Nancy Williams: We need 1 white line painted on road edges, and other driving observations
Of almost everything in my life, what I have the strongest opinion about is white lines on the right-hand side of roads. And the fact that you can't see them. Often you can’t see them because they aren’t there. And when they are there, they can be old, faded and of nearly no use whatsoever. Like me some days.
Plenty of drivers can barely see the edge of the road in daylight in good weather. Add night to the conditions and some rain and you can’t tell where the road is. Which is kind of important for people operating motor vehicles. I'm all about brightening the yellow lines in the middle of the road too, however, absent discernable middle road lines, a person can hug the right-side road edge, if she can see it, and be all right.
In rural areas with few street lights, lack of pavement edge paint is especially dangerous. No nice, paved, wide (10 feet is the standard) emergency lanes like there are on interstates. Only a dark, narrow road with a tiny, low shoulder between you and the steep bank leading to the cow pasture. If we aren’t willing to paint the road edges to protect the drivers, do it for the cows.
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Compared to bigger problems in our country, marking white lines on all road edges seems easy. Low hanging fruit. Just do it. Issue cans of paint to retired people who have time. Or middle-schoolers who have energy. A volunteer-painted line may be crooked here or there — still far better than total linelessness.
Maybe join forces with some group that’s already driving all the roads. The Google Earth cars travel every side road and byway, making maps and taking photos. How about outfitting them with some kind of rig to spray white lines as they go. Painting partnership.
When I researched lines on roads, I found out road surface marking is involved. All manners of purposes, patterns and national standards. According to Wikipedia, determining which color to use for centerlines was “debated for several decades and was the single most controversial and most heavily debated issue resolved by the promulgation of the 1948 edition of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.” God bless them. Decades of debate? Because there were such diehard pro-white and pro-yellow contingencies, I guess. Protests and campaigns. Fighting about stuff takes longer without social media.
An interesting history tidbit is that the first painted centerline in the US was in 1911 in Michigan after a man watched a leaky milk wagon leave a white trail along the road. The main thing used these days is a thermoplastic resin, mixed with titanium dioxide pigment and glass beads. We’ve come a long way since spilled milk.
When driving in unfamiliar places, I tend to drive in the far right lane and need those right edge white lines. The reason I drive on the far right lane is because I’m one of a handful of people in the country who drives the actual speed limit. Let me be clear here (and admittedly touchy and defensive), if I drive 55 mph in a 55 mph zone, I am not doing anything wrong. I am not a bad person. Despite the attitude I get from the speeders. People pass me honking and gesturing. Once, when a highway patrolman passed me, I'm positive he was glaring at me, too. Really ma'am? The posted speed limit isn't really the speed limit, and everybody knows that.
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Maybe I need a sign on the back of my car like the one on mail trucks which cautions about frequent stops. Mine would say: “Driver drives the actual speed limit. No, there’s nothing wrong with her.”
When I drive the two-lane road going toward my house, if my son’s friends are in a car behind me, they take a photo of me ‘poking along’ at the speed limit and text it to him. Look who’s mom is making us late. Automobile sloth.
I drive the speed limit on familiar roads because I'm a rule follower, but I’m especially committed to the speed limit on roads less known to me. Especially interstates. I’m well aware eight lanes of 65 mph traffic with concrete barriers on either side is a big deal. When I’m also trying to follow GPS instructions and read the signs. I might actually drive 5 miles under the maximum speed.
Another safety thing I do to reduce interstate NASCAR anxiety is leave the recommended space between me and the car in front of me. But when I stay back far enough for safe braking distance, it defeats the purpose. It's a big ole invitation for cars to unsafely dart into the space.
When I say I need a right hand lane line to show me the edge, I mean one, and only one line. The absolute worst is when traffic has been rerouted several times during construction and the road is painted with a labyrinth of lines, dashes, curves and arrows. Drivers have to try to determine the most recent temporary white lines as opposed to the earlier phases of temporary white lines, while driving fast and dodging cones and barrels. Like some kind of high-speed vehicular rodeo.
All I can do is more-or-less follow the car in front of me, which is following the car in front of it and so on. Us all hoping the driver in front can decipher the traffic-guiding hieroglyphics painted on the pavement.
This is the opinion of Nancy Williams, the coordinator of professional education at UNC Asheville. Contact her at nwilliam@unca.edu.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Nancy Williams: White lines painted on road edges would improve safety
