White Sidelines To Replace Marker Posts On Roads

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29389, 16 December 1960, Page 18

White Sidelines To Replace Marker Posts On Roads

(From Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, Dec. 15. White sidelines will in future replace marker posts at the edge of many highways. National Roads Board members yesterday agreed that all rural State highways with a width of more than 24 feet should be marked with a six-inch broken sideline. All rural motorways will be marked with a continuous fourinch reflecting sideline and marker posts will be eliminated. The first programme will cost about £5600 yearly and the second about £lOOO. Board staff will continue trials on the use of sidelines on roads which are sealed to a width of only 22 feet. Trials have already been conducted on 44 miles, of highway. Under the new decision a total of 350 miles of highway and 32 miles of motorway will be marked. Mr W. H. Brown, newly elected

member of Parliament for Palmerston North and a motorists' representative on the board, startled most of the board members by suggesting that centreline markings might be abandoned in favour of sideline marking. He said several automobile -associations had already supported such a proposal. The acting chairman, the Director of Reading (Mr P. L. Laing): You are my only friend. We tried it in Takaka and they do this, I believe, in the state of Connecticut. Certainly, on a winding alignment, no centre line seems to be sensible.

Mr Laing said he believed marked sidelines tended to draw motorists toward the edge of the road but existing marker posts seemed to push them toward the centre.

The Commissioner of Transport (Mr A. E. Forsyth) said overseas experience had not borne this out. The board agreed that the major advantage in marking: in sidelines woula be at night when motorists would not need to concentrate on the centre line and face directly the lights of oncoming vehicles.