I work for a company that paints the white and yellow stripes on roads an highways. As well as crosswalks and anything white or yellow on the roads. Ask me anything!

Are the highway lines really 10 feet long? Wouldn't even know lol.

Yep they are. On a normal street they're just 6 feet long.

if you back up does it erase what you painted?

Nope just puts tread marks in it

Does your job present much opportunity to meet hot chicks?

Sometimes it does. We've been flashed a couple of times.

They were painting the roadstripes for the center line on my way back from classes right now. I noticed it seemed they were using a lot of heat? im assuming his is to cure the paint quick so it doesnt smear and mess up if people drive on it?

Correct. But what they were using isn't paint. I'm assuming it's on asphalt? If so, they were using thermoplastic. Essentially it's a powder that's heated to 450 degrees to melt and make pourable. It only takes a couple minutes to cure and when it does it's not coming off anytime soon. It burns like a bitch when it gets on you.

shit you learn every day! thanks for the reply man!

No problem man!

Is this the stuff I see on the sides of the shoulder, all chipped off the white line by snowplows during the winter? It almost looks like pottery shards laying on the side of the highway in some places as I'm riding my bike.

Most likely. It's probably thermo. It's plastic heated to 450 degrees and then hardens in minutes.

Thanks. It appears at a glance to have considerably more thickness than paint. Is it sprayed, extruded, or rolled out? It almost looks like it came off a roll, was heated and then mashed onto the pavement.

On the truck towards the back there's guns that spray it. Well not so much spray as it just runs out while the truck is moving. It's maybe a quarter of an inch thick.

Except on the PA turnpike, where they don't cure it after applying apparently, and your sideview mirrors and bumpers get an amazing yellow speckle if you're unluckily on it shortly after.

The stuff automatically cures itself by waiting. That's your fault for not being patient

Do you ever paint anything not white or yellow?

If so, how?

Some crosswalks by schools have like a green and white color. We use hot tape for that, that gets burned in by a giant blow torch. Interstates have black paint right after the white and that's just black paint in a separate tank.

Why are white lines followed by black lines on the interstate?

It's makes the reflection easier to see at faster speeds

Have you ever painted stripes on a human?

Only with edible chocolate body paint ;)

I've never seen crooked stripes on the road, how do you make sure they're so perfectly straight?

We mark it out with a string line and spray paint first. There's a camera mounted on the side of the truck and a screen in the cab with crosshairs on it. The driver will watch the screen and keep where the lines intersect on the line we spray painted on the road.

I have seen a lot of crooked lines. How does one fuck that up?

Some stuff is done by hand. Try pushing a 200 pound cart and trying to make it perfectly straight. Not gonna happen.

ever leave your initials or your mark on one of your lines as sort of a 'Blalockjames was here' sort of a deal? Don't worry, we won't tell

Nope. There's an inspector that comes out for every job we do. So I couldn't get away with it

You could make your own mark that no one would notice except you... like when I was a bored kid, I used to take come pliers and make my own unique mark on coins to see if they ever came back to me

I'm guessing you never had one come back into your hands? I just remember the jobs I've done when I'm driving through the area

Not long ago I watch a driver in a brand new (still had the 30day paper plates) jet black Range Rover splatter coat both sides of his new Rover because he was too busy on the phone and not paying attention to his driving and driving on lines that were JUST painted. Ie, the painting vehicle was maybe 100-150 yards in front.

My question is how hard will it be to remove his new white and yellow splatter coat paint job?

Pretty hard. They were probably using epoxy paint which will splatter. We use brake cleaner to get it off. It's not impossible but it'll mess up the finish on the car. That's why people just need to be patient and wait.

do you laugh your ass off at the people who get pissed off and fly by you and end up covering the side of their vehicle with paint?

It's pretty funny. We get cussed at a lot for doing our jobs but we cuss back at them

What is that black ribbony stuff that waves around from under the striping after a bad winter? And why is it necessary to block off ten miles at a time when people are only working on two?

That's from a separate company filling in the cracks in the road. It's not from striping. And also from another company to block the road off for construction. We don't close te road to stripe.

How do you get rid of painted directional on the road, example a lane changes from left turn/straight to straight only?

We will grind away the whole thing and either put a straight arrow in or put nothing there. Most of the time when they do that is when they redo the road so it's not often that it happens. At least where I live it's not often.

How often does this happen?

http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m46irsQeqh1qasthro1_500.jpg

Not often. The good companies blow off the road where they're going to stripe.

Is it ground glass in highway stripes that gives them their nighttime reflectivity?

Did you ever get the urge to do the Bart Simpson trick and make all the parking spaces a just little bit too narrow?

It is glass. They're called beads. There's a few different sizes. Nope I haven't. Our company doesn't do many parking lots. There's smaller companies that do those. We mainly do roads and highways.

Couldn't you do other colors?

Like, doesn't it get old after awhile?

It has to be yellow or white. That's a government thing. It does but the pay doesn't.

Can you give us an idea of said pay?

Sometimes it's $12 an hour, sometimes it's $17 an hour and up to as much as $43 an hour. There's always overtime and Sunday is automatically time and a half.

How many Rush albums do you own?

Who owns albums these days?

Sometimes I'll see lines that look like they've slipped or shifted a little bit, especially on crosswalks. Is it normal for that stuff to eventually shift out of place over time if cars are driving over it constantly?

It's not the actual paint, thermo or sometimes tape that's slipping but that so many cars drive over the road everyday that it grooves the pavement.

I will try to find the link to the most recent article but what is your take on when people mess up the lines and don't fix it? Are there any situations in which they can't? Sorry if you answered this somewhere else in your AMA!

http://m.nydailynews.com/news/national/wiggly-highway-lines-confusing-va-drivers-article-1.1916995#bmb=1

When people drive over wet paint we don't fix it. It costs more and sometimes they have to redo the pavement to fix it. If it's a line that isn't straight but not that bad we just leave it. Some stuff has to be done by hand carts and it's damn near impossible to get a perfectly straight line. Now if a bunch of paint or thermo spills then it'll get redone. Hopefully that answers it for you.

And my company is subcontracted so it's usually up to the main contractor. They're usually a construction or paving company.

Is the super reflective paint sold non-commercially? maybe i would like to make my whole bicycle yellow so i don't get hit by cars at night...

It's only super reflective when we spray glass beads on it while it's wet. I'd assume they sell stuff like that at Home Depot or lowes.

Ever done anything like this?

Nope. We're fortunate enough to know how to spell.

Is there anything that can go terribly wrong when doing your job?

Probably someone getting hit by a car. That's about the worst that could happen.

Did you ever paint a road stripe over a dead animal?

Nope. The road get blown off before we stripe anything.

Do you know how parking space widths are decided? It seems like they vary, but I thought there might be some kind of legislation about a minimum width.

Also, why aren't more crosswalks done with that zebra-crossing style with the fat white lines. Wouldn't it make them easier to see and safer?

I'm not sure about parking spaces but the minimum width or a road is 9 feet so I would assume the same for parking spaces. As for the crosswalks, a lot are like that on bigger intersections but they are a pain in the ass to do since we can't to it with the trucks.

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The company who did it messed up? I have no idea. Do you live in the US or Germany?