Strange Road Stripes

[even sven]

I was driving one day, and ran into some traffic. Ends up they were painting horizontal stripes across one of the lanes.

They are done with them now. The stripes are yellow and white, spaced close together, but in fairly random groups. There are maybe thirty of them (then again, my estimate may be way off).

What re they for? My guess is that they are used to judge speed from helicopters or something, but there is no set down the road, and they are in the right lane and only on one side of the highway. Please enlighten me!

[NothingMan]

WAG : The DOT does testing from time to time on road paint. Those horizontal stripes could be several different types of paint. They put them on the road that way to let the max amount of cars drive over them and subject the paint to wear and tear. The line that ages the least over whatever period the testing takes place gets used as regular road stripes. That is just a guess however.

[Crusoe]

In the UK they use horizontal stripes as a way to guage speed (and distance from the car in front), but as you say they are usually in groups. Maybe they were about to paint more groups when you passed?

There are also slightly raised ones used as mini speed bumps to slow you down, too.

[Bottle of Smoke]

Nothingman, your WAG sounds spot on. The description matches what we have on a busy road here (horizontal stripes of paint spaced closely together). There is a sign on the roadside that says "Test Paint Area."