Secrets of the Cat's Eyes | Tales From the Bottle
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
- The eyes are always watching - but why?
"The cat's eye design originated in the UK in 1934 and is today used all over the world. The original form consisted of two pairs of retroreflectors set into a white rubber dome, mounted in a cast iron housing. This is the kind that marks the centre of the road, with one pair of cat's eyes showing in each direction. A single-ended form has become widely used in other colours at road margins and as lane dividers. Cat's eyes are particularly valuable in fog and are largely resistant to damage from snow ploughs.
A key feature of the cat's eye is the flexible rubber dome which is occasionally deformed by the passage of traffic. A fixed rubber wiper cleans the surface of the reflectors as they sink below the surface of the road (the base tends to hold water after a shower of rain, making this process even more efficient). The rubber dome is protected from impact damage by metal 'kerbs' - which also give tactile and audible feedback for wandering drivers."
More on Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s...)
Join membership: / @qxir
Second Channel: / @qxir2
Merch: qxir.creator-spring.com/
Patreon: / qxir
Twitter: / qxiryt
Discord: / discord
Twitch: / qxiryt
Subreddit: / qxir - บันเทิง
Join membership: th-cam.com/channels/GHDQtN_vzFYJaq_Fx1eikg.htmljoin
Second Channel: th-cam.com/channels/t93hxFmjppL5nLRAX94UrA.html
Merch: qxir.creator-spring.com/
Patreon: www.patreon.com/qxir
Twitter: twitter.com/QxirYT
Discord: discord.gg/jZzvvwJ
Twitch: www.twitch.tv/qxiryt/
Subreddit: www.reddit.com/r/Qxir/
Didn't ask
@@JDBajaBlast Good for youuuu!
I did ask, however.
@@jtobecalled7543 No bitches+L+Ratio
Road reflectors caused paul walkers car to lose control.
@@pluto8404 still didn't ask
I’ll never forget one time driving through rural England where they were replacing the cats eyes and they put up a sign entering the road saying “cats eyes removed”. Never been more horrified for what I might find down the road
Not sure whether it would be worst to find the cats, the eyes, or the cats and the eyes.
@@johnladuke6475 or cats without eyes... Rather than just cats
@@koharumi1 That's the kind of cats I meant. Eyeless cats, catless eyes, or cats and eyes together, all uniquely awful.
There genuinely is an official sign saying "CAT''S EYES REMOVED" on the A6 near Chapel en le Frith and in a very similar looking, but home made sign a few yards further on, someone has put, "MICE VERY HAPPY".
Genius. Utter genius.
Lol.
I prefer my cats eyeless…
We’ll have no constant looks of disapproval around here!
ahh yes. another video of "This can't possibly be that interesting, but actually is quite interesting". i love this stuff.
That's exactly what I thought! I hope to see more like this
If you like this kind of stuff then check out James Burke. Old documentaries that take a modern device and trace it's history back hundreds or thousands of years. Like: "To understand the modern so-and-so we must first go back to 800 CE and the discovery of yada-yada" and then he goes through the successive inventions/discoveries and crazy events that lead to the jet being invented.
This episode reminded me of his stuff.
He does that. Good stuff.
Ordinary things video about lawns. I’ve never looked at grass the same way again
@@seanh7585 I just watched the first episode (Connections) because of your recommendation. And it is absolutely the best. I just wanted to let you know that at least one person was influenced by you and in a good way!
"We can't just have light bouncing all over the place..."
*Literally we have light bouncing all over the place at all times.*
🤓🤓🤓
Sun be like;
Respect to all the cats who donated their eyes
Heros
I live in Finnland and have never seen one of these in my life. I was wondering why, when I realized that they would be completely pointless here. In summer it doesn't get dark, so you don't need them and in winter they would get buried beneath half a meter of snow. Instead we use long sticks with reflectors on top in winter, which gives the same effect.
Moose-eyes lol.
Same thing in Canada. Snow plows will scrape anything off
@@th3oryO so that's why I've never seen them
Isn't Finland just a Swedish fishing preserve that supplies Japan with food? I'm pretty sure I saw that on the news.
@@th3oryO You can imbed them in the road so that doesn't happen
I love cats eyes, the original design. I love a product that is designed so cleverly, where thought has clearly been put into each and every part of it, everything that's come after them is an inferior attempt to make them cheaper in my opinion, which is not what we should be doing, saving money is great, but not when it means we have to make things worse than they already are
Agreed.. I don't like those plastic ones, as they come loose and then litter the roadsides. Everyone keeps talking how we should reduce the use of plastics etc, and then they let this happen. Also, we need to save energy, but why not light up all the roads and waste more energy? Equipping these streetlights with solar panels is also not the answer, as it takes rare materials to make the solar panels.. Original cats eyes seem good, nice design, they last, they work great, so why not stick with them?
@@FoolOnAdventure
I think the original ones were ceramic, like Botts dots. Ceramic cracks and chips doing the same thing with litter.
The key is to recess them.
@@Chkprofilename no it's not.
same
Love cats, so I guess I must probably love cats eyes too...
