So, on Tuesday, the weather was especially horrid around here. It was POURING, which made the morning commute especially delightful. People were driving extremely slow, not staying in their lanes, and just making the trip to work quite stressful. Once I got to work, I decided to look at VDOT's website to see if I could find anything on road markings. I don't know if anyone has noticed, but in other states, the DOT's use highly reflective road markings, making it easy to see at night, in the rain, and in the fog. VA does not.
After perusing the VDOT website and finding nothing, I decided to send an email. To my surprise, I had a generic response to my questions, stating that someone would be contacting me, within about 45 minutes or so. Since I hear that type of response a lot in my line of work, I thought very little of it.
I was greatly surprised when about 2 hours (I think) later, I received a very long, detailed email from someone explaining why the highly reflective paint can't be used, the roadway markings make up, what is being done to make the markings more reflective, and on and on and on. I was also told, again, that my message was being forwarded to someone else - this time to the person responsible for the highway markings in my area. That was on Tuesday.
Today, I received an email from yet another person, stating that they are looking into the situation and asking me for the specific areas along I-66 where the markings are not clear.
I'm just amazed that an entity as large as VDOT has the time, or interest, to actually listen to what one driver has to say. I must say, I am impressed.
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