Human brains are kind of strange things, especially when it comes to tasks like driving. We’re really surprisingly good at driving, considering that nothing in our evolution could have predicted that we’d need to process visual information and react to it physically at speeds of a mile-a-minute, yet we somehow can pull it off just fine. At the same time, it’s remarkable how much we rely on visual cues like road lines and markings. When those visual cues are disordered, even if rationally we can understand that something is off, and we can see what should be right, just the presence of the misplaced marker manages to make everything really confusing. A great demonstration of this happened on Interstate 95 around Jacksonville, Florida, when a 23-mile long yellow line appeared on the highway, weaving among lanes and generally being confusing.
The line looks pretty much just like a conventional yellow road marking-type of line, though it’s just one line, not a double yellow or a broken yellow or some combination. Just a yellow line, straight but meandering among lanes with the ruthless abandon of a flock of starlings.
Local news coverage has been predictably delighted, with news trucks following the line from where it starts at the base of the Acosta Bridge to where it ends, at the gates of a company in an industrial park called Acme Barricades:
It’s probably worth noting that Acme Barricades lists among its services Thermoplastic Pavement Marking and Profiled Pavement Marking, and Road Paint striping, any of which could have been the method used to lay down 23 miles of yellow stripe.
So far no company, Acme included, has taken credit for the Great Yellow Stripe, but is it really that hard to figure out? It leads right to a company with the equipment to paint road lines? Maybe someone forgot to turn off the line-spigot on the back of the truck? I’m just wildly guessing here, not accusing anyone of anything, mind you.
I mean, this could also be a set-up from a rival road striping firm? Does Acme Barricades have any enemies? Did they send one too many defective pairs of rocket shoes to a certain coyote?
As you can see from the videos, the line was at the very least confusing to drivers, and would likely play havoc with automated lane-keeping and semi-automated driving systems. It’s remarkable to think about how something as minor as an unexpected line of color can cause so many problems, but that’s just how it works.
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is in for a tricky time as they figure out how to remove the line. Painting over it may simply make it even more visually prominent, for example.
FDOT Community Outreach Manager Hampton Ray was asked by news outlets of the department’s plans:
“We’re going to have an operation, where we take a street sweeper, with a wire brush, and we will be going and doing our best to dislodge some of the yellow paint from the roadway. We do not expect this to be the end-all solution.”
Man, what a mess. I tried reaching out to Acme Barricades, but got no response. I wonder if everyone in Acme Barricades was just told to lay low until the shit blows over?
This is why adults drink coffee, kids.
Auditioning for one of the new writer/editor spots… The phrase should have been reckless abandon, not ” ruthless abandon”…
Do you really think the editors are looking with reckless abandon for writers who only ejaculate standard phrases?
Standard English would be a very good thing to employ when working in the field of journalism.
I would expect standard usage in the NYT or WSJ, but in Autopian nothing wrong with a little fun with words in addition to fun with cars. “Ruthless abandon” was quite possibly an error but it is perfectly fine English with its own connotation.
Torch makes up words and phrases all the time…and honestly it works. Everyone gets the gist of his colorful lexicon and we are all better for it. Keep it up Torch, I don’t want to be spork-fed the news in standard issue packets…AI could do that.
As long as they never write “wreckless” (unless on purpose), I am perfectly fine.
It works especially well when you use them both together: “To promote wreckless driving, we’ve been trying to discourage reckless driving. Make sure not to get those swapped, though, like this driver, who crashed while filming himself entering a roundabout at 95 mph.”
irregardless still makes me twitch.
Of course,“ear regardless” is often confused with “ear regardless” meaning irrespective of what you hear.
Disregard my previous post which should have said: Of course,“irregardless” is often confused with “ear regardless” meaning irrespective of what you hear.
+1 for using ejaculate in a non-sexual context. Superbly cromulent.
It’s Torch, he makes point of never using normal phrases
They stole my idea I had for a garage sale when I was in college where I wanted to paint lines all over town leading to our house to attract visitors. Probably for the best we were too lazy to action on my idea…
All I can think of is Kramer painting the lines out the door of his awesome
“Experimental” 73 Impala
“Wide open lanes!”
My first thought. And then, “Oh the humanity!”
“
I’ve heard several people who live in chill areas with low traffic density and no commute say this lately.
It’s just ACME© YellowBrickRoad® New version.
It’s a good thing that the stripe is not painted with Acme tunnel paint, you would have cars just falling right into it. Well at least it would probably be worse that those San Francisco cable car slots.
Love this!
Oh, what if it opened up a 23 mile long crevasse? Florida’s version of the San Andreas fault. Hey, if we ever get angry enough at Florida we can just run a line of tunnel paint along I-10 and wave goodby as the peninsula floats off to Cuba.
But really, don’t we all know that the *other* end of the Acme Company’s yellow line leads directly to a tunnel opening that has been painted onto a cliff face?
[dit dit dit Meep Meep!]
Nah, they slapped down an ACME© Portable Hole™, dived in and escaped!
Are cliffs even geologically possible in Florida?
Sure are: they call them sinkholes
ok, ok, I know where the door is!
I think ACME just painted a cliff face on the back of a Best Buy. Same result.
Someone forgot to read the MUTCD (Google it)
Several years ago a crew forgot to turn off the yellow paint and made a u-turn just past an intersection in the Charlotte area.
Or, hear me out, someone was trying to find the secret local Stonecutters lodge, and it just happens to be in an unassuming building somewhere in the same industrial park as Acme Barricades
Funny/typical how the local news, once at Acme, does a quick close up of a vat of paint with an open spigot, but avoids actually showing any context, that it’s in fact sitting on Acme’s lot, etc. and then specifically does not directly address what it just showed.
If I were Acme, I might also have a lane striping truck load up some asphalt gray paint under cover of darkness.
Or Kramer in his Impala.
Or Rob in his old Discovery, dripping oil naturally onto the strip.
Who am I kidding, that line is 23 miles long, the Disco would never make it.
This has ASSMAN written all over it. Mystery solved.
Absolutely this. This yellow line would be gone tomorrow if it were me.
All I know is that regular random wheel marks etc give my VW’s steering help absolute fits. This line…oh man
Sounds like Acme has a big yellow stripe up its back.
a company that makes everything doesn’t necessarily make everything good
All I can think about is 23 miles of my wife’s Subaru flashing a “lane departure” warning and trying to correct the issue, and more importantly how dangerous that might be–especially people who might not know how to disable it quickly before it cancels itself out.
This would have been more Florida if the line had started at a recently robbed
bankcheck cashing place.COTD
Well can’t assume anything but yeah that ACME company is always making defective roadrunner trapping company why not this? But duck and cover bad idea.
As my late civil engineer uncle who worked on interstate projects used to say: “expect the uninspected.”
Thaaat’s a good one. Clever guy, your uncle.
I work in municipal permitting. I’m using this.
Thank you SOOO much.
Housekeeping note: 4th paragraph states the line is 23 feet long, not 23 miles
oops: A. Barth notes the typo in the very first comment
That makes it much, much less of a story.
Starlings are indeed renowned for their lack of ruth.
I believe Acme Barricades is where Wile E. Coyote purchased his road-striping paint.
Their trompe l’oeil tunnel paint is amazing too!
Acme Barricades was… blocking you?
Or 23 miles of yellow stripe 🙂