VENANGO CO., Pa. – The northwest district of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) is reminding motorists that line painting operations will get underway starting tomorrow, weather permitting.

The six-county region, which includes Crawford, Erie, Forest, Mercer, Venango, and Warren counties, owns two paint trucks. The equipment is scheduled to complete line-painting operations throughout the region in the coming months, starting with the interstates.

Motorists who encounter a line-painting operation should follow these guidelines:

· Stay back at least 500 feet from the equipment.

· Don’t drive on wet paint lines.

· Don’t pass the trucks in a paint train.

· Be patient as the paint truck will pull over periodically to let traffic pass.

Weather conditions often affect how quickly line paint will dry. Under ideal temperatures and humidity, the average time for the paint to be no track is 90 to 120 seconds. It can take several more minutes for the paint to completely dry.

Drivers are responsible to operate their vehicles within the roadway lines and follow all warning and advisory signage. Additional information on the statewide line painting effort is available on PennDOT’s website, www.penndot.gov.

Motorists who travel across the paint lines too soon and discover paint on their vehicle can take steps to clean it off immediately by washing it at with a hand-held pressure car wash system. This will loosen and remove most of the paint unless it has dried for more than a day.

For paint that is in high concentrations or dried for several days, there are additional cleaning instructions available online at www.penndot.gov/District1 under the FAQ sections listed within the Resource section.

Subscribe to PennDOT news and traffic alerts in Crawford, Erie, Forest, Mercer, Venango, and Warren counties at www.penndot.gov/District1.

Follow PennDOT’s northwest region on Twitter at www.twitter.com/511PAErie or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/northwestregionpenndot.