#1852: LightLines

I object to the fact that huge acreages of the UK’s roads are now bounded by painted no-parking lines. They are truly ugly and don’t seem to have that much effect on people who are too thick not to understand if they are causing an obstruction.

In addition, the cost of maintaining millions of metres of road paint is enormous.

Today’s invention is to have any such parking restriction symbols projected onto the road surface by streetlights which are almost always overhead in such urban zones.

Each streetlight could be fitted with a lens and some computer-controlled, coloured filters.

This would allow parking regulations to be timed more flexibly and the symbols would be visible even on snowy days.

The extra cost of running the lights during daylight hours could be minimised by using high efficiency lamps and projecting eg a row of bright blobs rather than continuous lines.

No more road closures would be required for the endless task of paint burning and upgrading.