ARE these the shortest yellow lines in Dorset? Greg Hayward, who passes them on his way to the shops at Broadstone certainly thinks so.

The mini road marking, only 26 inches long – or 22-and-a-half inches from the vertical bar – have recently appeared in Clarendon Road, Broadstone.

“It looks silly,” said retired Greg of Corfe Mullen, who passes them on his way to the shops in Broadstone.

“This stretch of road has always been yellow line free, although they are adjacent to a gas main cover.”

Nowhere near a car’s length, the little lines can just about be covered by a tyre.

There is a gap of a couple of car lengths before the lines begin again to stretch around the corner of nearby West Way. However motorists had better make the most of the abrupt end to the yellow peril.

The stretch of road is not going to be restriction-free for long.

“Yellow lines were recently introduced at the junctions of Clarendon Road, West Way, Ascot Road and Upton Way, following requests from local residents that parking should be controlled around these junctions,” said Steve Dean, senior engineer at the Borough of Poole.

“Obviously lining contractors often find that there are cars parking in places where they need to paint lines and they paint as much as they can and then return to finish the gaps.

“This gap will be painted very shortly.”

They might be the current shortest yellow lines in Poole, but a Norwich street claims to have the ‘world’s shortest’ double yellow lines, at a mere 17 inches long. These lines in the city’s Stafford Street were laid down to distinguish a permit parking zone from a two-hour limit bay.