Lane

::For people named Lane and other uses of the word, please see Lane (disambiguation).

History

For much of human history, roads generally did not have lane markings. This was probably because most of the time, pedestrians, equestrians, and horse-drawn vehicles all moved slower than 10 miles per hour most of the time, and thus everyone had adequate time to swerve around each other. Photos of the streets of any major city from the 19th century show all three types of traffic freely intermixed with each other. Another reason for not using lane markings was that they are expensive to maintain.

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However, when automobiles, trucks, and buses came into widespread use during the first two decades of the 20th century, it became common for drivers to get into head-on collisions, or to literally run each other off the road.

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Anyone who has ever driven a vehicle is aware that it takes long practice to develop a sense of where the edges of one's vehicle are in relation to the road's edges and to other vehicles. Without the feedback provided by lane markings, novice drivers in the early days often erred in favor of keeping closer to the middle of the road, rather than risk going off-road into ditches or trees. Unfortunately, this practice often left inadequate room for opposing traffic to go by.

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The invention of lane markings is generally credited to an American physician, Dr. June McCarroll. Based in Indio, California, McCarroll started experimenting with painting lines on roads in 1924 after she was personally run off a highway by an inexperienced truck driver. By 1939, lane markings had become so popular that they were officially standardized throughout the United States, and were soon in use all over the world.

Related Topics:
Physician - Indio, California - 1924 - 1939

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A portion of Interstate 10 near Indio has been named the Dr. June McCarroll Memorial Freeway in her honor.

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