A friend of mine at school once told me his grandad invented cat’s eyes. Has the same last name and lives not far from where Percy did but when I saw Percy’s face in this video I thought I was looking at a fat old version of my friend hahahaha
@@lebenis8435 I have leaked footage of your funeral
He had to have been serious. Aint no way someone just makes up some shit like that. My Dad invented Nintendo? Yeah sure thing. My grandpa invented rubber bottoms on chair legs? Such a weirdly specific non-flex. Id believe that shit 100% dont care who told me
You got me thinking about my ex gf swearing up and down her grandfather patented the cement mixer truck
@@mud4309 i had an almost-distant relative that had a chance to get into the Frito-Lay chip company on the ground floor. he thought it was a bad idea and told them to take a hike. damn fool.
Mud my weirdly specific flex is my grandpa inventing one of the most popular weather balloon designs.
The passive nature of the devices is ingenious, no LED based version will ever beat the passive designs as they require extremely low maintenance and have long working life spans. (I do agree that a combination of retroreflectors and a solar powered LED solution might have a niche on some stretches of road, but definitely not everywhere.)
Cat's Eyes are still invaluable in the US. Given that there's tens of thousands of interstate highways that aren't feasible to completely light. I don't see these going away any time soon.
I have never seen em in the states
@@taintedgaming1.033 I see them pretty much everywhere
The midwest has them all over.
@@taintedgaming1.033 they're everywhere in rural areas
@@taintedgaming1.033 In the southern United States they are everywhere.
Percy Shaw's patent on the original cat's-eyes made him several million pounds, but for some reason he never spent any of it. I remember an item about him on TV in the seventies where he was interviewed in the same house he'd always lived in, with ancient wiring, crumbling walls and early 20th Century plumbing. Strange man, but think how many lives his idea must have saved.
Ah the era of the gentleman inventor. Some great and truly insane inventions came from that time. Every time I watch a video like this, I hear "She Blinded Me With Science!" on repeat in my head.
SCIENCE!!!!!
@@akakjb and now I can, too! 🎶 SCIENCE!
I heard the opposite… he was never a rich man. Even the Wikipedia page on Percy Shaw (which is interesting) says he died with a wealth of just £193,500. Which isn’t much considering how many cats eyes are used world wide.
how did he survive if he weighed that much??
@@RealWhore boo
I absolutely love cats eyes, there was a part of my home town where there's literally 0 street lights and the lines that split the lanes were faded, which made it really scary to drive at night, but they've appeared to have installed them on the road there and it's great, plus I think it's quite cool that they incorporated the cats eyes into the road bumps so you can see them much easier ahead of time
I have leaked footage of the queens funeral
@@lebenis8435 nobody will ever care.
The factory of where cats eyes were made is in my home town
And they're a section of the industrial museum talking about them
They're really great
Never gave them a second thought, just kind of figured it was an obvious idea when we started making roads and such but I think the whole thing about them holding rain water and cleaning the retroreflectors when they are depressed is really genius.
I'm always interested in old technology. Built to work, built to last. No showing off, just showing up, and getting the job done.
Fun fact: on motorways, the cat's eyes are made white in one direction, and red in the other. So if you accidentally get on the wrong carriageway, the lines of red should indicate to you something's very wrong.
That's interesting, I never thought that.
@@EuanWhitehead scarily u shouldnt need to
@@spud3149 I think once you saw the road on the right hand side of you and cars starting to barrel at full speed towards you you'd have a pretty good idea you've ended up on the wrong side of the motorway. 😂
@@EuanWhitehead Unfortunately this is not always the case. Elderly people may do it by accident and not understand what is happening even when everybone is honking horns etc
At highway/motorway speeds a head-on collision is always deadly.
A lot of modern technology is built the same way. Just because some things are built cheap or built using planned obsolescence, doesn't mean everything is.
In the US (or at least where in from), they simply call them reflectors. Usually they grind a groove into the road and glue them in so they are flush with the road. I've also only ever seen the plastic ones.
Fun fact: Blue ones denote where there are fire hydrants.
They usually put them flush with the road in places where it snows often so the snowplows don’t scrape them off, in the warmer states they’re usually more pronounced.
Damn.. where you live? Recessed paths for them? Dif colors? Hahaha. Daaang.. 🤣
In South Texas we call them traffic turtles.
@@MrJacobst this👍🏼
Virginia started installing them in grooves a few years ago. They seem to hold up better now with snowplows than the with the old metal reflector inserts that were tapped into the asphalt surface.
I'm so glad you covered retroreflectors! I studied this stuff for years in grad school and I think it's the absolute coolest stuff ever. Flexible fabric-based retroreflectors are also widely used in high-visibility clothing for construction workers, joggers, bicyclists, etc. because, as you mentioned, it doesn't require electricity to be effective.
💚 $5.00
I'm so glad you covered retroreflectors! I studied this stuff for years in grad school and I think it's the absolute coolest stuff ever. Flexible fabric-based retroreflectors are also widely used in high-visibility clothing for construction workers, joggers, bicyclists, etc. because, as you mentioned, it doesn't require electricity to be effective.
I just did that for free.
@@mitch_sorenstein And?
@@galacticempire2920 originally homeboy had paid for that comment, that's why I did the heart and dollars. It's edited now though, I'm hoping because he felt shame for having spent money to type something that no one cares to read anyway.
the original design of these was actually the second version. the initial version was just an actual cat but they ended up causing more problems than they solved, plus it was a lot harder to mount them to the pavement.
they also tried just cat heads but they didn't hold up well to snow plows.
Underrated comment
why you two have similar pfps
More advanced versions had the eyes 👀 preserved in pickle jars.
This is why you should create your own cats eyes when ever you see a feline on the pavement. It could save someone's life.
