{"id":2162960,"date":"2026-09-25T09:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T06:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2162960"},"modified":"2026-09-25T09:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T06:25:00","slug":"heres-what-those-diagonal-black-and-yellow-striped-road-signs-are-telling-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2162960","title":{"rendered":"Here&#8217;s What Those Diagonal Black And Yellow Striped Road Signs Are Telling You"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"columns-holder\">\n<div class=\"add-on-google-widget\">\n<div class=\"add-on-google-heading\">Add Jalopnik on Google:<\/div>\n<div class=\"add-on-google-buttons-row\">\n                    <button type=\"button\" class=\"add-on-google-btn\" id=\"preferred-source\">Preferred Source<\/button><br \/>\n                    <a href=\"https:\/\/profile.google.com\/cp\/Cg0vZy8xMXBneTRxX2Zw\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"add-on-google-btn\" id=\"google-discover\">Google Discover<\/a>\n                <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In the world of road signs, some have meanings that are a lot less obvious than others, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/2214674\/how-cars-can-recognize-traffic-signs\/\" target=\"_blank\">some road signs are so simple that modern cars can recognize them automatically<\/a>. Those wordless, arrowless, retroreflective signs with diagonal black-and-yellow stripes seem to fall into a vague middle ground. On color and vibes alone, one would probably assume that they&#8217;re telling drivers some shade of &#8220;be careful&#8221; or &#8220;slow down,&#8221; such as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalopnik.com\/2216714\/why-some-speed-limit-signs-yellow\/\" target=\"_blank\">yellow speed limit signs<\/a>\u00a0that announce sharp speed limit decreases or hazards,\u00a0and they&#8217;d be right.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">These are known as &#8220;object markers,&#8221; and they exist to signal to drivers that there is an obstruction on or adjacent to the roadway. These could be a median or a barrier. They sometimes line the edges of an on-ramp to help drivers know where they&#8217;re going, especially in the dark, and they can even be seen at the bottom of other road signs to signify that there&#8217;s a road sign\u00a0there. And here&#8217;s something you might not have known: The direction in which the stripes go actually means something.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">More specifically known as Type 3 object markers, the official U.S. Department of Transportation names for these are OM-3L, OM-3C, or OM-3R, depending on which direction the diagonal stripes go. The DOT describes them as &#8220;a vertical rectangle with diagonal alternating black and yellow stripes.&#8221; 3L has the stripes at a 45-degree angle slanting downward to the right, 3R has them slanting downward to the left, and 3C has both types that converge in the middle.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Wherever the lines slant down is where you should drive toward, with the chevron-laden OM-3C indicating an obstruction that you can drive past on either side. These are placed, say, to signal the existence of a median where there are lanes on either side. But when these object markers are placed on the outside of a highway on-ramp, they&#8217;re the single-slant kind with the stripes pointing down toward where the ramp is.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">So, there you have it. When you see a rectangular road sign with nothing but diagonal black-and-yellow stripes on it, there&#8217;s an obstruction or at least something you shouldn&#8217;t drive toward. Look where the stripes slope down and go that direction instead.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Add Jalopnik on Google: Preferred Source Google Discover In the world of road signs, some have meanings that are a lot less obvious than others, and some road signs are so simple that modern cars can recognize them automatically. Those wordless, arrowless, retroreflective signs with diagonal black-and-yellow stripes seem to fall into a vague middle [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,247],"class_list":["post-2162960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-jalopnik-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2162960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2162960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2162960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2162960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}