paint a road red

There is nothing like installing a speed radar (or simply warning it) to make a driver take their foot off the accelerator. But there is a more effective method: painting the road. It has been proven that when we see colors, lines and shapes painted on the asphalt, drivers slow down. So in India they have not thought twice.

That’s why they painted the road red.

Because? Madhya Pradesh is known as “the Heart of India”. The region has been growing at a good pace for some time, especially supported by tourism that is attracted by its ruins, its temples and a truly striking nature. But this region is also famous for something else: tigers.

And those tigers are the reason India is building “the first red road”. Or what is the same, two kilometers where the asphalt has been painted a striking red color with the aim of alerting drivers and reminding them that they are traveling through a space where tigers, one of the protected animals in the area, roam freely.

Veerangana Durgavati Tiger Reserve. A wildlife sanctuary. This is how they define the website from this reserve to the area in which the road we are talking about is located. An area of ​​about 2,339 km² where tigers but also bears, leopards and wild dogs roam.

The problem is that the NH-45 highway also runs through that space, a road that connects Bhopal and Jabalpur, two cities with a total of more than four million people if their metropolitan areas are added.

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A road painted red. One of the solutions devised has been to paint the road red to signal to drivers that they are passing through a particularly sensitive space. The road has been renovated to redirect animal traffic to 25 underpasses and 11 cameras control that they do not sneak onto the asphalt.

However, one of the most effective measures is to paint the road with huge red squares. And although various measures can be taken to reduce speed on a road, painting the asphalt is one of the simplest in terms of effort and money invested.

In Spain, the DGT is trying to paint some sections with a huge red line. In Catalonia (the DGT has no powers there), try the same with circles at the entrance to curves to warn motorists. And in the United States it has been proven that painting the streets is a good method to protect children and prevent accidents.

Our brain. In this case, in addition to being painted, the squares also create a small noise in the tires to convey to the driver a greater obligation to take their foot off the accelerator. However, it’s just about tricking our brain.

When a road is painted with squares of this type or a red line is added in the center, the perception we have as drivers is that the lane is narrower and, almost immediately, we lift our foot off the accelerator a little when we perceive that it is more unsafe to travel at the same speed than on an asphalt that has not been modified.

It is, simply, a sensory illusion. Playing with the shapes and their sizes is enough for the driver to understand that something is happening there and that he should take his foot off the accelerator. In some Spanish cities like Madrid they have what are known as “dragon teeth” on streets with schools or hospitals to create the sensation that they are narrower and make drivers lift their feet.

and it works. The most surprising thing is how something so simple delivers results. In Bloomberg pointed out a long time ago that the city of New York implemented Asphalt Art Initiativeto draw enormous murals at the most conflictive intersections in the city. After painting them, drivers began to pass more slowly and the number of serious injuries after a hit went from 50% to 37%.

Something similar was used in a Beuné crossing (a town located near Angers, western France). There, his neighbors, tired of the town’s road being crossed as if it were a highway, decided to paint the ground. The result was immediate, the cars took their foot off the accelerator.

Photo | Veerangana Durgavati Tiger Reserve and Google Maps

In Xataka | A huge red line: the DGT’s experimental measure in one of the most dangerous stretches in Spain