@@Davidchendavid people writing "the eyes" without a clarifying 👀 is a huge pet peeve for me. so: THANK YOU 🍻
Where it snows a lot, the cats eyes are buried in the asphalt (or concrete) so the top of them is flush with the road surface, to keep them from being shaven off by snowplows. To make the reflectors visible, a triangle-shaped piece of the road surface is dug out, at an angle, in the direction that traffic is coming from. The shape of the triangle depends on expected speeds on the road (higher speeds require a longer piece be dug out). It's a lot of high-precision work, but they have a machine that does the digging and then attaches the cats eye to the new bottom of the asphalt.
Here in Canada we put them on a stick at the side of the road and leave the asphalt alone. No point putting it down at all if it might be buried for half a year.
@@johnladuke6475 Around here they're often times not recessed unless on arterials. Because one, side streets don't get plowed and B the side streets are concrete with no blacktop, so recessing them is a right pain to get right. They can't simply just roll over the location with an appropriate roller to get the groove right, they'd have to do it in the wet cement.
That being said, I do believe that in more rural areas around here, they will be on sticks at the side of the road, but I think that's usually more to do with weeds and not wanting to mess around in the middle of a country road.
@@johnladuke6475 Canada is a big place. We have them in BC.
@@smashy_smasherton You also don't get the the same amount snow the rest of Canada does.
@@blandrooker6541 you know Canada is a big place, right? So Is BC. Much more than the little area by the border where most of us live.
I knew the girl who was killed by the cat's eye. She was called Kemi and she and her DJ partner Storm (they were a pretty well known and respected drum and bass act) and she played every month at a club my mate worked at in Middlesbrough. She was really sweet and massively talented. Never thought of cat's eyes the same way since.
a very sad story. But I cant help but think of the statisitcs the number of cats eyes in the road and the number of deaths or injuries. That girl was just extremely unlucky I could not even begin to calculate the odds of that happening.
@@lordomacron3719 I don't hold anything against cat's eyes they've saved countless lives and are a great invention. As you say it was a freak accident, it's just the mention of them always digs up that tragic accident in the back of my brain.
Despite so many of his videos pertaining to grusome or disturbing happenings, i couldn't stop thinking about this once he mentioned it. That had to be beyond devasting.
@@repletereplete8002 Yes, things like this happen and it's important to keep things in context. If my dad had been wearing a seat belt when he had his rollover crash in the '70s, I probably wouldn't be alive because he woke up with a boulder where the driver's seat was. Obviously, being ejected is far more likely to result in a fatality than a boulder crushing the driver's seat. He didn't start wearing a seat belt until sometime in the early '80s when state law was changed to require it in any vehicle that had one factory installed.
Thanks for sharing your story mate, I’m sorry you lost a good pal
I was intrigued (somewhat oldskool retired DJ myself) and I recognised Storm so I looked them up, for anyone else interested; Kemistry & Storm @ Asia Club, Turin, IT 15th MAY 1997
m.th-cam.com/video/P3_xYlpfHng/w-d-xo.html&pp=ygUNZGogc3Rvcm0ga2VtaQ%3D%3D
Good stuff 👍 🤜🤛 💚
I love that you showed an independently released record by a local band from my hometown! Mushroomhead's Superbuick is probably one of my favorite records of all time.
Years ago people on facebook (when it was still used by people aged under 50) were trying to get Mushroomhead and Slipknot to tour together, apparently they'd had some feud when they were starting out. It was looking promising them somebody decided to reignite the feud BS instead, and the idea died out.
having a chunk of iron smashing through a windshield is proper Final Destination material.
As somebody who loves nature, and considers themselves a wildlife expert, my usual first thought to new inventions is how it effects nature.
What I think about permanent LED lights in the road is a chain
Bugs are attracted to the light, that is the first step, and then predators are attracted to them, lizards and frogs, second link of the chain. Third link, is cats and possum coming to eat the larger critters that are preying on insects
The fourth, and worst link in this chain is these animals being hit and killed at a much higher rate than necessary, which is a problem.
You can add a fifth link I guess, to make your average person give a fuck: more animal strikes means more damage to your car.
Yes, but don't spread it around or some politician's brother-in-law's get rich quick scheme won't pan out.
@@mbryson2899 ah yes, depending on what politician I may *actually* want to watch what I say
@@Yung-plague 6th link being a biker hitting an animal and falling off or swerving in front a car/lorry, or a driver swerving out of the way only crash or collide with another vehicle
Plus electric ones are a bad idea for a whole bunch of other reasons
@@retrosad We should scrap cars and replace them with trains instead of going with stupid electric cars.
I love this guy so much. I live for his videos. If he did audio books I would listen to them all
Yes.
Average chad viewer of Qxir "Not a cult leader" Irishman
The highlight of every friday.
Oh yes please do audio books about anything your voice an accent are soothing and great.
I think he is single at the moment, do you want us to arrange you a date with him?
I love these things. Never thought that anyone else would give these any attention ever.
When I was a kid, I use to collect them. Sometimes I'd chisel them off a freshly paved street or ask for it directly from the guy that glues them onto the road.
This is why you're one of my favorite people on TH-cam. You can turn even the most mundane subject into an entertaining video, and you've never lost the charm and humor that made me subscribe in the first place. Thanks for being you, my dude.
Called "cats-eyes" in Australia too. "Raised Reflective Pavement Marker" on the box. I've installed thousands of 'em...
