Via PhysOrg.com [0], The City of West Vancouver, Canada, has unveiled the latest technology to get drivers to slow down.  A photo-realistic image of a little girl grabbing a ball, that is stretched long and flat to give the optical illusion that she is real, when viewed from a distance.  (Image from CTV, after the break.)

This particular experiment has been installed near a primary school, and only be in place for a week, and there are special signs and extra patrols in the area during this period.  Yet, the very idea of putting something like this in place, and effectively desensitizing drivers along that road to the sight of a child picking up a ball in the road, deeply annoys me.  It would seem that if there's even a chance that someone might teach themselves to ignore what they see, that that this is a bad idea.

In reality, after the week long installation, the observations of driver behavior over this week, it seems, could be used to determine if they are going to start installing images like this in more places.

This is the image that they installed. I advise the parents in the area to NOT dress your children in blue and white.

Image Copyright CTV News/ CP/Darryl Dyck  [1]

[0] http://www.physorg.com/news203054814.html
[1] http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/gallery/html/bc_3d_alert_20100910/photo_0.html