Talk:Botts' dots

message: I am looking for a source for this, but I always thought that Botts' Dots referred to ALL raised pavement markers, not just the non-reflective type.  The Caltrans website that's linked in the article seems to be inconclusive, but the wording suggests that "raised pavement markers" and "Botts' Dots" are synonymous. Does anyone work in the industry have first-hand knowledge?
Also, I believe that blue markers for fire hydrants are universally reflective... this allows engines to see them clearly at night in an emergency.  I don't want to edit this if someone else knows differently as a fact.
Finally, is there any reason why these are a separate article from the main "raised pavement marker" page?  Sorry if this has already been the focus of discussion... it may be practical to merge the two together.209.59.32.221 23:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Botts' dots as far as I know is a colloquial California English term that has been picked up by a few other West Coast states but is not yet universal in American English.  Also, the formal term is "raised pavement marker."  And FYI, this page used to be separate, then was merged with raised pavement marker, then was split out again.  The problem is that there are a lot of amateur roadgeeks wandering in and out of various segments of the Wikipedia transportation articles, but very few transportation professionals.  --Coolcaesar 03:58, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Botts' Dots 

message: These notes were in the article until . I'm not sure where they belonged to, so I've moved them here.
* Cave, Kathryn. "State lab in fast lane of high-tech road gadgets." The Orange County Register, 21 October 1991, sec. A, p. 1.
* Martin, Hugo. "Behind the Wheel: The Botts Dot's Future May Hit a Bump in the Road." Los Angeles Times, 23 October 2001, sec. B, p. 2.
Zetawoof(ζ) 01:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I can tell, they didn't belong to any content in this article.  They seem to belong to content that ended up in Elbert Dysart Botts. -SCEhardT 02:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unused references 

message: Do you know what's the typical distance between the dots? is it equal between all the points? 80.178.114.234 (talk) 13:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Distance between two bots dots

message: Did anyone else hear of these things called "road cookies"?  That was the only name I had for them until I heard about Botts.  Frotz (talk) 08:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Never heard that term.  Sounds like a neologism or regionalism.  The correct formal name is nonreflective raised pavement markers and the common name across the Western United States is "Botts' dots."--Coolcaesar (talk) 20:09, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A little late here (as always), but in Washington state, (we've been using them for as long as I can remember, and I'm approaching 30), the colloquialism (sp?) for the device here is "turtle bump" due to their loose resemblance to the shell of a turtle when the turtle's body is retracted. In fact, KOMO 4 News did a story on them and the reporter never used the term "Botts' Dots", and instead used "turtle bumps." Srosenow 98 (talk) 11:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Road cookies 

message: I removed Washington from the list because snowfall is somewhat common there. South Bay (talk) 15:17, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Word removal 

message: The Louisiana photo shows raised square reflectors, but not what Californians call Bott's dots. As the article intro says, they are the round non-reflective dots, not highway reflectors that might be white, amber, red (wrong way), or blue (hydrant location). I think the first, second, and third photos are enough for this article. - Parsa (talk) 16:58, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Louisiana photo 

message: I hate to say this, but User:Vegaswikian (who in many other contexts has been one of Wikipedia's best editors) unfortunately made a confusing mess out of the historical narrative when trying to split the article on Elbert Dysart Botts out of the article on Raised pavement markers at this edit on 17 July 2006.  That is, I had just added a section to raised pavement markers explaining how Botts had led the development of the dots. In attempting to minimize overlap between the narrative of Botts' life and the narrative of Botts' dots, Vegaswikian inadvertently created narratives that are discontinuous, incoherent, and don't make sense in both this article (which was split out of Raised pavement marker six months later) and in Elbert Dysart Botts. 
For starters, a key point that Vegaswikian transferred to the Elbert Dysart Botts article but omitted from what became this article is that it was later work in the 1960s that determined the modern pattern of how Botts dots should be used and resulted in their widespread use. By omitting that point in this article, this article subtly overstates the importance of Botts' own research. Any objections before I fix this mess? --Coolcaesar (talk) 13:52, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  The historical narrative in this article is a mess 

message: Botts is not plural, so, shouldn't it be "Botts's Dots"? 2600:1011:B024:B9F3:9FB:470A:53D3:92FB (talk) 07:28, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apostrophe placement?