are your lines up to the mark? (text and images source)
.."The use of road markings has grown with the use of the motorcar, initially as a result of the 1
st
National Conference on Street and Highway Safety in Washington DC in 1925 to what is now a multi
million pound international road safety industry serving all developed and developing nations."
The absolute minimum level of retro reflectivity to produce a reaction time of less than 2.0 seconds is
100 milicandelas / lux/metre sq. (It is this level that the RSMA research outlined above indicates is not
reached by up to a third of markings on all UK A roads and motorways) Consequently Germany has increased the lane line minimum width on all high-speed roads to 15 cm
wide and there has been a major increase in the use of wet night visibility markings throughout the
EC, with the exception of the UK.
Materials
There are generally four basic road-marking materials on roads, thermoplastic, paint, two-component
resin based systems and preformed. Each one of these systems use reflective glass beads to provide the
required retro reflectivity
Paint
It is estimated that paint is used for approximately 70–75% of the world’s population of road
markings. Paint is used currently on 80% in France and 60% of markings in the USA
The benefit of paints that it does not require heating and can be applied very quickly at speeds up to 15
kms per hour, has little build up and has an affinity to glass beads which improves their retention and
consequently the retro reflectivity of the marking. The draw back is that the application window is
restricted to May until October because of weather conditions Improved acrylic resins have increased durability and performance waterborne paints when compared
with the old solvent based paints. Durability of between 2 - 3 years dependant on traffic volumes with
high retro reflectivity within the range 140 – 250 can be expected
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