Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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pothole detector

detect and display potholes on a Heads Up Display
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detect potholes using whatever means are best at the time. Then, on a Heads up Display overlay them with Flames, or make them bright red, or something, anythign to make you avoid it. Preferably it woudl be able to tell how severe of a pothole this is. Might possibly require some form of user feedback while driving since it's so hard to tell if an approaching pothole is bad or not until you are almost on top of it. Drivers with GPSs could add a pothole report to a central server with it's approx coordinates and severity and possibly notes, and when your car encounters an upcoming pothole in that area it would assume it to be the reported one, or report a new one it found with a guessed severity.
masukomi, Feb 15 2002

First step http://business.bos...bg?articleid=114289
This would effectively turn your shock absorbers into microphones. All you need now is integrated GPS and a central database. [Worldgineer, Dec 07 2005]

[link]






       I've had a couple of related ideas: (1) You could monitor the bumpiness of the road using sensors in the car, and communicate it to a central database. (2) Use cameras to detect uneven road surface, oil spills, gravel, etc, working on the basis that the shadows/light coming off uneven surfaces (or oil) will vary suddenly as you move, whereas light off fairly even matt surfaces will change less.
pottedstu, Feb 15 2002
  

       And they should put this device on a pot-hole fill truck that goes around fixing the bleeping things.   

       Wait, sorry, that would infringe upon their doughnut-eating time. Nevermind.
seal, Feb 15 2002
  

       ... and 'donut hole' eating time
thumbwax, Feb 15 2002
  

       But don't repair the potholes use them to control vehicles' speed. This would lead to greater road safety.   

       Uked
uked, Dec 27 2002
  
      
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