The case of the disappearing lane markers
February 5, 2020 7:35 PM Subscribe
Sometime over the last decade, the lane markers on my city's arterials and highways became a lot harder to see at night than before. I suspect all the strong LED street lights overhead are now overpowering the lane markers, making them especially difficult to see on rainy nights. Both the yellow center line and the white lines take more eye-straining to see now. There are also very few lane reflectors being used on the routes I drive. Is anyone else noticing and talking about this?
I also accept that my night vision may be getting worse. I'm my 40s, and don't need glasses during daytime quite yet. I worry about all the people with worse vision than mine (and people not paying close attention) driving in unfamiliar areas and it feels so much more dangerous than before.
Is there a kind of paint or road treatment that cities could be using to better compete with powerful LED lighting? Have things gotten worse or is it just my vision? I'm in Seattle. If this is indeed an increasing problem for drivers, what can be done to make the lane markers more visible?
I also accept that my night vision may be getting worse. I'm my 40s, and don't need glasses during daytime quite yet. I worry about all the people with worse vision than mine (and people not paying close attention) driving in unfamiliar areas and it feels so much more dangerous than before.
Is there a kind of paint or road treatment that cities could be using to better compete with powerful LED lighting? Have things gotten worse or is it just my vision? I'm in Seattle. If this is indeed an increasing problem for drivers, what can be done to make the lane markers more visible?
Me too on location and age, and my night vision is generally very good. I’ve been blaming it on glare from the lights when the road is wet.
posted by centrifugal at 7:44 PM on February 5, 2020
posted by centrifugal at 7:44 PM on February 5, 2020
Note that glare specifically and problems with night driving, especially on wet roads, are early signs of cataracts. Everyone I know who has had cataract surgery has immediately remarked on how much easier night driving got afterwards.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:50 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:50 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]
The paint used for the lane markings is wearing out. Becoming duller. They don’t get re-painted very often, if ever. We live in an age where maintenance like that is put off forever because funds.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:52 PM on February 5, 2020 [21 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 7:52 PM on February 5, 2020 [21 favorites]
Doctors issue warning about LED streetlights (CNN)
posted by katra at 7:58 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]
The new "white" LED street lighting which is rapidly being retrofitted in cities throughout the country has two problems, according to the AMA. The first is discomfort and glare. Because LED light is so concentrated and has high blue content, it can cause severe glare, resulting in pupillary constriction in the eyes. Blue light scatters more in the human eye than the longer wavelengths of yellow and red, and sufficient levels can damage the retina. This can cause problems seeing clearly for safe driving or walking at night.AMA adopts guidance to reduce harm from high intensity street lights (Jun 14, 2016)
[...] the AMA "encourage[s] the use of 3000K or lower lighting for outdoor installations such as roadways. All LED lighting should be properly shielded to minimize glare and detrimental human and environmental effects, and consideration should be given to utilize the ability of LED lighting to be dimmed for off-peak time periods."
posted by katra at 7:58 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]
I have noticed the same thing as you. The lane stripes on the surface streets in my small Midwestern town are almost impossible to see when the road is wet at night.
My guess is that they might not have put the usual refletive material in them, in order to save some money.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 8:20 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]
My guess is that they might not have put the usual refletive material in them, in order to save some money.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 8:20 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]
Some cities are taking another look at LED lighting after AMA warning (WaPo, Sept. 25, 2016)
The American Medical Association issued a warning in June that high-intensity LED streetlights — such as those in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, Houston and elsewhere — emit unseen blue light that can disturb sleep rhythms and possibly increase the risk of serious health conditions, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. The AMA also cautioned that those light-emitting-diode lights can impair nighttime driving vision.posted by katra at 8:34 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]
Similar concerns have been raised over the past few years, but the AMA report adds credence to the issue and is likely to prompt cities and states to reevaluate the intensity of LED lights they install. [...] When 4000K and 5000K LEDs were installed, they drew mixed responses. Police and traffic-safety officials and many motorists liked them because they created a bright light that sharply illuminated the ground they covered.
