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No Stupid Questions @lemmy.world

SubArcticTundra @lemmy.ml

2y ago

Why do asian roads have striped curbs?

I've noticed this in pictures from accross asia, including india, singapore, and myannmar. This doesn't exist in European or American road signage systems.

35 comments

Generally, the color of the curb indicates where or not you can park a car there and for how much time. It may also indicate if it is reserved for a dedicated veihcile type.
http://guide.saferoutesinfo.org/dropoff_pickup/curb_striping_and_other_pavement_markings.cfm
- Not 100% sure in the case of Singapore, but the double yellow lines indicate no stopping.
  For places where we are allowed to park on the sides of the roads, there are either lot spaces already allocated and drawn out, or there will be no lines painted on the road.
  Double yellow lines in the picture here indicates no stopping at all times, so it would be a little pointless to have the curb indicate no parking again.
  The curb might just be for visibility, can't confirm.
- I suspect this is a remnant of the British era. Don't quote me on that. In Belgium we have yellow panted stripes to indicate you're not allowed to park. Similar.
  
  I always though it was at the UN agreement for road signaling.
  A lot of countries that that same standard.

There are 48 countries in Asia.

Going off this India traffic police site same as a white curb. High visibility marking the edge of the road.

Define Asian. I live in "Asia" and have never seen this.
- The huge sign behind the curb seems to say "Singapore", so that narrows it down a bit.
- That’s great news! I don’t need to buy an expensive plane ticket to Asia, because I’m already there.

In my country there are two combinations:
White & black = it's ok to park
Yellow & black = no parking
- Ohh I see, that's clever it didn't occur to me that it could have a msaning

In my country (Morocco)
Red/white curbs: No parking, usually found in intersection where parking could block the view from other drivers.
Straight continuous line by the curb: Not allowed to stop there (say for a quick errand)
Straight or double continuous straight lines in the middle: Not allowed to do a "U" turn. Generally, Straight lines should not be crossed.

I've skimmed through some Singapore's road guidelines and driver's handbook and didn't find any particular significance of kerb paining, from the context I inferred that striped kerb is painted that way just to be visually distinct, to be noticeable. Significant markings are made on the road alongside the kerb, like those two yellow stripes mean "no parking at all times".

My guess is that it makes it easier for drivers to detect bends in the road, as the stripes are painted at equal widths, so you can visually tell in your peripheral vision when the road is starting to slope a corner.

You picked a picture of outside a prison...
It could just mean "no parking" and not be on every curb
- The double yellow lines indicate no ~~parking~~ stopping. I think the stripes are mostly for visibility.
  Source: Am driver in SG.
- I dunno...I'm pretty sure it's a Rison

It's so you know how big the building is
https://tepetelegrams.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/gt14_k1025_p66_7209.jpg

I've only been all over China and Vietnam and I've never seen these.
- Same HK and S China, never seen them either. HK makes sense considering the GB influence but I wanted to flex I have been to HK (before the chaos). What an amazing city it was... sobs

Since at least some legitimate answers are already in, I will just say that I've noticed this as well from playing GeoGuessr, and it is definitely limited to only a few countries, I believe mostly in SEA.
- Ahh yeah, good to know that I'm not the only one who noticed this

In Indonesia, they are painted black and white stripes like that to increase visibility. Heck, Jakarta used to paint them using colorful palette a while back, but recently went back to black and white. I personally prefer them to use colorful paints instead of just black and white, especially in urban areas where everything is grey already.

note: philippines dont have this, only either yellow or red, or yellow with black stripes or just stock default concrete skin (un-painted) or theme town/city color (avenue specific in zamboanga del sur & zamboanga sibugay , idk in zamboanga del norte)
edit: to solidify my claim a bit
img

It's there solely to trigger migraines as you drive by.

Tl;dr can I park my van in front of this Singaporean prison and for how long until I attract attention?

Interesting! In Cairo (probably all of egypt) it's the same, just different colors

Zebra crossing
- how do the zebras know to cross there??
  
  They simply recognize their ancestors buried there.
  
  Simple, it's stripped black and white.

I saw something like that in Israel, it's like yellow lines in the UK, it tells you where you can park.

I feel like a quick web search could answer that, but I'm not going to do it either.
In US curbs where you can't park are painted bright yellow/orange, so I assume it's something like that.
- No. Singaporean here. No parking is denoted by having double lines drawn on the tarmac. I don’t know what the stripes are for.

35 comments