Roadscapes Wednesday: My Own Road Model

By Nathan Young on July 3, 2013

Because of all the rainy weather in Alabama, this week I am going to show off my very own road model. This model features some things that I would like to see on our roads and highways.

First off, you notice the broken road paint lines. I like how the state of Kentucky paints their road lines with the broken dashes. It helps drivers who would stare at the paint lines instead of looking at what’s in front of them. Water on the road would also drain away from traffic at the broken dashes. So I would like to see this type of road painting on all of our roads!

Next, at traffic light intersections, there needs to be more than two traffic lights. Many states in the western U.S. puts traffic lights above the road and on both corners. That means most intersections can have four or more traffic lights on each side of the intersection. Yes, I think having a white border and having the traffic lights painted black would help to improve the visibility.

Next, you notice the purple signs. I think designating a special color for route signs would be perfect. I think the color purple would be a great choice to feature route directions. Drivers would be able to tell where to go because they would be looking for the purple signs!

Next, I think Alabama needs to adopt the same road reflector standards as Georgia, Florida, California, Virginia, and other states. There needs to be two reflectors placed on the outside of the yellow lines instead of one in the middle of the two lines. I also believe that having delineators with a white reflector on the side of the road would improve the roads. Green and yellow reflectors would also be used to tell drivers that they are at an intersection.

I also think having caution lights that are shaped differently than traffic lights would improve the roads as some drivers confuse caution lights with traffic lights. Shaping caution lights as a diamond would be perfect. Traffic lights would be a rectangle, railroad signals would be a circle, and caution lights would be a diamond! Notice the white border is around the caution lights as well.

Also, I think the United States and Canada needs to adopt the same speed limit signs as the rest of the world. Most of the world uses a red circle with a number inside for the speed limit. I made a sign to tell drivers that the speed limit will drop to 35 ahead.