missing catseyes

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
View Threaded
Sun 22 Oct 2006 16:09
missing catseyes - chewer1
With winter gloom almost with us I have noticed the bad state of catseyes and other reflective aids on our roads. On a recent trip back from the Westcountry most A & B roads reflectors were not working and those on the motorways were poor.
Car headlights are obviously better now than 20 - 30 years ago when people relied more on catseyes but surely they would still be a really useful aid to safety if they worked ?
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 22 Oct 2006 16:44
missing catseyes - mike hannon
Maybe your headlights are set a bit high?
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 22 Oct 2006 16:46
missing catseyes - Stuartli
I understood that cat's eyes are self-cleaning.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 22 Oct 2006 16:47
missing catseyes - blue_haddock
I also remember solmething about solar powered ones being used.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 22 Oct 2006 16:58
missing catseyes - Waino
As a student (going back ...er....about 36 years!) I used to work for the Leicestershire Highways Authority during college vacations, and I used to be involved in the maintenance of cat's eyes. These were the genuine self-cleaning rubber ones, not the modern-day plastic stick-on type. I seem to see very few of that type these days as I suspect that the original design would be too expensive to maintain, and the degree of wear would be so much greater with today's levels of traffic.

If you haven't seen one close-up, the old rubber type were cleverly designed so that water collected in the cast-metal base plate would be squidged up by a vehicle passing over. This water would clean the 'cat's eyes'. Maintenance problems occurred when the base plates sometimes clogged up with grit and when the rubber wore. We used to walk miles with a special metal tool to take out and replace the rubber units. Another major cost occurred when the road was re-surfaced; if this was just surface-dressing, then the cat's eyes could be covered with a large patch which could be removed later but for any other surface replacement work, the base units had to be dug out with a jack-hammer and replaced after re-surfacing - a very expensive operation, I would think.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link