Are Zigzag Markings a Jolt From Roadway 'Hypnosis'?

Loudoun Wants Drivers to Slow Down

One thought striking confused drivers as they approach some of Loudoun County's busiest intersections: Were they drunk when they painted these lines?

In fact, the zigzag stripes on the roads are intentional.

As part of a yearlong experiment aimed at perplexing drivers enough that they slow down at crosswalks, the Virginia Department of Transportation last month painted 500 feet of the white wandering lines at two popular hiking-biking trail crossings in Loudoun. Engineers say they are modeled after similar designs in Australia, Britain and Wales and are among the first of their kind in the United States.

If the markings prove effective and decrease the number of accidents, officials say, more will be painted across the region.

"It's really to increase motorists' awareness," said Lance Dougald, principal investigator for the zigzag program at the Virginia Transportation Research Council, the Richmond-based research arm of VDOT. "This is really designed to take drivers from their highway hypnosis."

But public reaction to the zigzags has been mixed so far, with some motorists complaining that the lines are instead causing befuddled drivers to swerve. Others are skeptical about whether the painted lines will do anything to alter long-term behavior.

Glenn Maravetz, an Ashburn driver who commutes to work on Belmont Ridge Road, said the zigzag lines might actually divert motorists' attention from Washington and Old Dominion Trail cyclists who dart into the road. He called the lines "distracting." But to Barbara Munsey, a member of the Loudoun County Planning Commission who lives in Sterling, the lines are, at a minimum, "an attention-getter."

Randy Dittberner, an engineer with the traffic agency's Northern Virginia headquarters in Chantilly, said the zigzag lines are a "great opportunity. . . . A lot of people have been frustrated at not having a lot of tools" to address a serious safety concern.

He notes that at the two locations on Route 7 where the lines were painted, congestion, limited sightlines and speeding are major concerns. At the stop at Belmont Ridge Road, 14,000 vehicles pass through the intersection per day at average speeds of between 40 and 50 mph. At Sterling Boulevard, 25,000 vehicles a day pass through at average speeds of between 35 and 40 mph. And accidents have long been a problem everywhere roads cross the 45-mile trail.

Between 2002 and 2008, there were 23 accidents at the trail's roadway crossings, almost all involving bicyclers. A 54-year-old Herndon psychologist died in June 2006 after being hit by a car near Hamilton Station Road in Fairfax County.

Expensive improvements, which could include new traffic light signals and flashing beacons, are planned for more crash-prone areas of the trail, Dougald said.

In the late 1990s, to try to find less-costly and more effective alternatives, the Federal Highway Administration sent a team of experts to other countries to evaluate their traffic safety methods. The Virginia Transportation Research Council borrowed 12 ideas to use in Virginia on a trial basis.

This is not the first time Virginia's traffic researchers and engineers have experimented.

Horizontal pavement strips, dubbed optical speed bars, were installed three years ago at gradually decreasing distances on Lee Chapel Road where the Fairfax County Parkway meets Route 123. They were supposed to make drivers think that they were going faster than they actually were. They dropped driving speeds slightly but didn't catch on.

Blinking red lights on the perimeter of stop signs were used in Virginia's more rural south to help drivers spot the unexpected markers. They, too, failed to stem the growing number of accidents in those areas.

VDOT officials aren't sure what to expect from the zigzag lines but will try to gauge how they are working this week by placing "fake" pedestrians in the crosswalk to see what happens.

"We don't know if it's going to be successful, so that's why we're experimenting," Dougald said. "But if it is, we might see more of these in troubled locations."