Marking The Way To Greater Safety

Marking the Way to Greater Safety

Oct 16,2023

Marking the Way to Greater Safety

The older driving population among the world has grown continually and is expected to increase even more as the baby-boom generation reaches retirement. The capabilities essential for safe driving — visual, cognitive, and physical — undergo changes with age. These changes can influence the safety of drivers, passengers, and pedestrians.

For example, visual changes affect the distance at which older drivers can see and recognize the writing on signs and may make it more difficult for them to detect road markings. Physical changes influence reaction times and restrict physical movement in seniors. These types of changes present transportation agencies with the challenge of finding and implementing solutions to help seniors maintain safe mobility in their communities.

Federal Highway Administration of America defines road markings as "one or a combination of devices that regulate, warn, and provide information and guidance to the driver." Road markings guide all motorists, of course, but are especially beneficial to older drivers. The common ways for enhancing road markings to let it provide better guidance include wider and brighter edge and centerline markings and improvement of wet-night visibility through use of larger size glass beads in paint, raised pavement markers, profile thermoplastic markings and so on. Among these, the most important and usual two ways are as below.

Wet-Night Visibility: the effectiveness of longitudinal road markings at night is dependent upon their retro-reflectivity, which is not difficult to achieve under dry conditions. However, with rain or snow, a thin film of water on a traditional marking causes the reflected light to scatter in all directions, thus reducing the amount of light reflected directly back to the driver. Although national standards do not mandate that road markings must perform well in wet conditions, many countries are using a variety of strategies to ensure just that.

Larger Size Glass Beads: most countries are inclined to use larger size glass beads in their paint markings to improve wet-night recognition of edge and centerline markings. The larger beads enable water to drain more quickly from the marking surface, thus decreasing water film accumulation on the beads and allowing quick recovery of their retro-reflective capability.

Whatever modifications are made, they reflect a growing realization that not only seniors but everyone, sooner or later, will benefit from better, safer roadways.

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