The Line Down the Middle of the Road Was a Michigan Idea

Every painted line you’ve ever driven between — on every highway, in every country — traces back to one man on the Wayne County road board.

His name was Edward N. Hines, and in 1911 he had a simple but world-changing idea: paint a line down the center of a road to keep oncoming traffic apart. Cars were brand new, there were no real “rules of the road,” and head-on collisions were common because everyone tended to drive straight down the middle. The first painted center lines went down in 1911 on River Road in Trenton, in Wayne County. Within about a decade, every major road in the county had them, and the idea spread around the globe.

There’s a charming origin story: Hines supposedly got the idea while following a leaky milk wagon that dribbled a white trail down the road. Historians think that tale is at least partly legend — another version says he was inspired by watching a near-collision — but the 1911 date and the Wayne County first are solid.

Michigan likes to call the center line “the most important traffic safety device ever conceived.” Plenty of people would hand that title to the seat belt instead, so we’ll let you arbitrate. Either way, it’s a quietly amazing thought: a piece of road safety so universal you never think about it began on a Michigan street.