Great vid!
Same here in Saudi Arabia
They have them here in New Zealand too. But they mean fuck all, unlike they do in the uk, if you can actually read cats eyes at night, they give you alot of information while driving. Moving to nz from the uk, I realized the cats eyes here just showed you the centre line, and the two lines on either side of the road. No information given. All they do is just keep you in your lane.
Here in Trinidad as well
@@timfagan816 _Alot_ is a town in India. _A lot_ is more than one of something; multiples of.
I did a school presentation about cat's eyes back when I was 7! I was fascinated by the things, to the point of asking my dad, one night, if he could stop the car so I could go and have a closer look. He did not oblige. The simplicity of them is what really gets me, and I find that fitting new ones with LEDs and solar pannels is just fixing a problem that ain't broke!
Thanks for the video Qxir!
It's inventing new problems to replace these with LED lighting. A flat plastic refractor glued to the road has one failure point: glue. No batteries, no bulbs, no wires, no solar panel.
The stick on lump of plastic idea sucks, unless you happen to own a stick on lump of plastic factory and have a government minister as a relative or close friend then it's just about as good as it gets.
@@glenjones6980 A flat plastic sheet is cheap for the taxpayer, easy to install, and not dangerous if it comes loose. That's a good idea for everyone who wants to be safe on the road. Even the original design includes heavy pieces of metal which have proven fatal. Seems clever but is more hazardous than a bit of plastic.
@@glenjones6980 🤣😂😅😆🤔
@@johnladuke6475 It would be nice if they recessed those into the road more often to make them stay longer, but I suppose the added cost of installation would negate the reduced manufacturing cost.
Thank you so much, Mr. Percy Shaw!
I've loved these since I was a little kid. I'm 60 now, so these wonderful things have added value for me and my old eyes.
I don't care for the LED idea; it seems like a solution in search of a problem.
Very Interesting. Here in Germany mostly on the Country Roads you can see White Posts sticking up behind the Railings on Roads (If there are any). They also have a White reflection Surface so you can see where the Road ends on the sides and help you find Curves more easily. But this design is also really neat. Although maybe more tedious to install properly they are very minimal and directly on the road being more precise. Very cool from a technological standpoint as well as the historic standpoint
In the early 20th century British roads were marked with wooden posts that had a slightly luminescent (maybe radioactive) paint. I remember reading about it in a magazine from the time.
Country roads, take me home.
we have those posts in Australia too
As a kid in the late 60s early 70s anytime I was with my Dad in the car I used to hassle him with "Dad! Dad! Can we clean the Cat's Eyes?" and if it was quiet enough on the roads he'd drive over them. I loved the clonk, clonk, clonk.
Even now, if I hear that sound as I'm driving I think of those times with him.
Thanks for a great description of the birth of Cat's Eyes.
Now, with the powered, coloured, LED ones stretching off into the distance on dual carriageways it looks like an 8bit computer game from the 80s! Love it!
Atari "Night Driver" anyone?
@@zigzagtoes Thanks mate! I'll check them out 😃
QXIR, you've finally gone into civil engineering & I'm so here for it (used to be one, before disability got me). I remember being an inspector on I-80 thru Ohio back in early 2000s and going behind the awesome lil truck which paints the roadways lines + inserts the cat's eyes into the asphalt. It's cool & pretty fun to watch.
In States with snow, they're installed in the asphalt so that snow plow doesn't yeet then out immediately. In California they're above ground, coz why not? Red or no reflection means you're going the wrong way. Blue one is placed near each fire hydrant for ease of access of FD.
Yeah that's what I was oddly confused about. Something was amiss but I was so interested it didn't dawn on me until now i live in a "Snow State" lol. We get all 4 Seasons here.
They're above ground in California because they don't need to be set into the asphalt as it rarely snows enough to need a snowplow.
in germany we also call it "katzenaugen" which literally translates to cats-eyes.
one thing that i find interesting tho-> we put them on posts, so that they stick up even in fairly deep snow, and we include those retro-reflecting lenses into the road marking paint. while it wears down over time it still works beautifully. and when its covered by dirt or snow theres still the posts to eather side of the road
In Australia we have them on posts on the sides of the road and on the road for the centre of the road marker where it's busy.
The UK has plastic posts with reflectors too, usually on the approaches to turn-offs and corners.
I miss night driving in a crappy old car with the heater turned right up, now.
I did pavement marking for years & have installed thousands of these. Here they are generally set into a shallow groove cut in the road to prevent snow plows from scraping them off the road. Unfortunately the groove gets snow packed into it, covering then & making them obsolete during the winter. They are a great addition to any road but if you live in a snow state like I do, then they’re pretty pointless for a few months out of the year.
Fun fact: In the US, a blue reflector on the road denotes that there is a fire hydrant on that side of the road.
There are still some old ones near me (a small village) but unfortunately the rubber is just rotting now. I wish they had just updated the rubber instead of the whole design, but I guess not having to make a hole for them is better (he says grudgingly). I have a vivid memory of my dad explaining them to me in the 80s and the self-cleaning part just blew my mind. Incredible ingenuity.
The fact that it was made at a time where you really had to think outside the box, as well as having so many simple but beneficial functions, makes it so much more appreciated than those cheap replacements.
Subbed. I love people that can make the mundane every day stuff stand out and make it sound interesting, and for that sir, I thank you.
