A small town in western France has gone viral for marking a busy intersection with overlapping white lines in order to confuse motorists and make them slow down.

The town of Bauné, near Angers, is home to only about 1,700 people, but it has to deal with heavy traffic on a daily basis, because of its location at the crossroads between two departmental roads – D74 and D82. Some of the roughly 2,300 that pass through Bauné every day can have speeds of over 100 km/h (60mph), even though the town’s intersection is clearly marked with signs limiting the speed at 30 km/h. In order to get drivers to slow down, local authorities came up with the idea of using confusing road markings in the form of overlapping continuous lines. Interestingly enough, the strategy worked like a charm!

Photo: Facebook (Ca Bouge sur Baune)

Photos of the bizarre road markings in the busy intersection of Bauné’went viral on French social media last month and left a lot of people scratching their heads. Many people pointed out that a continuous white line is impassable, so having them overlap and cover the entire square doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Others simply wondered why the local authorities didn’t use more traditional means of decreasing vehicle speed, like a roundabout or traffic lights.

According to Grégoire Jauneault, deputy mayor of Loire-Authion and the person in charge of local development, the deliberately confusing road markings started working on the day they were completed, with data showing a significant decrease in motorists’ speeds. However, a part of the local community that the result is only temporary and that as soon as motorists figure out the game, they’ll go right back to their speeding ways.