Talk:Road surface marking

Reference to U.S. Standards

I added reference and links to U.S. standards. I'd love to see other standards treated likewise and perhaps a separate section listing them all. MARussellPESE 17:15, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

This article needs to be deleted or merged out of existence

Yo---it looks like we need to delete or merge this mess. We already have excellent articles (all of which were partially researched and written by moi) on Lane, Cat's eye (road), and Raised pavement marker. The reason we cannot have a single article for Pavement marker (roads) is that all English language dialects outside of North America interpret "pavement" to mean what North Americans call a "sidewalk." This was the cause of much controversy in the Cat's eye article (please review the HUGE debate on that article's talk page) and the eventual reason for why it was split up into the two articles that exist now.

Also, the correct term is Botts' dot, not Bot dot, as indicated by all of the articles I have cited in the Raised pavement marker article. --Coolcaesar 01:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I just did a search on "road marker" and this article (Pavement marker (roads)) shot to the top. I had to dig through Lane to find the Road marking article, which is far superior. I see now that this article (Pavement marker (roads)) is redundant and should go. MARussellPESE 13:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

As an American, I am confused about the confusion of our terminology; pavement is asphalt, sidewalk is concrete paths running beside the road where people walk for safety to keep their feet dry and clean, most places bicycles and motorized bicycles are not permitted. I was present at a teen legislative conference where we researched and proposed bills. After designing the State of Florida bill on the white line on the side of the road acting as State Represents, we passed the 'law'. The legislators were so impressed they enrolled the law and Florida started painting the white lines 50 years ago.

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are too many issues in this article to scrap it all. I came here about the 'white lines on the side of the road'. If you are concerned about what you calling 'cat's eyes', I never heard such a thing in 64 years, then scrap that section. If there are other areas that are redundant or need to be moved to another page, move them to those pages. Please do not remove all the content because you feel one or two sections are redundant.

Respectfully, I am quite disconcerted by the rewriting of many American English articles being rewritten into British English when the overwhelming number of readers are American and the articles were originally written in American. Wikipedia: As of 2025, the percentage of readership in Wikipedia varies by country. Here are some key points:

• The English Wikipedia has over 6,991,553 articles and receives significant traffic from around 11% of the US population1.
• Wikipedia is the 6th most visited website globally, with 3 billion views from the United States, 844 million from the United Kingdom, 664 million from India, and 368 million from Canada4.

I would hope that the American works would be returned to the standard of the users.

I hope that tildes still sign my comments. DrO.

DrPMO (talk)

Centre white line

This article says that the idea was pioneered in California. However, I have a source that claims the first white line was painted in Sutton Coldfield, England in 1921.

Source: The Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield - A Commemorative History, Douglas V. Jones, 1994, Westwood Press (ISBN 0-9502636-7-2)

Seeing as this article has no reference to the claims, then wouldn't this be more appropriate? Or should it be outlined that the claim to who pioneered the central white line is contested? - Erebus555 12:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

• If you have a reference, I'd list that. Do use the {{Cite book}} for the inline cite. A referenced cite has standing. If you can't find a cite for the current one, it may not be correct. If someone later finds a source to support the previous claim then it can be listed as the first and yours as the first in Europe, Vegaswikian 18:16, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how the claim for whose painted line came first can be "contested." The earliest date given is Hines' in 1911. Whether McCarroll read about Hines' use of the concept on Michigan, or came up with it herself, the simple fact remains that 1911 came before 1917. When I get a minute, I'd like to sit down and try to rewrite this, with appropriate documantation for Hines' claim, of course, giving McCarroll due credit for being the first to get it done in California. Dr-t 14:07, 16 December 2012

Pedestrian Crossings in UK

zebra crossing with zig-zag markings

The article currently says that zig-zag markings identify pedestrian crossings but that pedestrians are prohibited from crossing there. Is this a typo or does it just need to be explained better? Strandist 17:17, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Reference added (or see the picture on the right) TiffaF 11:00, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Shark's teeth

The article Sharks teeth (Road Surface Marking) indicates only that such markings exist. It would be nice to know (either here or there) what they look like and what they are used for. Thanks to anyone who can add this information. Tim Ross (talk) 12:52, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Road marking machine

Seems that there is no reason two articles on nearly the same subject. AdmrBoltz 18:42, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, the article is about the general topic. Adding the machines, which come in many forms, to the article would appear to over complicate it and add too much extra text. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:34, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

The machine article seems like an add. If you look at the creators contributions and specifically their contributions to commons, they are adding a lot of image from a chinese manufacturer and claiming "own work" on those images so it seems like a COI that could be easily averted by a merge. CombatWombat42 (talk) 21:37, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Agree with merge proposal; much of the machine article is actually about the process of road surface marking, so there is a lot of overlap/duplication. Klbrain (talk) 19:57, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

 Done

Proposed merge with Yield line

This is just a specialized road surface marking. AdmrBoltz 18:46, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Removing request --AdmrBoltz 18:15, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Road re-striping

Cover the same topic, though the re-striping one has bad grammar and seems to be advertising something. EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 03:23, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Already done. It looks like that was one of many attempts to advertise for specific machine manufacturers. Imzadi 1979 → 04:04, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Removed undecipherable and unreferenced section.

