In the United Kingdom, many lanes are found in the countryside, and most of these lanes are wide enough for one car at a time and often have a lay by for cars to pass. In general, European laws and road width vary per country, with the minimum widths of lanes being anywhere between 2.5 m to 3.25 m (thus comparable to US lanes).
Painted lane markings vary widely from country to country. In the United States, Canada and Norway, yellow lines separate traffic going opposite directions and white separates lanes of traffic traveling the same direction, but this is not the case in many European countries.
Besides a painted line, lanes of traffic moving in opposing directions can also be separated by any of the following:
Such separations between opposing traffic are referred to as a median in American English and as a central reservation in British English.
When automobiles, trucks, and buses came into widespread use during the first two decades of the 20th century, head-on collisions became more common.
Without the guidance provided by lane markings, drivers in the early days often erred in favor of keeping closer to the middle of the road, rather than risk going off-road into ditches or trees. This practice often left inadequate room for opposing traffic.
There are two people who have been credited with the invention of lane markings. In 1911, Edward N. Hines, the chairman of the Road Commission of Wayne County, Michigan was trying to make roads safer. He supposedly came up with the idea of painting stripes to separate lanes of traffic after riding behind a milk truck that leaked milk onto the center of the road, leaving a stripe.
June McCarroll, a physician in Indio California started experimenting with painting lines on roads in 1917 after she was run off of a highway by a truck driver. In November 1924, after years of lobbying by Dr. McCarroll and her allies, California officially adopted a policy of painting lines on its highways. A portion of Interstate 10 near Indio has been named the Dr. June McCarroll Memorial Freeway in her honor.
By 1939, lane markings had become so popular that they were officially standardized throughout the United States, and they were soon copied worldwide.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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