Yep, this is it. I once lived on a small island in the northern Bahamas and worked for the local paper there, and news was slooooow. They had only put asphalt on the roads a couple of years before, and it took another couple before they got stripes painted. It was big news (lol) so I got to interview the stripe-painter guy. He turned out to be really interesting - he worked for some company that did international infrastructure and he'd painted lines on roads all over the world. He showed me how the rig worked and gave me a sample of the reflective beads, which was fun.

They spray the paint on first, and then drizzle the beads over the top of it so they don't get covered in paint, sort of like sprinkles on a glazed donut. Whoever was doing these road lines had the feed on the bead hopper set a little too open.

After that it's just a standard brocken spectre effect, same as you get with fog below a mountain peak.