Why are the white lines on a highway a set length and distance apart and how long are they and distance apart are they?

Answer 1

I must say, you do raise a fascinating question.

The only way one could know for certain that the length and distance between successive white lines are constant is to measure them all. I have never done that, and perhaps you have not, either. I assume you mean the dotted lines in the centre of the road, painted there to separate the lanes. To be sure, they look the same; but it would be extremely difficult to ascertain that they are in fact constant, wouldn't it?

It is certainly possible that the machine for painting those white lines is equipped with some fashion of random-number generator that assigns different lengths and distances whenever the painting machine commences to paint a new stripe, designed to keep the variations so small as to be un-detected by the naked eye.

Such an elaborate device would make the painting machine thus embellished terribly expensive; if such were discovered, it would very probably become the focus of numerous questions raised in the House of Commons. I should surmise that your average minister of transport would prefer the more basic model of line-painting machine for use in his ministerial department: namely, the one that lacks the requisite random-number generator to produce white stripes of random length and distance betwixt them. This would easily explain the relatively uniform lengths and distances that we seem to perceive in the white lines painted in the road. It would also explain the notable success with which ministers are known to keep their departmental budgets trim.