[Skid289]

They’re called Bott’s dots after their inventor Herbert Dyson Botts who worked for the CA DOT back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. They used to be attached to the road surface with nails that would eventually pop out and flatten car tires. A student of Bott’s Herb Rooney invented a fast setting super strong adhesive that resulted in them becoming ubiquitous. Except in areas that get a lot of snow where the snowplows just scrape them up.
Here where I live almost every road has grooves cut into the outside lane’s right side to make an audible noise if you drift too far right.
I drift too far right a lot but this is a thread about driving not politics:^)

[Chainmail]

In 1968, I was stationed Camp Pendleton California and the road outside, then Highway 99 and later Highway 5, was a two-lane blacktop road with a single line painted down the middle.

We used to call it "slaughter alley" because the combination of high speed driving, no seat belts, drinking, and the near invisibility of the lane markings at night/rain/fog caused many head-on crashes.

lost 58,000 dead during Vietnam and uncountable thousands to training accidents and motor vehicle crashes during those years.

Thank God for Herbert Botts (and seatbelts, airbags, and the near cessation of drinking and driving).