People are only just realising there are horizontal lines on road to catch speeders
Have you ever driven on a motorway, or regular road, and noticed loads of horizontal, white lines in a row? It turns out they are there for a very good reason. Taking to Reddit[1], one driver asked: “What are these horizontal lines for?
I couldn’t seem to find anything on them.” Another person on the forum[2] said it had been “driving them crazy” trying to figure out what they meant. They added: “I’ve seen these markings on the M25, but my mum and I have absolutely no idea what they mean.” And in a recent TikTok[3] video, the account @drivingtestsuccess asked if people knew “what these lines are for” and shared footage of a car driving over a strip of horizontal, white lines in the middle of a lane.
Although some people knew, it turned out a lot of people didn’t.
Driving instructor explains what two lines on kerb really mean after ‘confusion’[4]
“Speed cameras use them to measure a vehicle’s position relative to the white lines in order to calculate speed”. While many knew they were “used to measure speed”, others commented with shocked-face emojis and others were thankful for learning the information. The white lines, also known as ‘dragon’s teeth’, are used for speed cameras, and there are two types.
One is painted in the centre of a lane, while another type is on the edges of the road. However, some Gatso (Gatsometer) speed cameras, which were the first fixed speed cameras to gain official approval from the Home Office, have no road markings at all. The Gatso cameras, which are the yellow boxes you might see on motorways, measure the speeds of passing vehicles.
If the vehicle speeds exceed a pre-set threshold, the camera takes two pictures. The white lines on the road ahead of the camera help to confirm what a vehicle’s speed was. Pictures are taken at two fixed points which can be used to determine a car’s speed by how quickly it moved from one point to the other.
Gatso cameras are rear-facing because they use a flash to take a picture, so as not to distract the driver. The image also captures the vehicle’s type, colour and registration plate. In addition, it will take not of the time and date of the offence, as well as the speed the car was travelling.
There are several other types of speed cameras used in the UK, including mobile speed cameras, average speed cameras and variable speed cameras.