s was the full quota of UK terrestrial channels – BBC1, BBC2 and ITV.
It’s just as well he never lived to experience satellite TV. Otherwise his living room would have been crowded with hundreds of TV sets. How would he have coped?
What I'm not clear about, is whether the new invention will be able to replacate the comforting, if irritating, thunk, thunk, thunk of the raised catseyes on your tyres when you stray over the white lines.
I'm wondering whether the same material could be used to make little back packs for frogs. There are a few roads where I encounter frogs every year, particularly when it's raining, but it's difficult to pick them up in the headlights. A reflective frog-coating would be a life-saver. On the other hand it would make frogs more vulnerable to predators, such as cats.
Cats, otherwise distracted chasing reflective frogs, would be unlikely to look towards oncoming vehicles so there might then be a need for a new invention to make them more reflective at night. Who'd be an inventor?
Postcript: A few days after embarking on this flight of fancy I came across this story: glow in the dark cats.
Labels: BBC1, BBC2, cat's eyes, cats' eyes, catseyes, fog, frogs, Halifax, ITV, Percy Shaw
posted by Richard Donkin at
9:19 AM
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