Cats Eyes Fiasco

13 January 2007

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Plans to install a new type of cat's-eye on our roads have been put on hold due to, ironically, safety concerns.

The units being installed on Britain's roads work with light-emitting diodes (LED's) that, instead of merely reflecting a vehicle's headlights, flash by themselves at up to 100 times a second.

However, Rebecca Jasiczak, an epileptic from Essex, claimed to have narrowly avoided a seizure while driving on a main road where the flashing cat's eyes had recently been installed.

The Highways Agency has launched an investigation into claims that the LED's could trigger a fit and, until it is finished, all plans to install more high-tech cat's-eyes have been suspended.

I don’t suffer from epilepsey thankfully, but I would sure get a shock if I saw flashing lights beaming up from the road surface and would quite possibly question my mental state of mind.

Whats wrong with the excsiting cats eyes? Many a time I have had to rely on them in thick fog or torrential rain and they have been a Godsend - providing you know what colour goes where.

Just for the record, on the motorway green cats eyes are on the slip roads, red on the left between lane one and hard shoulder, white between the other lanes with amber on the right guarding the central reservation..

Cats eyes are the best thing invented for road users. They are unobstrusive, but more importantly work consitantly 24/7. So leave our cats eyes alone

Jackie Violet

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