But in many places, including New York City and Seattle, residents complained that the bright white light was harsh, even lurid. [...] In its warning, the AMA [...] cautioned that intense LEDs have been associated with “discomfort and disability glare,” which might impair nighttime vision for drivers.
[...] In Seattle, which has installed about 41,000 new lights since 2010, Thomsen, the spokesman for Seattle Light, attributed the early complaints to residents’ surprise at the sharp difference in brightness between the old sodium lights and the new LEDs. [...] Thomsen also noted that even though the Seattle LEDs are rated at 4100K, that is significantly lower than most computer screens, laptops and televisions.
I haven’t noticed this exact thing because I try not to drive at night anymore. But I walk my dog in the dark in the mornings, and our route takes us through stretches of the new LED lights and then stretches of the old amber lights, and the visual effects of the LEDs are really weird. Close to the lamp the light is so harsh that each flake of falling snow casts a shadow and it’s like a black and white kaleidoscope. My dog goes crazy chasing them but is perfectly (okay relatively) sane under the amber lights. Farther away from the LED lamps, everything flattens out into shades of gray. It’s much more monochromatic than the shadows cast by the amber lamps and makes it harder to tell what’s what. Maybe these same effects are affecting your perception of the lane markers? I really despise the LED lamps. They don’t seem safer at all and they make my beautiful old neighborhood harsh and ugly.
posted by HotToddy at 8:37 PM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by HotToddy at 8:37 PM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]
Do you guys have salt on your roads as the result of cold temperatures? Because here where I am in Vermont the liquid salt they put on the roads can dry a little lighter than the dark road usually would be and it obscures the contrast between the lines and the roads.
posted by jessamyn at 8:41 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 8:41 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
Ageing eyes, but also:
Steve [Norkus, of Professional Pavement Products] said U.S. lane-marking materials are brighter than they’ve ever been. “What people are complaining about is the infrastructure not being maintained,” he said. (Washington Post, Nov. 26, 2016)
Try dimming your instrument panel / dashboard lights (Popular Mechanics advice, 1, 2).
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:42 PM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]
Steve [Norkus, of Professional Pavement Products] said U.S. lane-marking materials are brighter than they’ve ever been. “What people are complaining about is the infrastructure not being maintained,” he said. (Washington Post, Nov. 26, 2016)
Try dimming your instrument panel / dashboard lights (Popular Mechanics advice, 1, 2).
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:42 PM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]
Also in Seattle and these things have been so awful for me--I have a pole right outside my house and it made things so intense at night that I have light through the layers of double layer blinds and curtains. There's another pole outside back in the alley that pours through the trees this time of year and I can't escape it. I loathe them, they're way too white and intense.
Driving on the West Seattle Bridge at night is nightmarish--the lane markings are almost always worn away, the reflectors are constantly coming off, and there's standing water everywhere when it rains (which let's face it is all the damn time this winter). You're definitely not alone.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 8:53 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
Driving on the West Seattle Bridge at night is nightmarish--the lane markings are almost always worn away, the reflectors are constantly coming off, and there's standing water everywhere when it rains (which let's face it is all the damn time this winter). You're definitely not alone.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 8:53 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]
Afaik reflective paint is paint w tiny glass beads mixed into it. Probably when it gets abraded over years of wear it becomes less reflective? And so a shiny wet road is as or more reflective than the paint marking, something that drives me nuts in rainy Florida.
posted by toodleydoodley at 9:16 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by toodleydoodley at 9:16 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: To clarify, I have noticed this happening even with very recently painted lane markers such as on Avalon Way in West Seattle. (Whose lanes were also rerouted to make it safer for bikes, yay!) Is the paint lacking in adequate reflective material? The paint seems more "flat" and not the thick stuff that I associate with traditional lane marking paint. I also had my eyes checked recently and nothing aside from the ordinary slight farsightedness was found.
posted by oxisos at 9:32 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by oxisos at 9:32 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Article that talks about different types of paint used for highway stripes and their relative costs. Also interaction with snow plows.
Despite concerns raised by residents, Venker and many experts agree that diminished road marking visibility is a universal issue.
Washington Post article that says infrastructure is not being maintained, and that road sand and rainwater can also obscure reflective beads.
posted by amtho at 11:03 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
Despite concerns raised by residents, Venker and many experts agree that diminished road marking visibility is a universal issue.