Yooo!! Technology connections did a video on these! He mainly focused on the retroreflectors involved, but seeing the history of the original design- its durability and self cleaning aspect- is fascinating! That old design, and even the new cheap ones are infinitely better than LED ones. These retroreflectors don’t emit light, and when they reflect it, the direction is limited to the source’s initial direction. This has an added bonus of vastly cutting down on light pollution. Light pollution from bright cities confuses wildlife, makes it hard to see the stars, and even confuses our own circadian rhythm. We have a perfectly valid method of illuminating dark roads without using any power except the power the car already uses. And that only “emits” light when its needed. I think we should stick with it!
I knew how these worked thanks to his video on them 😅 I love his channel, so glad to hear about retroreflection and more history on cats eyes here too
Would be great to see you two colab together lmfao imagine that.
@@lebenis8435 reported ya.
I think there's upsides to both. The light pollution impact of an illuminated cat's eye would be minescule and I say that as someone who sees light pollution as a significant problem. Good selection of the LEDs could reduce the impact to insects etc.
You're not talking (or shouldn't be) mains powered day maker lights. It's more like a solar garden light running a led at .2 milliamps.
The utility I can see in them is they would let you see the path of the road beyond the distance your lights illuminate. That will give people more time to see the route and reduce the load on them while driving at night. A marginal safety improvement.
However the biggest issue I can see with it is life span. A passive retro reflector will last for decades. I can't see more than 20% of a battery driven unit lasting a single decade. Then you need to replace them, ripping them off the road, hopefully recycling them, putting new ones down. That's a pretty major environmental impact.
@@zyeborm You could make the LED's slot in, making repair simple, as well as a replaceable battery. Then again cat's eyes are probably the better way environmentally still.
We don't have these in Sweden. Instead we have sticks on the edge of the road with retroreflectors on them. When you think about it, it's quite obvious why we do things this way. We get snow, and having studs in the road doesn't really mix well with big plows. The raised retroreflectors on sticks serve the plows too, as it marks the edge of the road even when it's buried in snow.
Plough 😉
In germany we have Plastic poles
@@bagpussmacfarlan9008 It's a typical American respelling, but one of the unusual few that has become commonplace in Canada. Weird as we'd typically refer to it as a plough if you're using it to till dirt but it's always a snowplow on a road.
I think that's the reason why I haven't seem them too often in Canada (Eastern Canada, at least). I've seen them around the airport but otherwise it's mostly reflectors on a plastic pole like you Swedes.
@@th3oryO I'm here to stand up for the Queen's English 👍
I really wish we had these in MN, when there’s heavy rain the lane markers completely disappear. It’s bad. I assume they’ve never been installed due to the fact we basically shave the road with snow plows half of the year and they’d get instantly ruined the first time the plows go out. Even reflective paint gets stripped.
There is a special version for that buried in the road if I'm not mistaking.
I have leaked footage of the queens funeral
@@lebenis8435 That doesn't even fit with this reply.
I've watched this video three times (I dig the narration) and I wish I could give it a thumbs up each time. Thank you my friend.
Hey cool, in germany we also call them cat's eyes, we also use the term for those weird reflecty bits on bycicle tire but they aren't used on roads that much, we usually put them on pillars at sides of the roads (german: Katzenaugen)
Same here in Ireland man. Too many blind corners with road side obstructions in the middle of nowhere, most often the pillar To a drive way of a house, and without them people would be crashing into walls left right and centre.
Jawohl
I appreciate when things are over engineered to be as cool as possible
This was the first time I was convinced in subscribing someone in one video.
The video was flawless in explaining everything I wanted to hear and I didn't get tired of watching the video.
It gave me a chuckle, it got me hooked and interested, it made me agree with the point point of the video. It was perfect to me.
I'm glad, but just a warning for you. *Don't ever mention kangaroos* in the comments section of any of his videos.
You have a beautiful mind. When thinking of road hazards, you don't think a deer or a broken down car, you think "yup, someone left a fridge full of rocks"
I fucking love you dude. Never change.
Just love the humor and the animation! The unseen fridge made me actually laugh ;-) Thanks a ton for the videos!
I live in Arizona, a state that has roads that pass through extremely mountainous areas - there's no possible way that you can fit a streetlight upon them, let alone assume it's going to stay standing, so I see plenty of cat's eyes on the road when going through those zones. Interesting to know the name and their origins! Another quality video from Qxir. I love videos about the interesting origins of what today is so mundane to the average person, that you don't even know the name of the thing, you just know what it's there for.
This video is great! It's such a common thing to come across yet we don't even think about it (apart from when you need them while driving at night). Good work!
I'm from Massachusetts and I LOVE those road reflectors! The first time I ever saw them I thought they were the greatest thing ever invented for the road! They also work in the rain which is very handy on dark gloomy roads made worse in the rain. They just shine on through the gloom. Their only problem is when they're covered in snow. But snow its self tends to reflect in the headlights at night so a snow covered road is easy enough to see at night.
But I really do love those reflectors.
Never seen them before finding out about them through the internet. Germany doesn't use them, instead relying on retro reflective road markings (with glass beads in the paint to achieve a similar effect) and delineators (a.k.a. reflective posts) along the edge of the road every 50 meters fitted with one long retro reflector on the front for the driving lane and 2 smaller round ones on the back for the opposite lane (so while driving on the right side lane you see long retro reflectors to your right and pairs of round retro reflectors to your far left).