I found this just above the preformed thermoplastic section, see edit history. If you want to fix this, please add references and translate it into proper English.

Pedestrian cross striping

Striping machine Pedestrian cross striping machine is special equipment professionally used for painting zebra lines on the intersections or other busy road sections. Because of the characteristics of zebra cross, parallel stripes not long, the striping machine is often small hand-guide road marking machine, convenient to turn direction. The widths of stripe are 350mm, 400mm, 450mm, 500mm and 600mm. There is discrepancy between the engineer regulations in different countries. The marking shoe of pedestrian cross striping machine, which determines marking lines’ width, is much wider than other pavement marking machines. Some simple marking shoe with wheels is also applied to deal the road striping.

Painting construction The section of road should be swept clean and kept dry. Pull a guiding line straight and fix the two ends on the ground. Then spray or brush a primer layer on the asphalt or concrete surface. The powder state thermoplastic paint needs melt into molten state for painting. Pull or push the striping machine with the guide rod along the guiding line to keep the zebra stripes straight and beautiful. Generally, the hand-push road striper is backward coating and the self-propelled type is forward coating to conform the body force exert habit. EthanL (talk) 16:02, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Where is the mnemonic association?

"Yellow was adopted because it was already the standard color of warning signs, and because it was easy to teach drivers to associate yellow lines with dividing opposing traffic and white lines with dividing traffic in the same direction. In turn, this simple mnemonic device greatly reduced head-on collisions and improved road traffic safety"

Is it that yellow = danger/warning & crossing yellow lines is more dangerous? Is it yellow = opposite traffic & white = same direction traffic?

It certainly doesn't seem like a helpful mnemonic, like ROY G VIB. Ileanadu (talk) 17:13, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Proposing to rewrite entire article in American English because it was originally drafted in American English

Someone rewrote the article a few years ago into British English in violation of Wikipedia policy. For articles on subjects that are not inherently specific to a particular dialect, we normally keep the article in the dialect in which it was originally drafted. I am proposing to rewrite this mess back into American English. --Coolcaesar (talk) 22:26, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:

• DY-STM-Road-Marking-Machine-Working-in-Bahrain.jpg
• DY-STM-Road-Marking-Machine-Working-in-Kenya.jpg
• Road-Marking-Machines.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:12, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Highway shields painted directly onto the road

At geo:37.6311260,-122.4360871 one can see highway shields painted directly onto the expressway surface. The article could perhaps mention cases like these. Jidanni (talk) 09:04, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Name the markings

I came here to get the names of lines. Center line, double center line, side line (borderline?), ... Darsie42 (talk) 09:39, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Road mark in London.png

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:20, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Suggested section on pavement word, symbol and arrow markings

I have a disclosed conflict of interest related to research and development in Korean pavement word markings, so I am not editing the article directly. I would like to propose a short, sourced addition about pavement word, symbol and arrow markings.

Suggested placement: Under the “Non-mechanical markers” section, after the existing marker-type subsections or before the country-specific information.

Suggested section title: Word, symbol and arrow markings

Suggested text:

Pavement word, symbol and arrow markings are used to convey regulatory, warning and guidance messages directly on the road surface. In the United States, the MUTCD describes pavement word, symbol and arrow markings as markings used for guiding, warning or regulating traffic, supplementing signs and emphasizing important messages without requiring road users to divert attention from the roadway surface. The MUTCD also provides examples of elongated letters for word pavement markings and states that pavement marking letters, numerals, symbols and arrows are to be installed in accordance with the design details in the FHWA Standard Highway Signs publication.

In the United Kingdom, the Traffic Signs Manual explains that road markings appear heavily foreshortened because of the angle from which they are viewed. For worded markings, this effect is countered by elongating the legend. The manual also states that larger worded markings are legible at a greater distance and are used where traffic speeds are higher. The same manual provides detailed guidance for worded road markings, including elongated legends such as STOP, SLOW, KEEP CLEAR, NO ENTRY and BUS LANE, which are elongated in the direction of travel while keeping the transverse dimension unchanged.

Australian pavement marking guidance similarly states that words, numerals and symbols may be marked on pavements to convey guiding, warning or regulatory messages, and that they should be elongated in the direction of traffic movement to make them legible at the maximum distance.

Research on non-Latin pavement lettering has also addressed legibility issues. A 2021 study in Archives of Design Research examined Korean pavement marking letter shapes and described perspective distortion as a fundamental issue affecting Korean pavement lettering under low-angle moving-view conditions.

References

Rationale: The current article explains road surface markings mainly by material, installation method and country-specific line rules. However, pavement words, numerals, symbols and arrows are also a distinct information type in road marking standards. The proposed section is general, internationally sourced, and does not mention any company, product, patent or commercial implementation.

Dexshin (talk) 12:26, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

While I am generally not opposed at all to your proposal, I don't think that it should be shoehorned into the preexisting non-mechanical sign areas. I believe it may be beneficial to have an "Construction" section where the current content can be put into. Than, a new section, called something like "Purpose" that has info on what some of the markings are used to convey. What do you think? - Otherwise (Antibacklog Aktion!) (talk?) 18:04, 1 August 2026 (UTC)