Field guide
Driveway edge lighting and marking
How to decide when driveway lighting is enough and when a surface cue or edge marking is more useful.
Start with the driver’s eye line
Lights that look attractive from the house may not show the driveway edge from a reversing or turning vehicle. Walk and drive the route at night before adding more fittings.
Where marking helps
Marking becomes useful where there is a shared access edge, a tight bend, a wall, a drop, a pedestrian crossing point or parking that needs to be read quickly.
Do not over-mark a domestic driveway
For homes, subtle edge cues are usually better than a full commercial bay layout. For business parking, bay and route markings become more normal.
Relevant materials
For hard surfaces where an edge or route cue is needed, compare hard-surface line marking paint. If the driveway is really a customer parking area, use car park line marking guidance instead.