With millions of motorists traveling from point A to point B and back again every day, roadways, highways, and interstates have become the arteries and veins of our modern world. With so many people on the road every day, it makes road safety an ever present issue. And, of course, with higher traffic levels come higher numbers traffic accidents. In the best of circumstances, an accident results in an unwelcome time sink; in the worst of circumstances, it can mean major injury or even death.

To help make accidents less common, cities, counties, and states utilize a wide variety of safety measures. One common safety measure used today is the application of informational road surface markings using road stencils. High quality road stencils, like those offered by California Traffic Safety, help create simple, easily understood directions for pedestrians and motorists alike.

You may be wondering exactly what road stencils are. Well, to put it simply, are thin sheets of aluminum or polymer plastic that have shapes and characters cut out. These stencils can be used to create almost any shape or word. The stencils are placed on the pavement or cement in the position where the design is supposed to go, and then specially formulated pavement paint or pavement thermoplastic is applied. Once the stencil is removed, it leaves behind a clean, clear road marking.

To prevent the paint or thermoplastic from seeping out of the stencil cut out, extra care and precision must be applied during the creation of the stencils. Good, high quality road stencils are designed to embrace the pavement to help maintain clean edges on each and every design application. Another way that we help maintain clean road marking application is by providing rolled edges on many of our aluminum stencils that will be used with pavement paint. These edges provide protection against overspray.

Road markings created using stencils can be seen on almost any road in the form of turn lane markers, driving instructions, and area specific traffic codes. The different road markings used locally and nationally provide a simple, passive way to direct traffic flow, inform pedestrians about safe areas.

However, these stencils are used for more than just applying informational road marking to motorways, they are also commonly used in parking lots and parking garages. While stencils can be used to create car parking slots, they are also commonly used to designate specific parking stalls as handicap spaces in accordance with the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). Other surface markings are used in parking areas to provide information and help direct traffic throughout the parking area. Stencils make the application of these markings more consistent and efficient for a team of any size.

Of course, consistency and efficiency of road marking application are generally considered to be the top advantages of using road stencils. However, we wanted to provide you with a list of some other advantages our stencils could provide for you.

• Order – Simply application of road markings provides simple, passive order on roadways. The use of commonly understood road markings provides structure and conveys information for motorists. Without road markings and signs designed to create order, roadways would be an even bigger area of chaos than they already are. Could you imagine large, busy roads without these types of visual cues? It’s a scary thought, right?
• Safety – By creating order in the chaos of road travelers, road stencil enhance road safety. In fact, properly placed signs and road markings can help prevent traffic accidents that can represent anything from a minor inconvenience to a major tragedy in someone’s life.
• Standardization – When traffic symbols are standardized, they are far more easily recognized by drivers and pedestrians without extra time and effort. Road stencils make it possible to apply the same traffic symbols in any number of locations throughout a region of any size.
• Passive Traffic Regulation – Stencils allow traffic authorities to create functional roadways that don’t need constant oversight. By using road stencils for the application of standardized, commonly understood road markings, traffic can be directed passively during temporary road work and in permanent traffic patterns.
• Easy Road Marking Application – Our road stencils are high quality and extremely easy to use. That means that almost anyone on your team can use them to create clean, simple road markings. They are also easy to clean, dry, and reuse, so you can keep making effective road markings in the future.
• Cheap and Easy Maintenance of Road Markings – Because our road stencils last a long time, it is simple and easy to reapply fading road markings at need. The same stencil can be used with new material apply a new coat of pavement paint or pavement thermoplastic.

We maintain an inventory that includes a wide range of number and letter kits along with common road marking symbols in a variety of common sizes. However, many of our customers find themselves in need of customized road signs from time to time. When they need something created just for them, they come to us.

We utilize state of the art CNC router cutters to create any desired design with a remarkable level of precision. What does that mean for you? It means that we can quickly and easily produce a stencil for any road marking you can think of. And unlike other companies, we provide this service with an extremely fast turn around. Once you provide our team with information regarding what you want, we can design, cut, and ship your custom road marking stencils in a matter of days — usually within 3-5 business days to be precise.

Our team here at California Traffic Safety is ready and able to help you get exactly the right stencils made from exactly the right materials for your road marking needs. If you’re ready to get started, we encourage you to contact us today!