# Cats Eyes



## Gareth (Apr 27, 2004)

We have these in the UK. Indeed, they are mandatory on all motorways and highspeed roads, regardless of whether they have lighting or not. What surprises me though is the lack of them in other countries. I never see them in continental Europe and Hong Kong's roads look almost identical to the UK's yet they don't use them either. I would've thought they'd be more popular than they are, as they can really help at night.









In the UK, cats eyes are colour-coded as follows...

white - lanes that separate traffic, both contraflow and withflow.
yellow - the line marking the central reservation on a dual carriageway, including the right-hand side of off-on ramps.
red - shoulder lines

Anyone have any good examples of non-UK use?


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

They're often used on Dutch roads. Not motorways though (I can only think of one location; Interchange Ewijk near the city of Nijmegen).


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## mapman:cz (Jan 14, 2007)

We use them in CZ on motorways on the middle dashed lane, but AFAIK it is not mandatory anymore...


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## Fargo Wolf (Oct 23, 2009)

They are used near the coast for the most part in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. They generally used in No Passing areas and mostly on the centerline only (Some passing areas have them as well). Because the province does get snow, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure conducted an experiment by recessing them into the pavement slightly. This allows the plow blade to pass over them, rather than have it scrape the cat's eye off the pavement.


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## delfin_pl (Mar 11, 2004)

They are also popular in Poland (DK roads), but they come off the surface too easily.


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## silviubad (Jan 17, 2009)

They are also popular in Hungary on the principal roads.


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## rarse (Jan 3, 2010)

Cats Eyes :applause:


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## x-type (Aug 19, 2005)

in HR we have them only in tunnels and some viaducts or curves, and sometimes they are led lights, sometimes just catadiopters


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## CptSchmidt (Jan 7, 2010)

I've never seen or heard of these before. 

How are they powered? Solar? 

I've seen road reflectors and reflective paint, but never these. Seems like a waste of money and resources to me.


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## sonysnob (Dec 12, 2004)

Ontario in Canada tried them for about a year on the 403 in Hamilton. i don't know why, but they were pulled last fall or so. In Ontario at least, they appeared to be powered by an electrical conduit that was in-laid into the pavement. I had read somewhere (at least I think i had read somewhere) that the LED's increased the risk of seizure to epileptic drivers -- Does that have any legs?


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## Fargo Wolf (Oct 23, 2009)

CptSchmidt said:


> I've never seen or heard of these before.
> 
> I've seen road reflectors and reflective paint, but never these. Seems like a waste of money and resources to me.


They are reflectors. I think they got the name "Cat's Eye" because they "look like" a cat's eye in the dark. Not at all certain, though, but that's just my guess. Reflective paint is used where I am too, in addition to the reflectors. In an industrial area, LED lights are used on a central concrete median.


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## GrimFadango (Dec 14, 2008)

Epileptic drivers? Man, who gives driver license to people with epilepsia?

If something would seizure epileptic people that would be opposite car lights etc. IMO cats eyes ("żabki" - froggies in polish) are a positive.


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## Fargo Wolf (Oct 23, 2009)

GrimFadango said:


> Epileptic drivers? Man, who gives driver license to people with epilepsia?
> 
> If something would seizure epileptic people that would be opposite car lights etc. IMO cats eyes ("żabki" - froggies in polish) are a positive.


That's news to me. I've heard that the strobe lights on emergency vehicles MAY have triggered seizures in a extreme minority of people, but can't confirm that.

Epilepsy is very controllable now with very few exceptions, so that's no longer a barrier to getting a DL.


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## Gareth (Apr 27, 2004)

CptSchmidt said:


> I've never seen or heard of these before.
> 
> How are they powered? Solar?
> 
> I've seen road reflectors and reflective paint, but never these. Seems like a waste of money and resources to me.


Conventional cats eyes are merely reflectors. In recent years, solar-powered ones have been developed, some of which LED. Hard-wired ones are rare and I've only ever seen them on airport runways.


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## Tin_Can (Jun 17, 2009)

AFAIK,in Estonia LED ones have been tested on pedestrian crossings,but due to being rather prone to failure & bad weather,these haven't reached wider use.

