Governments around the world are continuously seeking ways to curb or ultimately prevent road accidents from happening. Claiming more than 1 million lives annually worldwide, it is even considered a public health crisis by most nations.
In their quest to promote safety on the road, Netherlands has piloted an ingenious project: make roads glow in the dark.
But while most kids — and those kids at heart — raved about it, the project run into some serious stumbling block.
Moisture, such as that encountered during rainfall, can quickly reduce the effectiveness of the glowing paint’s light output—the pilot road markings were just put in place two weeks ago, reports the BBC, and yet already they’re dimming due to large amounts of rain.
Another potential pitfall to the glowing lane markers: drivers have already been spotted cruising down the road in the test area with their headlights off so that they can see the glowing lines—a clear safety
hazard if such roads should become widespread.
Nevertheless, the engineering firm Heijmans, which is behind the realization of the pilot program in the Netherlands along with interactive artist Daan Roosegaarde, says a new version of the glowing road markings is already in development, and will be ready later this summer.
Presuming the second iteration of the glow-in-the-dark roads works as expected, a wider rollout is planned, both within the Netherlands and in other countries.
Perhaps in the Philippines, they should consider making the roads flood-free first before introducing this concept. After all, what’s the use of a glow-in-the-dark technology if nobody can see it due to the presence of dark, stinky rainwater?