- The road to bizarre traffic control measures is lined with good intentions.
If you’re driving and the lane lines start getting squiggly like a slithering snake, it’s probably time to get off the road. That is, unless you’re in Pennsylvania.
Although even then, you should slow down.
A small town near Philadelphia has resorted to a — shall we say — creative method to try and control speeding on a neighborhood road. Instead of installing speed bumps or other more conventional speeding deterrents, they decided to something utterly unique.
The town painted the road lines in wavy patterns instead of running them straight down the road like you’d usually do.
The idea is that seeing the curving lines will confuse drivers. As such, they’ll slow down as they try to navigate the unusual lanes.
Well, the lines have kind of worked. They’ve certainly confused the local residents, who find the wavy lines ridiculous and/or frustrating.
Many say that they’ll simply continue driving straight through the lines as if they weren’t even there. And honestly — what’s going to stop them?
A Road in Need of Discipline
The crazy road lines are located in Montgomery Township, a small Pennsylvania town some 20 miles north of downtown Philly. They went down on Grays Lane on March 28.
Now, in all fairness, something needs to be done about Grays Lane. People are driving much faster than they should on the neighborhood two-laner.
“These traffic calming measures are being installed due to the numerous complaints/concerns we receive from residents about the ‘speedway’ Grays Lane has become,” Montgomery Township said in a statement.
So, what would you do if you wanted to slow people down on a road? Your first thought might be good ol’ speed bumps, and that’s also what was considered for Grays Lane.
However, it couldn’t be done. Annette Long, the vice chair of Montgomery Township’s board of supervisors, told 6ABC that the road is unsuitable for speed bumps, as it goes down a steep hill.
“There’s a lot of different things that we’ve tried that just hasn’t worked, so this is the next thing. Our engineers, our experts have said, ‘Let’s give this a try to see what happens,’” explained Long.
Mistaken for a Joke
Well, we can tell you what’s happened. The local residents are confused and annoyed in equal measure by the bizarre road lines.
In fact, due to the timing of the township’s original announcement, many locals thought it was an early April Fools’ joke. Montgomery Township had to put out another statement saying that the lines are serious business.
That led to people cracking jokes and expressing their frustrations.
“If you were to drive like that down the street, the police would think you were drinking and driving and pull you over,” Jeff Czekaj commented on the statement.
“I support the intent here, but those squiggly lines aren’t slowing down the drivers that are the real issue!” wrote Shane Griffies.
Indeed, a lot of people are saying that they have no intention to drive according to the lines and will simply plow straight through them. Some have voiced genuine safety concerns about trying to zigzag down the steep slope if the roads are snowy or icy.
Long acknowledges that the lines look weird, but insists that they are there for a reason.
“Yes, it looks like somebody just drawing lines went off the road and did their own thing, but it’s not what is happening. There actually is a plan for what’s going on here,” she said.
The French Did It Too
Unusual as Montgomery Township’s speed-controlling experiment is, it’s not the first instance of measures like this being used. The small French town of Bauné also did a similar stunt in 2023.
However, they didn’t simply make the road lines wavy. Instead, Bauné officials filled the entire problem road with a crisscrossing mishmash of road lines.
As they did in America, the lines confused and annoyed the locals. Still, the town officials claimed that the lines immediately started slowing drivers down.
To be perfectly honest, they did — for about a week. As soon as local drivers got used to the new lines, they started speeding straight through them like they used to.
But that was France. This kind of unruly behavior would never take place in America.
Right?