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When driving on U.S. highways at night, motorists may come across a particular roadway marking made up of reflectors that appear red when headlights shine on them. Though they may seem like simple traffic markers, they play an important role in road safety.
The system has been installed on certain U.S. roads as part of measures to prevent incidents.
Why highway reflectors appear red when a driver is traveling the wrong way
The red reflectors some drivers see on the pavement of U.S. highways serve as a warning to motorists who mistakenly enter a road in the wrong direction. They are bidirectional reflective devices that change color depending on the angle from which they are viewed, since they can show white or yellow light to drivers going the correct way and red to those traveling the wrong way.
The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) installed this system to reduce crashes caused by drivers entering highways from exit ramps. The reflectors are positioned so that a vehicle’s headlights make the warning visible at night. According to a Caltrans report published in July 2020, during a pilot program in San Diego, the number of wrong-way drivers fell 44% after installation.
What a driver should do if they see red reflectors while driving at night
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) warns in its official handbook that seeing roadway reflectors in red in your headlights means the driver is traveling the wrong way. If that happens, the driver should correct course and get out of that situation only when it is safe to do so. The agency also says signs may appear with the words Wrong Way and Do Not Enter.
If, instead, a driver spots another vehicle traveling the wrong way, Caltrans recommends pulling out of its path as soon as possible and safely, keeping the headlights on and calling 911 to report the situation. It also warns not to try to follow the vehicle traveling the wrong way.