Reflector cat eyes are more common - most newer,rebuilt highways have them.


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## Uppsala (Feb 26, 2010)

In Sweden you can find those cats eyes only at road works at bigger roads like the motorways.


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## TheCat (Apr 21, 2006)

In Israel they are used on almost all intercity roads (especially non-motorway roads, where IMO they are more useful). Usually the outside shoulders have them, but often also the central/lane dividers.



CptSchmidt said:


> I've seen road reflectors and reflective paint, but never these. Seems like a waste of money and resources to me.


As was already mentioned, cat eyes are reflectors. They are great at night, especially on unlit stretches of 2-lane roads. They make an unbelievable difference in such situations. I wish all roads in Ontario used them, but apparently it would be too expensive to make them resistant to snowploughs.



sonysnob said:


> Ontario in Canada tried them for about a year on the 403 in Hamilton.


I've encountered brief sections (about 100m at most) on some rural Ontario 2-lane roads at sharp turns, in the middle. If I remember correctly, they were blue.


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## earthJoker (Dec 15, 2004)

In Switzerland there are cats eyes in the pillars at the side of the road. Two dots on the left a vertical line on the right.









The are only reflectors on the road in tunnels. The problem is that the reflectors fall of when you remove the snow in winter.


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## Uppsala (Feb 26, 2010)

earthJoker said:


> In Switzerland there are cats eyes in the pillars at the side of the road. Two dots on the left a vertical line on the right.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is exactly the same standard like in Sweden and Germany.


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## Fargo Wolf (Oct 23, 2009)

Those are just standard reflectors on the posts though. Does the Swiss Government mount them to the pavement (Cats Eyes) to denote road lines?


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## keber (Nov 8, 2006)

Most European countries have winter ploughing service, so cat eyes are an expensive obstruction. Usually paint on road markings is reflective (with added glass spheres), so I don't find much use for cat eyes except in tunnels, objects, guard rails and side posts. However here they are experimenting with LED cat eyes before some pedestrian crossings.

Interesting, I'm looking for side posts in UK like in picture above, but can't find any.


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## dl3000 (Aug 7, 2004)

In California they are all over on main arterial roads, especially along the double yellow lines denoting the center line. They are on each side of the double yellow.


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## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

I have seen something like that used as temporary road markings.


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## earthJoker (Dec 15, 2004)

Fargo Wolf said:


> Those are just standard reflectors on the posts though. Does the Swiss Government mount them to the pavement (Cats Eyes) to denote road lines?


We call them cats eyes wherever they are (As if they turn into something different if you attach them to a post). And as I said there are none on the pavement because of the ploughing services. They tried once to make a line at the road where I live, after the first snow, half of the reflectors where gone.

The use them in tunnels. Of course there is no snow problem there.


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## christos-greece (Feb 19, 2008)

In Greece we have this type: (like the photo below) but in white colour. Most of the country roads has it...

Sample:


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## MAG (Sep 24, 2004)

The practicality of using 'Cat's Eyes' is closely linked to climate. In mild and warm climes it makes sense. In areas where there is snow in the winter, it is impractical and a far better solution is to mount reflective lights on plastic pillars, like in the Swiss example above.

Having said that, reflective markers are used to highlight areas of danger regardless of climate. Of course, the same can be achieved by increasing the density of pillars to delineate the road line.

The whole thing is highly situation- and location-specific and, from a functional point of view, cat's eyes do not offer any tangible advantages over pillars.

Of course, cat's eyes look cool, can be manufactured in many colours and can be used to delineate individual lanes. 
But much of this basic functionality can also be achieved with reflective paint at a lower cost per function.



.


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## Di-brazil (Sep 12, 2009)

in brazil :


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## dizee (Apr 3, 2006)

Cats eyes in my experience are far far more effective than paint alone at marking the road at night. 

Of course it doesn't make much sense if the snow plough is just going to destroy them. 

They are very common here, especially on the more important roads. Yellow on the edges and white for the lanes, sometimes green for a merging lane.


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## tanashubav (May 20, 2009)

^^ You're absolutely right. In Bulgaria there are very few roads with cats eyes because of the snowfalls that occure every year! It's sad because they are really much better than any paint marks.


