REFLECTING STUD

Evening Star, Issue 23093, 20 October 1938, Page 24

REFLECTING STUD

NEW DEVICE FOR ROAD SAFETY AT NIGHT WELLINGTON TEST TO BE MADE Mr G. N. T. Goldie, late assistant chief traffic inspector, Wellington, has been relieved from those duties, for the time being at all events, to concentrate on town-planning, and building in connection with town-planning, a subject to which he has given much study (says the ‘Dominion’). Mr Goldie returned from a trip to America and England last week, during which he gave considerable attention to traffic problems and also to town-planning. One of the adjuncts to traffic safety at night which came under his notice in the Old Country was a new reflecting road stud, which combines in a most ingenious fashion a stationary reflector and a road mark level with the road surface. This stud, a case of which has been imported by the city engineer’s department for use in Wellington, is a sturdy four-legged piece of solid cast-iron 4|in square. Its top carries a sprung rubber pad, convex in shape, protecting two “ eyes ” in the form of clear glass marbles, which show half an inch above the level of the road. These are the reflectors. As traffic passes over a stud the rubber centre is pressed down momentarily, an action which cleans the reflectors by causing them to brush against a pad. Thus, the reflectors (which arc only half an inch in diameter) are always clear for duty, no matter how dusty the road or heavy the traffic. Mr Goldie says that Sheffield commenced by ordering 50 studs, and, having tried them out, ordered 2,000 more. Todmorden also gave them a trial, and ordered 3,000; the West Riding ordered between 8,000 and 9,000, and the city of Leeds 30,000. The company manufacturing them was also receiving orders from the Continent. “ The new reflecting stud is being used all over England to define road centres and sides; also to outline pedestrian crossings,” he says. In some places they are being used tor all three purposes in the one street. There is no doubting their value. The reflectors pick up the headlight beams ot cars with fidelity, the effect at night being almost the same as when such lights are picked up by the eyes ot a wandering cat.”