When driving to Madison WI from Chicago for Christmas a month ago I drove into some adverse conditions. As I was driving there were times of complete whiteout, fortunately they only lasted for several seconds at a time. There was light snow falling but the gusting wind that picked up the dry snow off the ground was causing the real problems for visibility. During the whiteouts you had to look down for the dashed white lane lines, as this was the only way to tell where the road was. Luckily it was so cold and windy the snow was blowing off the road making it possible to see the white lane lines.

As I continued my drive more portions of the road had snow cover making the lane lines invisible (I should have pulled over). It was at this point I wondered why lane lines on the interstate in areas with winter weather are painted white (both the dashed lane divider and the side of the road markers). When there is any amount of snow on the ground they are difficult to see. So I was thinking all road lane dividers and road markers should be painted red and white. The red and white combo would be very visible at night as well as when snow or ice is on the road (see image below). I am sure it’s more difficult to paint a line with a foot of red and then a foot of white opposed to a singe color but just do it anyways.

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