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## Rebasepoiss (Jan 6, 2007)

Even if the snow plough doesn't destroy them, they become dirty rather quickly and lose a large part of their reflective power.


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## Fargo Wolf (Oct 23, 2009)

earthJoker said:


> And as I said there are none on the pavement because of the ploughing services. They tried once to make a line at the road where I live, after the first snow, half of the reflectors where gone.
> 
> The use them in tunnels. Of course there is no snow problem there.


The same problem was encountered here too. with plow blades scraping off the reflectors, which is why they are now recessed into the pavement where they are used.


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## Gareth (Apr 27, 2004)

The UK's hardly tropical and we get snow pretty much every year. I'm pretty sure it's down to the quality of the installtion.


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## geogregor (Dec 11, 2006)

Gareth said:


> The UK's hardly tropical and we get snow pretty much every year. I'm pretty sure it's down to the quality of the installtion.


Come on, you might have day or two of snow a year (a bit more last year). In my three first years in the UK there was no snow at all. You can't compare it with countries which might have 3 months of snowfall every year.
And even then if UK encounter pathetic amount of snow (causing unimaginable anywhere else in Europe problems) the usual response is rather salting than snowplowing. You can do it as temperature in UK even during snow episodes is just below the freezing point. 
Many countries have to relay on snowplowing as it is to cold for salting to be effective.


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## Fargo Wolf (Oct 23, 2009)

You obviously weren't there this past winter then. The UK got nailed almost as hard as the N.E. US. Meanwhile, in Canada's Pacific province of British Columbia, they had to truck snow in from Manning Provincial Park, to Cypress Bowl for the Olympics. One way, that's about a three hour drive.


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## christos-greece (Feb 19, 2008)

Also i forgot to say that here in Greece (especially Athens and Thessaloniki) they use "Cats Eyes" in Bus lanes


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## keber (Nov 8, 2006)

I remember cat-eyes in Greece on most important wide roads, but not on motorways.


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## Kalamai (Feb 14, 2009)

TheCat said:


> In Israel they are used on almost all intercity roads (especially non-motorway roads, where IMO they are more useful). Usually the outside shoulders have them, but often also the central/lane dividers.


Here is a typical Israeli road (somewhere in the desert). As you said, they are placed just outside the shoulder lines and along the central line.
These aluminum studs not just shine in the dark, reflecting headlights, but they also force the driver to physically feel the moment when he crosses the line.










Here you can see them on a motorway too. And here they are placed not only along shoulder lines, but along lane dividers as well.











Reflectors used on these roads:












Another type, solar LED road markers were recently installed in many Israeli cities to mark pedestrian crossings.


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## geogregor (Dec 11, 2006)

Fargo Wolf said:


> You obviously weren't there this past winter then. The UK got nailed almost as hard as the N.E. US. Meanwhile, in Canada's Pacific province of British Columbia, they had to truck snow in from Manning Provincial Park, to Cypress Bowl for the Olympics. One way, that's about a three hour drive.


I was here. It was exceptional winter, one in 25-30 years. And you can't seriously compare winter here with NE USA or Eastern Europe. Even as unusual one as the one this year.
In most of the UK snow took hold for no more than week or two with exception of Scotland or higher mountains. 
In normal British winter you wouldn't rather expect snow plows. And that's the reason why cat eyes are much more common in UK than in Scandinavia or Eastern Europe or northern USA.


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## Stainless (Jun 7, 2009)

Rebasepoiss said:


> Even if the snow plough doesn't destroy them, they become dirty rather quickly and lose a large part of their reflective power.


The cats eyes used in the UK are self cleaning. When something drives over them it pushes them down into the housing, this wipes the lens with some rubber and keeps them clean.


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## Gareth (Apr 27, 2004)

^^ Indeed. Like I said, the classic designed ones are intended to be fairly maintenence-proof. Indeed, certain regions of the UK get a lot of snow (okay, obviously not like in Siberia), yet there is no regional variation in their use within the UK.

The cheaper stick-on versions are not as good, nor are their North American cousins, botts-dots.


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