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As the start of the new school year approaches in Australia, various road authorities have begun warning motorists about the incoming school zone laws.
While most drivers are familiar with their local road rules, to the uninitiated, coming across an unfamiliar road marking without knowing the state-specific law that apply can be daunting.
In the case of Victoria and New South Wales, a lesser-known road marking dubbed 'dragon's teeth' has been a conversation starter among tourists who have driven on state roads.
Dragon's teeth are distinguished by a stretch of road marked by triangles on each side of the lane and have been used in Australia for over a decade, while they can also be found in places like New Zealand, the UK and Spain.
The obscure road design has been photographed and uploaded to social media numerous times over the years, with users asking what it means.
In 2021, a Reddit post went viral online after a tourist posted a picture of a road marked with dragon's teeth in Victoria while they were visiting.
“What are these line markings for? Lasted for about a km. Northeast of the city,” the user asked.
“[I] was visiting, never seen them before. Thought it would be signposted because it’s not obvious what they are for,” they added.
One commenter, who claimed to be a traffic engineer, said, “They’re generally used to remind you that you’re entering a zone where you should be driving more slowly, like the transition from highway to town. But they’re increasingly being used to highlight an upcoming hazard.”
According to the state transport departments in New South Wales and Victoria, while dragon’s teeth are typically found in school zones, they can also be spotted along high-risk sections of roads and serve as a visual cue that reminds drivers to slow down.
It is worth noting they are the only two Australian states that utilise dragon's teeth on state roads.
In a 2021 Qatar University report, researchers said that visual road markings like dragon’s teeth are one of the most effective road safety measures due to their “perceptual road-narrowing effect” that “stimulates drivers to reduce their speed limit”.
More recently, NSW and Victorian road authorities have previously trialled new lane markings such as those that glow in the dark, to further mitigate road fatalities on state roads.
As previously reported by Drive, the NSW Government announced its plans to trial the glow-in-the-dark road markings along the hairpin turn on Bulli Pass – a mountain road approximately 76km south-east of Sydney – following “a spike in near-miss incidents between 9:00 pm to 4:00 am”.
According to the state government, the testing site was chosen after 125 near-miss accidents were recorded along the tight turn between January and June 2024.
“Data shows around a third of fatal crashes in NSW happen at night. If the trial is deemed a success, we will look at its applications [in] other locations with a history of crashes or near-misses where better visibility is needed,” John Graham, NSW's Minister for Roads, previously said in a media statement.
Ethan Cardinal graduated with a Journalism degree in 2020 from La Trobe University and has been working in the fashion industry as a freelance writer prior to joining Drive in 2023. Ethan greatly enjoys investigating and reporting on the cross sections between automotive, lifestyle and culture. Ethan relishes the opportunity to explore how deep cars are intertwined within different industries and how they could affect both casual readers and car enthusiasts.
