Cats’ Eyes. Back in the old days, in addition to white painted strips on roads to demarcate traffic lanes, there were also embedded into the road surfaces a type of reflective device called Cats’ Eyes.
Each had a metal casing, in which sat a depressible body that had two “eye” reflectors facing front and back. These would shine brightly against the headlights of oncoming vehicles at night. In places where a driver was not familiar with the road or highway on a dark night, these little strings of bright lights were a real blessing to moving ahead safely.
If a vehicle ran over any one of these, there would be a muffled “thum-thum” sound, corresponding to the instances when the front and rear wheels, respectively hit the Cats’ Eyes. No meowing sound, of course.