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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   815 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 8, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Unexpected follow-up to my 2023 post:

As you probably know if you are an American, under the MUTCD (Manual of Uniform Traffic-Control Devices), generally speaking:

  • The longitudinal lines that separate lanes traveling in the same direction are white. (§ 3B.06 ¶ 01)

  • A double solid white line indicates that crossing the line is prohibited. (¶ 12)

  • A single solid white line indicates that crossing the line is discouraged. (¶ 06)

  • A broken (dashed) white line (12-foot segments separated by 36-foot gaps) indicates that crossing the line is not discouraged or prohibited. (¶ 05)

  • A dotted white line (3-foot segments separated by 9-foot gaps) separates a through lane from an auxiliary lane that will diverge or end soon. One might say it indicates that crossing the line is encouraged, so that you don't accidentally get stuck in an auxiliary lane when you want to be in a through lane (or vice versa). (§ 3B.07)

The dotted line was not made mandatory until the 2009 edition of the MUTCD, so roadway authorities still are in the process of updating existing stripes. The project that I described in my 2023 post included a large interchange, in which I changed quite a few existing stripes from broken to dotted. After the project passed out of my hands and into the hands of the bigwigs and the Construction people, I largely forgot about it. We had to draw up a several-sheet addendum, because the pavement recommendation had expired and the updated version was significantly different; we had to draw up a one-sheet change of plan, because the Structures people accidentally told us to pave over a bridge that shouldn't be paved over; and the project's resident engineer had some questions regarding (1) utility coordination and (2) whether a bunch of cooking oil that had leaked from a restaurant's dumpster into the roadway would negatively affect the pavement treatment's adhesion to the existing surface. But that was it.

Fast-forward to this week. The project presumably was completed a while ago, though I don't recall specifically when. The project area is quite close to my office, but I never had any reason to drive through it since completion—until today, purely by chance. As I drive, I think to myself: "Hey, where are all the dotted lines that I drew on the plans?"

  • The resident engineer is supposed to ensure that the contractor adheres to the plans. But apparently he dropped the ball here.

  • After "substantial completion", the resident engineer is supposed to call the designer out for a field visit so that the designer can approve the work for "final completion" or point out any problems that need to be fixed before it can be approved. But the resident engineer never did that, either.

It presumably is way too late for this error to be fixed, so I don't know whether my boss will bother to explain the situation to the resident engineer's boss. But at least it isn't my fault.

As you probably know if you are an American

This reminds me of https://xkcd.com/2501/

I don't think it's presumptuous to assume that most Americans understand what road markings mean. (Insert joke about the drivers in your least-favorite state.)

My state's driver manual:

  • Explicitly mentions double solid white lines and broken white lines.

  • Doesn't mention single solid white lines (outside of the separate context of shoulders—MUTCD § 3B.09), but they're pretty rare, outside of (1) construction zones, where they typically are accompanied by "stay in lane" signs anyway, and (2) intersection approaches, where changing lanes is forbidden under state law, as mentioned in a different part of the driver manual.

  • Doesn't mention dotted white lines, but IMO an attentive motorist (or new motorist and former passenger) should have noticed the growing prevalence of these lines over the past decade.

I agree with you, although I've never seen double white lines and thought any solid line was "do not cross". Still, I know that white lines separate traffic going the same way and yellow lines separate traffic going the opposite way, and the significance of dashed versus dotted lines.

I don't know if I've ever seen double white lines outside of an airport runway.

I recently just went on an 11.5 hour road trip.

The only time I can recall seeing them is on the tolled express lane of I-85 in Georgia.

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