Japan Flaunts Road Symphony

Music is soothing. Well, it can be the other way around. But most of the drivers on the roads want to listen to music while they drive. This is to calm their senses at the same time to keep them awake and alert.

But in Japan a totally different music can be had. Japanese hills are pretty lively with the sound of road music. Why? This is because tire to pavement produces a road symphony. Authorities hoping to attract more tourists through scenic mountain passes have created three highways that hum a tune as you drive by.

Created by the friction between the tires and nearly 2,600 unevenly spaced ridges and tracks etched onto the road surface, the sound is not necessarily music to everyone's ears, according to Driving.ca. On one of the so-called melody roads, tucked away in the mountains near Numata city, about 110 miles north of Tokyo, your wheels hum a tune that sounds like "Memories of Summer", a popular regional song. But not for long.

The musical interlude played lasts for just 12.7 seconds. The time it takes to travel the 175-metre section of road at 50 km an hour. Signs advise drivers to travel at precisely that speed to achieve perfect pitch and rhythm, the report continued.

Creating this brief jingle along the sparsely traveled tourist route cost the local authorities 2.2 million yen ($20,000) but, they say, it was worth every one of them. "This area has a lot of tourist spots, but not many people used this road before," said Takahisa Fukashiro, the director of the Numata Administrative Affairs office in charge of the project. "So we built this melody point in the hope that it would attract more people here."

What is more, two other stretches of highway in the country play other tunes inspired by traditional local songs. Numata authorities mulled extending the Numata road symphony, but the mountains put a brake on its expansion. "If we had a longer straight road we could consider it," Fukashiro said. "The other issue is that cars need to drive at a steady speed and the question is really whether drivers will be able to do that over longer periods of time."

The melody points were made on straight stretches of road to preclude distracted drivers from colliding or veering off. Additionally, tourists at a nearby souvenir shop said that they could also save lives. "It'd be great to keep me awake while driving," noted Yoko Shimoda.

Will other territories adapt this road technique? How about Canada? This may sound appealing to the manufacturer of ball joint Canada as well as other auto parts makers.