They're only a recent thing in this part of the US. I'm not sure when they were added, but for the most part we've been using the type of reflectors that are commonly placed on bikes and aren't as specific. I think that was also about the time that we switched from using led nitrate for the centerline to a retroreflective yellow plastic bit that gets torched to the road. That stuff is the real hero here, it's even more low key than these cat's eye things.
Also, I’m not sure when we started to do it, but we've got the left fog line of our highways out of yellow when the road is divided and the right is white, so we know that we're on the correct side of the road when it's too foggy to see. I'd assume that this isn't just something in the US and that the other technical specs for road markings also does something similar.
Reflectorized road markings with the beads are pretty much standard on all state and federal highways and have been for a long time. The cat's eyes have started seeing use more recently and mostly in areas that have had historical issues with drunk and/or wrong way drivers by having he backside be red so that if you are driving the wrong way you see red instead of white and amber.
London Underground maps are really pretty cool, actually. There’s lots of cities which, instead, show geographically accurate maps for their metro systems and so (just like a road map) it takes much more effort to find and plan the route you need to use. But Tube maps completely ignore geography in favour of a “map” that just clearly shows how to get from one station to another, including where to change lines etc. It’s much more intuitive, and helpful, especially if you’re not familiar with the area you’re travelling through. It’s one of those ideas that seems obvious once you know it, but it took a surprisingly long time for anyone to actually first think of it.
The funny thing is that roads in Ancient Rome were basically the train lines of today and so they drew maps in a similar way, writing up the roads with the cities or towns on them over accurate maps
The Beck Tube Map is a masterpiece.
It's a really cool looking design too, as well as being functional. That design is used in some really cool maps for Kerbal Space Program, and it's super elegant and easy to follow.
@@qwertyTRiG one that was originally rejected for being “too radical” 😂
I keep coming back to your comment about "I just like these". It's in an almost apologetic voice... how very Celtic of you! I love it. Sounds just like something one of my family would say and we've been across the pond for generations. Thanks and keep being your kooky self!
I wholeheartedly appreciate this invention.
8:09
You missed a great opportunity to quote Clarkson.
"This is brilliant, but I like this"
I think that's what he was referencing
Fun fact, in the Midwest of the USA these are really rare. I’ll give you a guess as to why……
Yes. Snow.
We have lots of it in the winter and the metal ones wouldn’t work with snow plows and the plastic ones would just break off. In some areas they’ve tried little plastic half folded things but those rarely last more than one or two winters.
in the Cascade mountain ranges, and surely some others, they've just mounted reflectors on 6 foot high poles along the sides of the road. Solved.
@@dootchan another good idea, although that doesn’t solve the lines/lanes in the road. Usually cats eyes are more for the lanes and not the perimeter, although they’re used for that.
My guess was they were stolen for meth related activities. 😂 Mah bad
Probably also has something to do with a lack of funding for our roads.
@@dootchan That works out fine as long as you don't need to do too much plowing. There are areas along there that get enough snow in one location to completely cover that up, and that's without having to repeatedly plow the road.
I think retroreflectors are very interesting and love bringing them up when I get a chance. On a side note on street lamps, the first generation of LED street lamps, at least in the U.S. have started developing a blue glow due to failure, and although they are failing, unlike previous lamps, still stay quite bright for much longer allowing more time to repair them without losing light
For those interested in that case where the cat's eye dislodged it was a British drum and bass artist named DJ Kemistry. She was a beast.
👆
Another awesome Qxir video! Always entertaining and informative while keeping even heavy subjects light-hearted. Here in the US, I'm told the cat's eyes have a different color if you're headed the wrong direction.
They are. Center traffic Yellow, and in the opposing direction, Stop-sign or wrong-way red. The edges are marked by white, and I think in some special use-cases, blue...for what ever reason, I have no clue.
I've never seen that and I've driven from Wyoming south to texas and west to the coast maybe that's an east coast thing
Literally half the country
@@zakpike8019 Not so much, but you might be partially right. They're not like the one qxir has in his video. They're just rubber/cast iron bedded reflectors.
I've never seen one in the US. Makes driving in the rain a pain
Love riding along at night following the cats eyes, picked up an old cast iron one a while back at an auction for very little.
Qxir is one of the best youtube channels out there thanks for the random awesome info. From Minnesota
I've encountered LED cats eyes a few times in the past and the great thing about them is you can see the lanes behind you perfectly in your mirrors. This means you can easily tell which lane the vehicles behind you are in, which isn't always obvious. I think they eventually removed them from the roads, though. Maybe people were driving without their headlights on. It basically turned the road into a runway, it was amazing.
I love cat eyes, I hope they never fade out of use. We seem to only have the cheap plastic ones in New Zealand, but they serve an important purpose. I've never seen one come out of the road, or a spot where one should be so maybe they're better installed here.
I have leaked footage of the queens funeral
Absolutely astounding that this invention is almost 100 years old. Amazing
Considering I just used these and these alone to drive my way home in a heavy Florida storm at night, they were necessary. Very happy to see them the whole way.
I could feel your sincerety when you said you just like them.
These are really awesome to see on a dark, winding mountain road. The ones we have were laid down in the 80s and 90s and are still working. Let's see if those newfangled solar-powered ones last that long.
I'm putting my money on "no". The older design lasted so long as it literallly has no power source. All it does is be shiny.
LEDs, however, need power to run, kinda like mini street lamps. And because batteries slowly degrade over time I can see them slowly fading until they no longer shine.
