Japanese scientists have created a 250m stretch of road that plays music when motorists drive over it.

By precisely cutting a huge number of grooves into the stretch of highway, a team from Japan’s Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute have created a road that uses the sound form the motorists tyres to play a melody (read more for video).

“The vibration sound by the contact of tyres and grooves is generated when a car passes the road surface where the grooving was conducted,” the scientists said.

Named the “Melody Road”, the scientists say the melody only plays correctly when motorists drive at certain speeds.

“The grooving is carried out by adjusting groove intervals, and high vibration sounds are generated in the places where the groove intervals are narrow, and low vibration sounds are generated in wide places.”

You can almost use this as a way to enforce speed limits! Given the melody only plays for cars travelling at 40km/h, we can assume the road can be designed to play a Britney Spears song for motorists travelling 50km/h and Justine Timberlake comes in at 60km/h…