Musical Road Hits Sour Notes With Neighbors

Local officials say it was a mistake to allow a television commercial company to grind grooves into a stretch of desert roadway near Lancaster to enable car tires to play a song -- "The William Tell Overture" -- as people drive over it.

The sounds are disturbing people in a nearby subdivision, the Daily News reports. The City of Lancaster plans to pave over the musical grooves Tuesday.

Persons driving the posted 55 miles an hour west on Avenue K, in the high desert about five miles west of the Antelope Valley (14) Freeway, hear about 38 musical notes of the well-known theme, also known as the overture to "The Lone Ranger."

American Honda has paid for the promotion as part of a television ad campaign set to air this fall, but amateurs have peppered YouTube with homemade renditions of their own vehicles rolling over the grooves.

The road is tuned to a car just exactly the length, and equipped with tires the same size, as a Honda Civic, a spokesman for Honda said. But other vehicles are also successful in playing the notes, if a little off-key.