@@ViciousVinnyD leds require so little power, a double a hooked up to an led would go for days
@@clydecraft5642 "days" is a far cry from the decades these need to best to be economical
@@clydecraft5642 LEDs tend to have a working lifespan of 10 years or X thousand hours, and batteries start deteriorating quite quickly after one year, and are limited to X charge cycles. Charging and discharging daily, with just a cheap battery and solar cell, I wouldn't expect them to last more than 6-12 months.
I lived in Japan for half of a decade and I fell in love with the road reflectors they have there. First time I saw them I wondered why they are not everywhere! So imagine a lollipop, along the sides of the road they have them sticking up, a stick with a small circular reflector on the top (like the 🍭 i mentioned). The key, however, is a small black pinwheel on the reflector that spins as cars drive by. The air pushed off of a passing car hits the reflector and spins the pinwheel making a strobe effect on the reflector always making them stand out and therefor always helping the curve and path of the road stick out! Simple and effective!
I've seen the "lollipop" style reflectors in the US before, but not with a pinwheel.
common japan w
I think they would vanish very quickly in the UK.
All the kids would have bedrooms full of them.
It also sounds like they need maintenance.
Not Snow plow friendly in the snow belt.
@@warrenpuckett4203 that is true however for sure my man
Love the social commentary and humor, very interesting. 👍
Actually, I've spent a lot of time thinking about those reflectors & how they came into being... very useful & informative video! 🖖🏿😎👍🏿
3:57 Shaw noticed how difficult it was to drive at night after the tram lines in his area were removed
Another irony that public transit makes driving better lol.
My father, may he rest in peace, always challenged himself by missing the reflectors whenever he changed lanes.
*:)*
I though I were the only one doing that.
I've always called those reflectors... never too old to learn new things.
The guy who invented these was inspired by his cats eyes. When the cat turned round, he invented the pencil sharpener.
7:56 "Can you still appreciate something even when it's been made obsolete?"
I do, even more so.
I remember how impressed I was, back in the late 80's when I came to the UK for the first time to go to an international school. My driver, who picked me up from the airport told me how they were designed, including the cleaning mechanism and all. We had great fun 'cleaning some cat eyes' along our trip.
Nope that never happened. Lies
@@thehulkamaniabrother2.089 Why bother commenting?
@@elemar5 I guess they lie for the attention but I can see right through that shit lol.
@@thehulkamaniabrother2.089 Why would they lie about something like that? What's the motive? Do you have any proof of them lying other than accusations, or are you just calling everyone a liar for no reason?
@@netts2315 Because I don't believe everything that everyone says. I can tell fake stories too u kno it's not that hard. I think they do it for attention and to get people to like them or whatever but no I don't know exactly why this person is doing it. Some people have a need to feel like they fit in and they do these mental gymnastics to make it feel better for themselves and give their worthless lives some meaning to exist. I personally can't stand liars or thieves. Notice that I call the dude out and they say nothing. That's pretty typical for someone who gets caught lol. Either they remain silent or deny it. Just like a little school kid does.
I've always wondered about the origin of cats eyes, so thanks for the informative video.
I just wanted also to add that surely they are not obsolete when compared to simply lighting a road. They massively reduce the amount of electrical infrastructure and energy usage needed, reducing costs/spending and reducing load on widespread energy crises and the environment
The London metro map is actually a great workaround to how you can visually represent metro lines in a useful way, and it's pretty much the only way to draw metro maps around the world, so, yeah, I'd say it's pretty iconic.
Dude why is the english language not on the list?
@@bozomori2287 because that one is partially an Anglosaxon and partially a Roman design, so the English can't take full credit for it.
@@TheExecutorr Dude, Concord
@@georgekosko5124 fair
My favorite cat's eye reflectors are the ones that reflect red, if you're going the wrong way on the road at night ❤️
Edit: two lane roads exist with no concrete wall separating them, people! Yeesh 🤣
Why are you driving the wrong way?
@Pluto In Britain everyone is driving the wrong way.
@@Mumbamumba driving on the left came first so right hand drive is actually the wrong way
@@twinboo529 Crucifixions, brazing bulls and many other torturous ways to die came first. So actually you should enjoy one of those as the main character.
@@twinboo529 So did calling it Soccer, but that doesn't stop you from griping about that.
The person who was killed was Drum & Bass DJ Kemistry, who was Goldie's girlfriend at one point.
I remember hearing a Ken Dodd joke about cat's eyes. He said that the guy who invented them got the idea from the reflective properties of the eyes of a cat.
If the cat had been facing the other way, he would have invented the pencil sharpener.
Since I was a child I've pondered about the genius of these things, and only today I actually got to see info about it, made better by being packed in a funny and clever video. Thanks!
I have leaked footage of the queens funeral
More fantastic content just pulled out of thin air - informative educational and funny. Even with no swearing it's still good. Also a rare example of an Irishman actually giving some props to the Brits...This is what the world wide web is for.:). Best channel I have found in the last few years.
Haven't watched the video yet, but I've never been this early so on the off chance you see it I just want to say you're content is absolutely fire, its informative and hilarious please keep it up!
Just finished the video didn't expect to learn the surprisingly exhilarating history of cats eyes today.
Never heard em called cats eyes, only ever road reflectors. They're in the road, and they reflect, so made sense
These things and the reflective poles ive seen are heroes of the road. Both down here in florida during dark night or insane downpours and up north on the mountains. I can't imagine how many lives these things saved on treacherous mountain roads.
