Highway Striping Fiasco: Alaska DOT Recommends Vaseline to Remove Paint From Cars

New yellow painted highway lines in the Alaska’s Panhandle city of Ketchikan are crooked and the paint that’s been used by state transportation officials has stained cars, officials said.

Among those affected was Ketchikan Gateway Borough Mayor David Landis, whose car ended up with yellow paint on it.

“You come to expect having highway striping like that to be straight and have orderly looking lines and be professionally applied,” Landis said. “Something was clearly wrong with the equipment or the operation of that equipment to have so many things wrong all at once.”

The problems emerged after the state Department of Transportation tried out a new line painting system on the Tongass Highway, The Ketchikan Daily News reported Saturday.

Department spokeswoman Meadow Bailey said the paint is “not drying as quickly as it should due to humidity in southeast Alaska.”

Bob Sivertson, a Ketchikan city council member, called it the poorest line painting work he’s seen.

Bailey said the state will not repaint the yellow lines.

She said people with cars that got paint on them should have the vehicles pressure washed.

If the car washes don’t work, she recommended spraying WD-40 lubricant on areas stained with yellow paint. The lubricant should be left on cars for up to two hours before washing them.

And if that does not work, she said, they should put a “liberal coating of Vaseline” on the car areas stained yellow. It should be left on the cars overnight before getting the vehicles pressure washed, Bailey said.