Plans are afoot to remove white lines from selected roads after trials reveal their removal reduces average speeds.
Highway chiefs are claiming that removing white lines from busy roads increases caution among drivers with average speeds dropping by up to 13%; that’s the findings of trial data when white lines were removed on key roads in London including parts of the A22 and A23 and the A100.
Other councils are now set to trial their own line-less road projects including schemes in Norfolk and Derby. Norfolk’s assistant director for highways, Tracy Jessop, told The Guardian newspaper that “fewer road markings can improve street safety for everyone by making drivers more cautious, increasing awareness and lowering speeds.”
Line removal is nothing new – for example, line-less roads have been trialled as far back as 2002 in Wiltshire with over 20 of the county’s roads now paint-free. Opinion is divided among experts though about the pros and cons of busy blank roads. While road safety charity RoadPeace believes that such self-enforcing schemes are vital for driving down speeds on UK roads, others including the AA disagree.
The motoring organisation told The Times: “Without exaggeration it is true to say that a simple pot of paint can save lives… In particular, highly visible markings at the edge and centre of the road that can be seen on a wet night are enormously cost-effective in saving lives.”
Concerns have also been raised about how white line removal will effect those with ageing visions and the impact on certain safety technologies in modern cars that rely on road markings to warn the driver if they’re drifting across a lane.
Image © Stray Croc