The way construction workers paint words on roads is a mesmerizing form of art

You've been driving over works of art ever since you got behind the wheel of a car.

Bright white and yellow words on asphalt roads across America — STOP AHEAD, SCHOOL, SLOW, LEFT ONLY, BUS LANE, and other ALL-CAPS phrases— don't get there by some fancy line-painting machine.

A person has to put them there, and to say construction crews "just" paint words on roads is a great disservice to this amazing skill.

Just look at this fancy footwork:

You should watch the full video of the worker (master artist?) that Matt Round shared on Twitter. The guy pours scalding white paint into a hopper that looks like a pooper scooper, shuffles his feet, and turns out a crisp, perfect freehand inscription of "STOP" that thousands of cars will soon drive over without a care:

And here's a timelapse of two other road workers penning "BUS STOP" onto a road in London.

They first trace out the words, then expertly pour out the letters as paint:

And an extreme close-up of the same process:

Sadly, each of these safety-improving works of art lasts a few years at most.

Punishment by tires, summer heat, winter ice, and ultraviolet sunlight work hard to turn even the toughest latex, epoxy, and thermoplastic road paints into dust in short order — some crack and fall apart after just 9 months.

So take a moment to admire these paintings the next time you roll over them.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This amazing road-building machine rolls out brick lanes like a carpet