Some Woodward drivers are finding it hard to stay in the lines.

No, it’s not because they’re intoxicated, but because the lines simply aren’t there.

Take a drive down Oklahoma Avenue and you can quickly see that in many places the lane markings are severely disintegrated, if they are there at all.

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation is in the process of rectifying the situation.

According to Royce Jordan, assistant division manager for maintenance for ODOT Division 6 out of Buffalo, a project has been scheduled to re-stripe Highways 412 and 270/183 through Woodward.

“I’m not sure on the (exact) dates, but there is a new plastic job set up for Woodward in the late summer or fall,” he said, noting the project also includes re-striping jobs in “five or six” other area communities including Alva.

Jordan said a statewide contract has been awarded to a company that will lay special plastic striping along the major highways and heavily traveled highways in various communities across the state such as Highways 412 and 270/183 in Woodward.

He explained that the plastic striping, which incorporates reflective beads in the plastic, is used because “it lasts longer.”

In addition, he noted that the plastic is raised up approximately one-eighth of an inch off the pavement, which can help it remain reflective even in the rain as long as the water on the road doesn’t completely cover the striping.

A contractor is being brought in to lay the plastic striping, Jordan said, because the “department is not itself equipped to put plastic striping down.”

“We have paint machines,” he said, noting ODOT uses those machines to re-stripe smaller and less-traveled highways.

When ODOT is doing the striping, Jordan said that repainting a highway is “normally done every three years or so.”

However, even he admitted that “it needs to be one more often than that, but the money isn’t there.”

In fact, Jordan said “when they got the money” is the biggest factor in determining when highways get re-striped.

Actual need for re-striping comes second, he said, noting that “we can turn it (a re-striping request) in, but whether it gets approved is based on if there is enough money.”

But every year, Jordan said “they allot us so much money and we go out and pick the areas that are in the worst need.”

He said the transportation department uses several criteria and measurements to determine the priority areas.

One measurement that is taken into consideration is the reflective power of the current stripes, which Jordan said is measured using “reflectometers.” He said these special devices can “detect how much light is reflected back by the stripes.”

Other criteria include “Mother Nature and traffic,” Jordan said, noting that these are the two biggest causes of wear and tear on road striping.

For instance, he noted that in sandy areas, the sand can become like sandpaper when it is whipped across the stripes by the wind or ground into the stripes by vehicle tires.

But even without the sand as an added abrasive, vehicle tires themselves damage the stripes through friction, Jordan said.

“The more traffic you have, the more often you have to do (re-striping,” he said.

Besides sand, Jordan snow and ice are other problematic natural elements. While snow and ice don’t destroy the stripes directly, he said they do indirectly contribute to the deterioration of the stripes since the blades used to remove the snow and ice from roads can also scrape off the stripes.

Since weather and Mother Nature are so unpredictable, Jordan said that it is difficult for ODOT to establish a regular schedule for repainting roads.

“There are lots of variables, so saying that we’re going to do it every one, two or three years is impossible,” he said.

If you would like to learn more about ODOT’s process for deciding when a road will get re-striped, or if you would just like to report a problem area within Northwest Oklahoma, contact ODOT Division 6 at (580) 735-2561.

Jordan said ODOT welcomes calls about problem areas.

“We want to hear about it. It doesn’t mean we don’t already know, but we might not know . . . so we appreciate the call and making us aware of it so we can go get it checked out,” he said.