Honda Civic Musical Road

March 2, 8:19 PMDC Motorcycle Travel ExaminerMark Poesch

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The back cover of the April 2009 Road & Track magazine is devoted to a Honda Civic ad featuring "The Civic Musical Road" in Lancaster, CA.  Imagining the tune from the Lone Ranger (at 1:54) as rumble strips, I thought this would be great to try on a motorcycle as well – "Hi-ho Silver.  Away!" on our metal steeds!

Now, in September last year, Honda had completed a project featured on their website that looks like the same effort.  The problem is, after complaints by the Lancaster residents living within earshot, the town paved over the road.  Perhaps the ad is referring to something new?

The partial URL given in the ad "civic.honda.com" leads to http://automobiles.honda.com/civic/?from=civic.honda.com.  Strangely familiar.  Clicking "Watch and see" leads to the page shown above.  Peculiar.

The ad says that a Honda Civic is the best way to experience the road, and I'd be inclined to believe them if there was anything about the physics that suggested that the tire or the car should matter.  But, watching the project footage from Honda's site reminds me of Smash Lab.   (Smash Lab fans should skip ahead.)  The Smash Lab folks are notorious for pursuing dubious technical solutions to problems, smashing something in the process, and then analyzing their solutions at the end and, typically, declaring them a success.  The problem with many of their "solutions" (Fire-poof House, Earthquake Proof House, Aerated Concrete, and many others) is that they are generally pitiful failures, and the team's failure to recognize them as such causes some cognitive dissonance.  Why not just celebrate the smashing, declare the solution a failure, and move on!

In the Honda team's case, it's at least understandable why they wouldn't want to declare the project a failure.  But, their own project video suggests that while it's a very clever idea, their implementation also falls pitifully short of what you might imagine.  But like the Smash Lab folks, that doesn't stop them from celebrating, "it worked!"

It may have worked, but it didn't work well enough for me to recommend that you ride the 2,650 miles from this area to Lancaster to experience this on your bike.   You're better off checking it out on YouTube.com!  "Oops...  OK.  Close enough."

And although the original work was paved over, the idea lives on.  In October, due to popular (non-resident) demand, Lancaster announced that they'd create a new road.    Let's just hope they designed this one with a U-turn at the end.

Videos from other musical roads:
- Korea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt5IxDMN-I8
- Japan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTsoP3WWgU4
- Holland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou-Xy5OI1kc

Related articles:
- Drive the Honda Civic Musical Road and hear the "William Tell Overture"