<story><title>3D crosswalk in Iceland helps slow down speeding motorists</title><url>http://icelandmag.visir.is/article/photos-video-3d-crosswalk-isafjordur-helps-slow-down-speeding-motorists</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>malgorithms</author><text>There is an analogy here to the slippery-slope of attention-getting ads on the Internet. Once upon a time an ad was just a static (not even animated) banner of a certain size and shape. 468x60 was one of the earliest, IIRC.  Advertisers invented new formats (&amp;quot;skyscrapers&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;xl-leaderboards&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;300x250&amp;quot;, and so on), and also they got animated, and then they started expanding outside their areas, and so on;  each new ad temporarily performed literally dozens of times better than the previous due to shock value.&lt;p&gt;A year or two after a new, more intrusive format became ubiquitous, its performance would fall back to the old format&amp;#x27;s, and, worse, the old format would fall even further because it was too subtle. So in the long run, the money would stay the same, but the pages got uglier, formats got crazier. The game theory is clear: everyone is incentivized to upgrade to the new formats, but once there, no one is better off (neither the publishers nor advertisers), and the readers themselves are far worse off.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;re seeing this now with traffic signals: if every crosswalk in the world is replaced with this 3D version, we&amp;#x27;ll see a temporary boost in safety, but in the long run it may return to normal and in my opinion, our world will be uglier. I don&amp;#x27;t like our public spaces covered in optical illusions.&lt;p&gt;In my area I&amp;#x27;ve started to see red lights that are so bright you are temporarily blinded at night if you look at them. And they&amp;#x27;ve even begun attaching strobing white LED&amp;#x27;s to the center of some of them. I would guess these perform great in short-term studies. Just like flash ads with games in them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kohanz</author><text>&amp;gt; but in the long run it may return to normal and in my opinion, our world will be uglier.&lt;p&gt;Not just uglier, but less safe in my opinion. If people have returned to their normal driving habits (speeding over these 3d illusions) it means that at some level, they have reprogrammed their brains to ignore some 3d-like obstacles, because they may be fake. It works in case of the illusion, but I wonder if it would eventually impede their reaction time to other real, but similarly appearing obstacles.</text></comment>
<story><title>3D crosswalk in Iceland helps slow down speeding motorists</title><url>http://icelandmag.visir.is/article/photos-video-3d-crosswalk-isafjordur-helps-slow-down-speeding-motorists</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>malgorithms</author><text>There is an analogy here to the slippery-slope of attention-getting ads on the Internet. Once upon a time an ad was just a static (not even animated) banner of a certain size and shape. 468x60 was one of the earliest, IIRC.  Advertisers invented new formats (&amp;quot;skyscrapers&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;xl-leaderboards&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;300x250&amp;quot;, and so on), and also they got animated, and then they started expanding outside their areas, and so on;  each new ad temporarily performed literally dozens of times better than the previous due to shock value.&lt;p&gt;A year or two after a new, more intrusive format became ubiquitous, its performance would fall back to the old format&amp;#x27;s, and, worse, the old format would fall even further because it was too subtle. So in the long run, the money would stay the same, but the pages got uglier, formats got crazier. The game theory is clear: everyone is incentivized to upgrade to the new formats, but once there, no one is better off (neither the publishers nor advertisers), and the readers themselves are far worse off.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;re seeing this now with traffic signals: if every crosswalk in the world is replaced with this 3D version, we&amp;#x27;ll see a temporary boost in safety, but in the long run it may return to normal and in my opinion, our world will be uglier. I don&amp;#x27;t like our public spaces covered in optical illusions.&lt;p&gt;In my area I&amp;#x27;ve started to see red lights that are so bright you are temporarily blinded at night if you look at them. And they&amp;#x27;ve even begun attaching strobing white LED&amp;#x27;s to the center of some of them. I would guess these perform great in short-term studies. Just like flash ads with games in them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kartan</author><text>&amp;gt; A year or two after a new, more intrusive format became ubiquitous, its performance would fall back to the old format&amp;#x27;s&lt;p&gt;When Sweden changed driving side, that is exactly what happened.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The relatively smooth changeover saw a reduction in the number of accidents. On the day of the change, only 157 minor accidents were reported, of which only 32 involved personal injuries, with only a handful serious. On the Monday following Dagen H, there were 125 reported traffic accidents, compared to a range of 130 to 198 for previous Mondays, none of them fatal. Experts suggested that changing to driving on the right reduced accidents while overtaking, as people already drove left-hand drive vehicles, thereby having a better view of the road ahead; additionally, the change made a marked surge in perceived risk that exceeded the target level and thus was followed by very cautious behavior that caused a major decrease in road fatalities. Indeed, fatal car-to-car and car-to-pedestrian accidents dropped sharply as a result, and the number of motor insurance claims went down by 40%.&lt;p&gt;These initial improvements did not last, however. The number of motor insurance claims returned to &amp;#x27;normal&amp;#x27; over the next six weeks and, by 1969, the accident rates were back to the levels seen before the change.&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Dagen_H&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Dagen_H&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>