Washington Post article that says infrastructure is not being maintained, and that road sand and rainwater can also obscure reflective beads.
posted by amtho at 11:03 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
I can't speak to Seattle, but I'm definitely seeing the same thing in North Carolina. We don't have overhead LED lights in my area, but most headlights these days seem to be high intensity bright white and that's enough to blind oncoming traffic at night.
It's worst for me on 2-4 lane roads, where the lane markers might as well not be there at all, but I've had the same experience on the interstate. Failure to maintain aging infrastructure is part of it, but it's happened to me on sections of the interstate that have been rerouted and repaved/marked in the last few months, too.
posted by basalganglia at 3:34 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
It's worst for me on 2-4 lane roads, where the lane markers might as well not be there at all, but I've had the same experience on the interstate. Failure to maintain aging infrastructure is part of it, but it's happened to me on sections of the interstate that have been rerouted and repaved/marked in the last few months, too.
posted by basalganglia at 3:34 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
I did have a cataract operation. Things certainly got a lot better, but the lane markers were still invisible in rainy weather. Since, as the WaPo article says, 1 in 5 drivers is over 65, that's a safety (and a design) issue; however, they were always hard for me to see even when my eyesight was perfect.
posted by Peach at 4:06 AM on February 6, 2020
posted by Peach at 4:06 AM on February 6, 2020
In parts of south jersey ive noticed they dont use reflective paint and instead put the little metal square trench things in the line in the pavement and those have a little reflector in them. They work fine at first but with being driven overe enough the reflector breaks and they arent maintained. My best guess is that they started using thise because its cheaper or because whatever company got the contract to make them is a sweetheart of whatever public office awarded the contract.
posted by WeekendJen at 5:24 AM on February 6, 2020
posted by WeekendJen at 5:24 AM on February 6, 2020
Best answer: Two things going on here. First, it's what the AMA said. The physiological effect from blue (or, more-blue, i.e. less yellow) light, which dilates the pupils and makes it harder to discern nighttime details. The best night-light is red - there's a very low pupil response. You can still see enough to take your 2am piss, but you miss the dilated pupils and wake-up rush that comes from bright light, or even dim blue light.
Second, blue light doesn't have much yellow in it.
You've seen the pictures of a red apple in green light? It looks black. Since something that we see as red reflects red light and absorbs the rest of the spectrum, under a green light there's nothing for the apple to reflect.
Blue lights don't have any yellow to reflect. Panchromatic - that is, emitting at roughly the same intensity throughout the visible spectrum - light does have yellow. But it doesn't have yellow light in relative abundance like old sodium-vapor lights. The yellow of the lines are no longer affirmatively selected by the yellow light.
Now, what about plain white lines? They used to stand out from the pavement, which is similarly colorless, due to both the difference in lightness (white lines, light grey to black pavement), and because they were reflective. Reflective, if nothing else, in comparison to the pavement which, even when smooth and/or wet, is still pretty diffuse. The white stripes were reflecting yellow light from the older lamps so (even if you didn't notice it explicitly) they stood out from the pavement both on a lightness basis and a slight color basis.
Our eyes detect contrasts in light and in color, and those simultaneous contrasts compound the apparent contrast. The use of panchromatic light, which even if not measureably "blue" is at the very least, much more blue in comparison to the the yellow light that previously illuminated our streets, has changed the simultaneous contrast that the developers of road standards relied upon to make our roads safe.
posted by notsnot at 5:48 AM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]
Second, blue light doesn't have much yellow in it.
You've seen the pictures of a red apple in green light? It looks black. Since something that we see as red reflects red light and absorbs the rest of the spectrum, under a green light there's nothing for the apple to reflect.
Blue lights don't have any yellow to reflect. Panchromatic - that is, emitting at roughly the same intensity throughout the visible spectrum - light does have yellow. But it doesn't have yellow light in relative abundance like old sodium-vapor lights. The yellow of the lines are no longer affirmatively selected by the yellow light.
