FILE: Snowy conditions slows the speed limit on I-80 near the mouth of Parleys Canyon in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Dec. 27, 2018. (Steve Griffin, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — “We the people are tired of the dangerous conditions that exist during inclement weather on Utah roads.”
That’s what Nick Bodkin is saying on a petition he started and is hoping to send to Governor Gary Herbert.
Bodkin is frustrated with how difficult it is to differentiate between the lanes on Utah’s roads when we get bad weather.
“From the moment it starts to precipitate the existing road lines become invisible, making it excessively dangerous to travel, even during mild weather. The use of salt during the winter as a de-icing agent furthers this issue as it has a tendency to turn the roads white,” he writes on a Change.org petition that’s garnered nearly 34,000 signatures.
UDOT Spokesman Zach Whitney told KSLNewsRadio’s Dave and Dujanovic that they’ve been working on finding a better solution, but that Utah has a few unique challenges.
“One of the big issues that we deal with is our climate. We have extreme heat in the summer and then we have freezing temperatures snow in the winter and finding a solution that will last through those extremes is one of the big issues that we’ve been facing.”
One of the things Whitney says they have been testing is different sized reflective glass beads that go on the stripes.
“So just to be clear, when we talk about reflective paint, the paint itself is not reflective at these glass beads that are put on top of the paint and that’s what reflects light back from your headlights or the overhead lights.”
In the past, Whitney says, the beads being used were all the same size.
Whitney says he thinks that is a great idea for surface streets where people are typically driving much slower but thinks there’s a better solution for our bigger thoroughfares.
“UDOT is phenomenal. They do work tirelessly to try and keep the roads clear and they do a really good job of it, but sometimes Mother Nature makes it unfeasible to keep up.”
He says that along with another Utahn they might have a better idea.
“It’s actually a self-contained RGB LED illumination unit that gets installed right into the road.”
You can hear the whole conversation Dave and Debbie had below and let them know what you think on Facebook.