The solar-powered LED ones are AMAZING, like you say brute-forcing but it's 100x better. Unfortunately they are also way more expensive and they seem to die pretty easily. I've only seen them on seriously dangerous mountain roads where going off the road means certain death
Active light sources attrack insects which in turn attract those that prey on them. I think the passive choice is the better one long-term less maintenance and less environmental impact. Not everything needs to be powered. But that has never stopped ppl trying to fix what is not broken.
@@lordomacron3719 If youve ever driven on a mountain highway at night, you'd know how terrifying it is. Anything more than the bare minimum is fantastic. But never thought of that problem, definitely not something I'd want on every road
@@skeetsmcgrew3282 aye been up into Snowdonia and the Scottish highlands in winter. Very true that you don’t take risks on such roads day or night. But if one drives with proper care and attention it not as frightening as you suggest. At least not in the UK. Not yet driven up any mountains at night outside of UK so I will defer to others experience in such cases.
@@lordomacron3719 In the Rockies there are highways with 65MPH speed limits where you are turning and going downhill essentially non-stop, with your view on one side constantly obscured by rock. So every foot you can see ahead of you is an advantage. Backcountry mountain roads are definitely scary sometimes, but IMO those highways are much worse
I'm all the way in the middle of the US, I've always heard them called "Cat's Eyes" here. Fun fact, a lot of them are a different color on the back side, like red. This is a little hint that you're going the wrong way.
Putting electronics parts in something that works fine when unpowered is amazingly dumb. They worked fine in the era of 6 volt systems and sealed beam headlights, they will work even better now with modern, much brighter car headlights. Adding a solar panel and LED's doesn't solve any problems, it just creates new ones.
Yeah, it sounds cool to add solar LEDs until they all break. A flat plastic refractor made of one material and glued to the road has one failure point: glue. Add a screw to help hold it, and you double the failure points but vastly reduce their individual chances of failure. It's almost perfect already.
I live in Mexico here we call them cat's eyes or phantoms
Exactly, remember when some dumbass thought it'd be a good idea to make a solar pathway which the city equally as dumb funded? During the first snowfall the things got so hot there was no snow on them and 3 months into its installment over 80% of all the lights were busted.
@@johnladuke6475 The problem with a screw or bolt is that it's inevitable that they will fail at some point, and then those become a hazard.
The glue is good enough. If it fails, the plastic is not a hazard and losing one or two reflectors every once in a while won't stop th others from doing their job. They're also cheap and easy to replace.
Not to mention costs more in ongoing maintenance. New batteries, new LEDs, what have you
Brilliant invention and video. Tks mate
what a clever solution to a potentially disastrous problem, I for sure make good use of them driving to work early
I hate it when a fridge full of rocks blocks the road
Once when we were kids, we picked a bunch of these out the road on a blind corner and rerouted them into a feild.
We nearly caused a crash.
Bruh.
b r u h
They’re redoing the roads all over my town, these are absolutely everywhere and j appreciate them so much
An entire interesting video on an interesting design, and the thing that stuck in my mind the most was that they released Mushroomhead's Superbuick on vinyl for some reason
i really enjoyed this video, please make more videos with a similar theme
I call them turtles!
Also as someone who lives in Seattle, Washington, I think about them a LOT because for some god forsaken reason Seattle doesn't put them on our roads even though it's rainy and overcast roughly 75% of the year and our road paint is poorly reflective and basicallly becomes invisible when it rains (which is most of the time). What's worse is OLD paint, the paint that got stripped, is often just as visible in these conditions as the new paint, which causing tons of issues with cars following the old lines, sometimes into lanes that don't exist anymore.
Seattle doesn't regularly install them because they'll "get stripped when it snows," something which happens maybe once or twice a year, which means the rest of the time when it isn't snowing or sunny, i.e. most of the time when it's raining or drizzly, we all basically have to drive just hoping our muscle memory of the roads is accurate when we can't see the lane markers. Especially exciting on the highway and on unfamiliar streets, especially with poorly marked speed bumps and roundabouts!
Anyway, sorry, you triggered my singular anger about this topic lol.
Well, anybody that allows antifa and BLM to take over their cities or votes idiots into office that allows the same thing can't be wrapped too tight.
I can’t speak for the whole US, but in NC, VA, and WV (where I operate trucks) the reflectors are still housed in steel housings and put into the road surface. Also, newly paved roads are given a highly reflective vinyl strip instead of painted lines. In places where snow is common the reflectors have a sort of “bridge” over them with the steel housing as to deflect snow blow blades, though it’s not a faultless design.
This is an invention that *SCREAMS* necessity! A very useful and practical item that is a BOON in my country!
My uncle worked in park law enforcement and once he took this guy to a mental hospital who had a whole backpack full of road reflectors. He was mostly cooperative but refused to give up the backpack. He told him there was a government tracking device in every single reflector and he promptly threw it away
(Side note, here in the US, or at least in the west where I live you never see the old reflector design. They’re entirely plastic)
Sounds like me, I got hundreds of them.
Retro-reflectors don't need to be lit up with LEDs. The car's headlights do that. Just because engineers think up something (like stereo television) doesn't mean people necessarily want it or need it.
Solar freakin cateyes!
Brilliant vid dude love the sketches.👍👍👍
They’ve probably saved my life more times than I’ve realize across my many years & miles on American roads and highways