Came back to driving recently after a few years away (about 15) and noticed how few Irish trucks are on the road these days, they used to go flying past me at 80mph, that that French firm that under cut everyone is gone, started with N, so has Security Core/Omega, Curries and many others and that cats eyes have dispeared.
Driving along the M74 I realized that the studs were still there but they no longer reflected.
Cats eyes were envisaged by an inventor from the East Midlands, who, driving his Rolls Royce home through the November fog one night managed to re-navigate by the brief presence of a cat in the road, whose eyes marked the way for him. If the cat had been facing the other way, heād have invented the pencil sharpener.
Percy Shaw, born and bred in Halifax, invented, patented, and manufactured ācats eyesā
He died 1976.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=percy+shaw&sca_esv=8d08fdb92d3dc4d4&sca_upv=1&source=hp&ei=9X3yZqi5CaKChbIPkqS46Qg&iflsig=AL9hbdgAAAAAZvKMBeG1J1jxhMNr3rtJ14-zDyBcT5gi&gs_ssp=eJzj4tTP1TcwKrCsKjFg9OIqSC1KrlQozkgsBwBRYAdT&oq=percy+Shaw&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IgpwZXJjeSBTaGF3KgIIATIOEC4YgAQYxwEYjgUYrwEyCBAuGIAEGNQCMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMg4QLhiABBjHARiOBRivATIFEAAYgAQyDhAuGIAEGMcBGI4FGK8BMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgARI5nRQAFiJPnAAeACQAQCYAbgBoAGQCKoBAzcuM7gBAcgBAPgBAZgCCqACoArCAg4QLhiABBixAxiDARiKBcICCxAuGIAEGLEDGIMBwgILEAAYgAQYsQMYgwHCAhEQLhiABBixAxjRAxiDARjHAcICDhAAGIAEGLEDGIMBGIoFwgIOEC4YgAQYsQMY0QMYxwHCAggQABiABBixA8ICCxAuGIAEGLEDGNQCwgIIEC4YgAQYsQPCAg4QLhiABBixAxiDARjUAsICCxAuGIAEGMcBGK8BwgIFEC4YgASYAwCSBwUwLjkuMaAHhZoB&sclient=gws-wiz
Ah yes, thank you - as a lapsed trucker I should, of course, have remembered that Halifax is not in the East Midlands 
One design feature of cats eyes was that they were self cleaning: as a vehicle ran over them the eyes were pushed down and washed in a rain water reservoir and wiped by the soft rubber.
Current reflectors are surface mounted instead of needing the small square holes needed to house the eyes.
I remember a road test of a small car back in the day, it described driving over catās eyes as being more like an encounter with the whole cat!
Partly because of Brexit issues some trucks from Eire use the now improved services between Eire direct to France rather than using the UK land-bridge.
(much to the relief of anyone using the A75ā¦ )!
There seems to bean agenda going on of removing crucial evidence regarding blame for collisions especially with dash cams.Cetral dividing lines are also disappearing.
If true thatās shocking. I must admit that Iāve personally seen nothing to support that, but Iām eager to see any (non) anecdotal evidence you may have to support this
Iāve only drove it in a car and on a bike.
Believe it used to be wacky races on there, especially at night 
Funny coming past junction 22 gretna some nights, small convoy of them belting down the slip rd from a75.
I think you still tend to see a fair few irish trucks. Maybe not so many continental bound ones as like he said they can skip this dump now. But the likes of MM freight for example are a very familiar sight. Loanes, Manfreight, McBurney etc
Those new cats eyes reflectors whatever on the M6 after about junction 11 are very good indeed, just a shame they donāt last 
Wacky races is a good description. I thought meeting the Portuguese coming off the mountain from Pamplona was bad until I took the A75 to Cairnryan one night in the face of Mad Max Micks coming in the other direction 
Wacky Races? Irun border 22hr00 on a jour fƩriƩ.
I used to hibernate at Sunbilla, fortified with vino collapso until it had cleared. But Iād sleep first and make an early start.
whats this got to do with cats eyes ?
whats this got to do with cats eyes ?
Iād set off from Sunbilla before early light, the yellows of my blearies fruitlessly seeking out the row of catās eyes that would separate me from the heartless Porkies racing in the other direction. Not that the catās eyes would have been much use as the oncoming trucks crossed onto my side of the road to avoid those awful overhanging rocks (all swept away by the road improvements at the turn of the century). The first words that would pass from my mouth as I reached the border were, āMy kingdom for a catās eye!ā in Spanish, which would confuse the cashier on the Peage because Iād already reached the French sideā¦
Also a 1970ās/80ās UK motorway was a sight to behold with all its different bright and clear lane, slip roads and shoulder and central reserve coloured cats eyes.Including the blue cats eyes marking the police patrol bays v hard shoulder.
I think safety concerns about their heavy metal mountings coming loose was possibly an excuse against them ?.
Yugoslavia Loibl old single carriageway to Ljubljana, let alone further South,
Slavic bravery and Turkish fatalistic tendency was a laughable combinationā¦ if you were driving a conventional Merc or Maggie truck not a car.
Never thought Iād see anything similar on UK roads.Now every single carriageway blind bend at least if not every other potential head on situation is to be approached with trepidation.
Check out the article in the Guardian referring to the stated plan and in which some lefty Muppet reporter is saying that itās actually safer without the divider markings.
What they actually mean is they can blame and nick two drivers for a head on instead of just one.
Havenāt got time to post it now but will do later if not.
Sadly, you donāt have to go down the old Yugo autoput now to find your actual third-world driving. Like everything else, we now import neandertal driving. Itās everywhere. I canāt believe the way standards have plummeted in just the last 15 or so years alone. I used to have several sets of skills for negotiating wild driving in Bucharest, Damascus, Casablanca, Cairo, Doha etc; but now I only need the standard skill-set to cover the home-counties because itās the same set.
Catsā eyes are to all replaced by solar powered LED studs anyway.
Here is a discussion fromā¦2007ā¦The end of Cats Eyes? - SABRE
Here is a Guardian article reporting that some councils and some studies suggest removing centre markings slows traffic down. Plan to remove white lines from roads divides opinion | Road safety | The Guardian
I canāt see any article where a ālefty Muppet reporterā offers their own opinion on it though.