Now, what about plain white lines? They used to stand out from the pavement, which is similarly colorless, due to both the difference in lightness (white lines, light grey to black pavement), and because they were reflective. Reflective, if nothing else, in comparison to the pavement which, even when smooth and/or wet, is still pretty diffuse. The white stripes were reflecting yellow light from the older lamps so (even if you didn't notice it explicitly) they stood out from the pavement both on a lightness basis and a slight color basis.
Our eyes detect contrasts in light and in color, and those simultaneous contrasts compound the apparent contrast. The use of panchromatic light, which even if not measureably "blue" is at the very least, much more blue in comparison to the the yellow light that previously illuminated our streets, has changed the simultaneous contrast that the developers of road standards relied upon to make our roads safe.
posted by notsnot at 5:48 AM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]
I think the answers from people who aren’t familiar with Seattle may be missing the point - it’s clear SDOT/WSDOT just...don’t use reflective paint. I have no idea why that is - it seems dangerously insane to me, and I completely agree that driving on many of these newly re-striped roads in the dark in the rain is terrifying. It’s been like this for years though, it’s possible the bluer light doesn’t help the visibility but fundamentally they’re buying the cheap paint as far as I can tell. Curious when you remember this being less of an issue in Seattle specifically? I’ve lived in the area for 30 years and have always remembered this being a “thing”.
posted by annie o at 6:29 AM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by annie o at 6:29 AM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
How many of us live in West Seattle? I’ve noticed this too, especially on the newly repainted Avalon Way! There are stretches of I-5 too where it’s very unclear where the lane boundaries are.
posted by wsquared at 6:46 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by wsquared at 6:46 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
I live in West Seattle and am age 54. (First time I’ve typed that - my birthday was yesterday!) My vision has been crappy my whole life but I’ve noticed the difficulty seeing lane markers the last few years. It’s gotten to the point where if I’m going somewhere at night with my spouse, I ask him to drive, especially if it’s rainy in a way that makes a lot of reflections in the road.
posted by matildaben at 7:50 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by matildaben at 7:50 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
I can't speak to Seattle, but I'm definitely seeing the same thing in North Carolina. [...] It's worst for me on 2-4 lane roads, where the lane markers might as well not be there at all
same experience for me when i go up to raleigh
(though, being prompted by these answers last night to look up cataract signs, i learned night driving has always been harder for me than other people because of my astigmatism and i should do it less, but the lane marker problem is definitely new for me within the last couple years)
posted by gaybobbie at 8:09 AM on February 6, 2020
same experience for me when i go up to raleigh
(though, being prompted by these answers last night to look up cataract signs, i learned night driving has always been harder for me than other people because of my astigmatism and i should do it less, but the lane marker problem is definitely new for me within the last couple years)
posted by gaybobbie at 8:09 AM on February 6, 2020
In my city, even the pedestrians are harder to see. The LED street lights aren't very bright - as far as I'm concerned, it's a debacle.
posted by vitabellosi at 9:07 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by vitabellosi at 9:07 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Lots of West Seattlites here! +1 for lanes seeming impossible to see, particularly in the rain. And I’m 31, so (probably) not age related!
posted by bluloo at 12:43 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by bluloo at 12:43 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
I’m in West Seattle too! Hi, neighbors. I’ve noticed this on Delridge.
posted by centrifugal at 4:39 PM on February 6, 2020
posted by centrifugal at 4:39 PM on February 6, 2020
I no longer live in Seattle but lived there for about ten years and holy hell have I experienced this. I don’t think it’s gotten particularly worse in the past few years (though the last time I drove to West Seattle was over a year ago) but for awhile I thought there was something seriously wrong with my eyes and tried about 15 different trial packs of contact lenses and got new glasses specifically for night driving before I gave up.
I didn't find a solution before I moved away but a friend who wore them while on his motorcycle recommended I try wearing yellow tinted glasses, apparently it’s a whole thing that can help with night driving.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 6:02 PM on February 6, 2020
I didn't find a solution before I moved away but a friend who wore them while on his motorcycle recommended I try wearing yellow tinted glasses, apparently it’s a whole thing that can help with night driving.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 6:02 PM on February 6, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by creepygirl at 7:40 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]