Talk:Raised pavement marker

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Contents 1 Note about where this article came from 2 Some idiot suggested a merge of these articles on two distinct objects 3 Move of page or is it a split or a rewrite 4 3M 5 We need to move the delineator text to a new article

[edit] Note about where this article came from

The content in this article was transferred in from Cat's eye (road), because it became clear to everyone involved that the American raised pavement marker and the British cat's eye are really two different things. --Coolcaesar 01:27, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

To people who care more: "Botts dots" redirects to 5 different pages I think.

Looking at the one of the same photo of a orange markers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botts_dots and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_eye_%28road%29 isn't it clear to many that the American raised pavement marker and the British cat's eye are really the same thing? - —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 124.148.91.103 (talk • contribs).

The orange marker is not cat's eye as invented by Percy Shaw, and that is what the bulk of the article is about. take a look at the picture here for a proper side on view of a cat's eye. Also look at the diagrams from the patent drawings linked in the article and you will see signficant differences. Jooler 15:29, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some idiot suggested a merge of these articles on two distinct objects

I have posted my argument against the merge at Talk:Cat's eye (road). --Coolcaesar 17:10, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move of page or is it a split or a rewrite

I was going to suggest renaming the page to Botts dot, but given the content, this does not seem correct. Stimsonite Markers appears to be the main brand for the reflectors listed on this page and they are not called botts dots on the Ennis Paint] web site. They also do not list the round dots which are what I thought were the bots dot's. So it appears that this page is combining two different items into a single definition. I think these two need to be split out. At that point we can see if this should be retained as an article or split out into two articles. Are there any definitive sources so we can clean this up? Vegaswikian 20:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that Botts dots are a subset of raised pavement markers. Also, I'm not sure if there's any need for a split since the article is really not that long yet. --Coolcaesar 02:04, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I have added some other brands into this article. I'm not sure if they used to be, but they are currently not referred to in the generic as Stimsonite Markers, lest that threaten the trademark. For example, 3M definitely is a manufacturer of retroreflective raised pavement markers. Also, I do believe it is common to refer to both retroreflective and non-reflective raised pavement markers informally as "Bott's Dots" but in the industry they are designated more specifically by their formal names. Vegaswikian -- the reason why you won't find the round dots on Stimsonite's website is because they don't manufacture or market that product. However, they are still considered Bott's Dots. According to the Caltrans website, companies that market the round non-reflective type are: Apex Universal, Glowlite, Hi-Way, Interstate Sales, Novabrite, and Three D Traffic Works. (See http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/oe/specifications/SSPs/2006-SSPs/Sec_08_Mtls/08-1_Misc/S8-M03_E_A05-01-06.doc) 71.137.236.42 08:12, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the cleanup. We needed someone with some knowledge in the area to clean it up. Since the Cat's eye stuff was all removed to an article, I have also moved the botts dots to one. Vegaswikian 08:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3M

3M is listed on the page as a supplier of these. I could not find this on their web site. Anyone have the exact URL? Vegaswikian 21:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Try typing "3M raised pavement marker" into Google. The first link is this one. [1]. --Coolcaesar 02:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Those all appear to be reflective and not Botts dots. I did find one state web site that lists Gulf Industries, Inc. as a supplier of what appears to be the dots. However their web site does not provide any details. Vegaswikian 02:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Just figured it out. Try searching Google for "ceramic pavement marker" and "non-reflective pavement marker." Apparently that's what they're formally called by engineers nowadays. --Coolcaesar 12:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again. Do you know if the Botts dots really come in a square one or are they all based on the Stimsonite markers? I'm far from an expert in this area and just trying to understand this. Vegaswikian 14:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not sure how Heenan's work relates to Botts's work. I know that the general concept (of using raised retroreflective markers) was already well-known in the 1950s because of Percy Shaw's work with cat's eyes in the UK, but it's not clear whose square design Caltrans was using between the round clay dots since Heenan's design hadn't been invented at the time Botts was doing his research. There's probably some magic document in the state archives in Sacramento that will resolve this issue, but I don't have the time right now to go look for it. --Coolcaesar 03:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] We need to move the delineator text to a new article

Delineator is currently a redirect to Cat's eye (road). We need to get the delineator text out of this article and into its own article. While delineators serve a similar purpose as raised pavement markers (to channelize traffic), hitting a delineator will do a lot more damage to both pylon and car than hitting a raised pavement marker! I have also raised this issue at Talk:Cat's eye (road).--Coolcaesar 08:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

• If there is sufficent material for an article do it. For the record, hitting a delineator may not do much damage to a vehicle. The ones I see are designed to break without doing much damage to the vehicle. Vegaswikian 19:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

  Actually Botts' dots probably should be moved to an article at the same time. Vegaswikian 22:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)