Cat's eye (road)
The rubber dome is protected from impact damage by metal "kerbs" – which also give tactile and audible feedback for wandering drivers.
[5] The retroreflecting lens had been invented six years earlier for use in advertising signs by Richard Hollins Murray, an accountant from Herefordshire[6][7] and, as Shaw acknowledged, they had contributed to his idea.
[3] The blackouts of World War II (1939–1945) and the shuttered car headlights then in use demonstrated the value of Shaw's invention and helped popularise their mass use in the UK.
[11][12] However, shortly after one such installation in Essex in the autumn of 2006 the BBC reported that the devices, which flash at an almost imperceptibly fast rate of 100 times a second, could possibly set off epileptic fits and the Highways Agency had suspended the programme.
[13] The suspension appeared to have been lifted by 2015, when LED cat's eyes began to be installed along newly re-paved sections of the A1 and A1(M) in County Durham and Tyne and Wear.
Flashing blue LED cat's eyes were demonstrated on the TV show Accident Black Spot, aired on Channel 4 on 19 December 2000, which alert the driver to potential ice on the road when a low enough temperature, provisionally set at 3 °C (37 °F), is reached.
Yellow or amber markers — These are found next to the central reservation (US: median) on motorways and dual carriageways and, in the Republic of Ireland, are also used on hard shoulders.
They also appear yellow on the edges but reflect red on the left side or amber on the right In Lebanon, cat's eyes are widely used on most freeways, highways and roadways.
Before speed bumps, a series of cat's eyes are placed shining white to the oncoming traffic and red to the car from the opposite direction.
[citation needed] On the morning of 25 April 1999 on the M3 motorway in Hampshire, England, a van dislodged the steel body of a cat's eye which flew through the windscreen of a following car and hit electronic musician Kemistry, who was a passenger, in the face, killing her instantly.
[17] A question was asked in the House of Lords about the safety of cat's eyes in light of the incident, and the Highways Agency conducted an investigation into the "long-term integrity and performance" of various types of road stud.
[18] In the biopic Ferrari (2023) a damaged metal cat's eye is portrayed as causing a fatal accident in the 1957 Mille Miglia road race.
At the village of Guidizzolo while travelling along a straight road at 150 mph (240 km/h) a worn left front tyre on the Ferrari 335 S driven by Alfonso de Portago is depicted as being sliced open by a damaged cat's eye.
The ensuing blowout caused de Portago's car to violently flip over and fly out of control, killing him, his navigator and nine onlookers, including children.
Enzo Ferrari was prosecuted for 11 counts of manslaughter, but was acquitted in 1961 after a panel of automobile engineers retained as experts by the court opined that the blowout was caused by striking a cat's eye.
