Let's Get Ready to Rumble!!!

Well, it is June 1, and it has been a while since I posted anything dealing with roadgeekery. Therefore, it's time to do so!

I took this picture in late April heading back to Colorado from Houston. It is a stretch of Texas Highway 6, just a few miles to the north of the towns of Bryan and College Station. Highway 6 is a major state highway that runs from Galveston County on the Gulf Coast, to the Red River where it crosses into Oklahoma to become Oklahoma Highway 6. Major cities of note on the route include Houston, College Station and Waco.

The thing that makes this stretch of highway interesting is the fact that there is not one center stripe, but two...one for each lane. But that's not all. Notice that there are not only rumble strips in the pavement on the outer edges of the roadway, but between the center stripes, there is also a rumble strip. This is a great idea, as it would give a loud, audible warning if a driver veers across into the oncoming lane. Such a simple thing could easily result in saved lives by warning inattentive drivers that they could be about to cause a deadly head-on accident.

This is one innovation that should be considered for all roads where oncoming traffic shares the pavement without benefit of an esplanade.