That's a bit contradictory. If you can't see the road markings the road is not drivable.
But yeah if you can't see the road markings due to an active blizzard, flip the hazards on, follow the tail lights ahead of ya, and stay in the middle of were the road should be.
Isn't this what road signs are for?
You’re absolutely right. You just do what you need to do.
Having some form of inertial navigation supplemented by GPS and visual odometery from features that stick out from the side of the road (like a road sign; memorized by the vehicle on past drives) would help a lot. A HUD UI could show road markings on “slice” of the road.
Call it “low viz aid” or something catchy.
In my case, I was driving on a rural road just before dusk without street lighting where there is nearly no traffic on a good day. Low-beam headlights were reflecting off the flakes and high-beams were obviously out of the question.
Risk of a collision with another vehicle was low, but going into the ditch was possible if you didn’t know the bends of the road.
Yes, these are dangerous conditions, but I started off driving in rain and didn’t anticipate the switch to snow mid-drive.
They're fun to drive on still, but there's an over-reliance on painted road markings, which are often not repainted, if they're even visible they disappear when it's raining, or just you know, when there's traffic and the car in front of me is covering it.
It's the absolute fucking worst on gyratorys and other complex roundabouts where I have no idea which fucking lane to be in because I can't see the road marking, covered by cars, positioned right at the entrance to the roundabout rather than before.
Would be completely solved by ensuring roundabout signs were so far in front of the roundabout depending on road speed, then on the roundabout sign indicating at each exit the # of which lanes you can take to get there, ie mark exits going around with 1 2,3 3,4 5. Then I know immediately that the left most lane is dedicated to the first exit, to take the 3rd exit I can be in the 3rd or 4th most lane. And "going around" has a dedicated lane, the 5th from the left.
So sick of being forced out the wrong exit because I've picked the wrong lane and there's too much traffic. So sick of locals in areas complaining on forums about the "idiot drivers" not magically knowing the road layout beforehand. So sick of having to change lanes and feeling like the asshole in the equation because I know it looks like I've done it to queue jump; I'm not trying to skip ahead, I just have no idea where the fuck I'm going.
Gyratory lane markings are shit, too. Proper lanes and then with each segment no marking at all before the lanes start again, it can often be difficult to tell which lane you need to funnel yourself into after the break because the road numbers on the lanes up ahead just aren't visible until you're right on top of them.
Then the driving test here. Oh, the driving test. The first time I tried it I failed for failing to indicate correctly at a mini roundabout. Okay, fine, fair dues. Pass second time. Been driving a while now & maybe like 30% of people actually indicate on a roundabout. Let alone all the other antics people pull while driving here; pass the strict test & then throw it all out the window.
Mount Baldy (right next to LA) is expected to see 7+ feet of snow over the next few days.
I'm fairly certain they're aware of the particular fact you mention. We do have (had thanks to this drought) multiple ski resorts across the state that do not rely upon artificially-made snow to operate.
> Developed by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, the Advanced Rotary Plow (ARP) uses a network of magnets embedded along the roadway to guide the massive snow-spewing machine along the Interstate in zero-visibility conditions -- like a blinded pilot flying on instruments. Meanwhile, an onboard array of sensors sniffs out obstacles -- such as abandoned cars, hungry cows, napping yetis, or whatever -- that may lie hidden beneath the deep snows.
https://path.berkeley.edu/development-advanced-rotary-plow-a...
https://path.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/development_of... (pdf)
The PDF has a complete breakdown of how it works (and I mean really complete - like "here's all the gates in the magnetometers")
You can see some of the interface in https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/janfeb-2001/safe-plowi...
> This ASP Human-Machine Interface is mounted on the windshield. Some of the worst visibility conditions on the planet can be overcome with the aid of the ASP cab-mounted display, which receives its data from the plow's collision-warning system. Radar sensing assists human sight to find the road and obstacles that may be in the way of the plow.
Recently, I drove in a whiteout blizzard with huge flakes without much accumulation on the road. Road was drivable, but I couldn’t see road markings. The experience would have been less scary with some sort of augmented display to show the road borders.