Why? The paint now superreflects the light from your headlights, and your headlights will wash out any GITD paint.

Maybe glow-in-the-dark isn't the exact right substance, but they need something . The lines don't reflect headlights very well, and are pratically invisible in the rain. Many more streets are putting down reflectors on the lines to make them visible at night, which does a nice job of solving the problem, but luminescent paint of some sort seems like a great idea.

GITD paint would benefit cyclists, pedestrians (esp. partially sighted) - it wouldn't be just for motorists

Somthing has to be done other than reflectors, and light emmiting lines in the road might just be it.

I thank reflectors for saving my life many times over during all the night highway driving I do, but not being able to see the lines is a big problem. Now, I CAN see the lines when I have my brights on, but they can't we used when theres other traffic around.

Glow in the dark paints would be good, even if they didn't glow all through the night, traffic driving over them with their lights on would help extend their lumionosity.

LED's buried in the ground would work too. All that is needed is a little light, enough to distinguish lanes, we don't need the Sun buried in the road every six inches. Besides, LED's can have a life span of 600,000+ hours.

Or perhaps if the paint itself responded to low voltage to produce light.

These are just ideas to which we can build more ideas...

Why not just make the next version of the road paint both visable light reflective (like it is now) and UV reactive (like some Glow in the Dark items are.) Then just put a powerful blacklight infront of the car, and the road-lines will glow very brightly.

-Pathway

The LED concept is interesting, but it would require a power source. Mass production of a gadget which would consist of a small solar cell charging a rechargeable battery by day plus a light sensitive switch which would discharge the battery through the LED by night would provide a permanant power source that could be embedded in the road as an independent unit might be cheap enough for wide dispersal. The same gadget might be useful for other attention spotting utilities throughout the city. It might be made as a blinker to save power and increase attention. An alternative power source might be some kind of piezoelectric crystal in the gadget which would charge the battery when a car drove over the device which would mean that the line of lights would have to be somewhere in the line of driving or a separate charging spot on the road would power the light at the side of the road.

All this sounds cool until you think about the long term effects.1.) Glow in the dark paint - traffic paint wears off with each passing car. That's why they repaint every year. The chemicals in glow in the dark substances would end up in rivers and streams. Now, wouldn't that be cool!The paint currently being used most places is a non-toxic water-based latex. Retro-reflective glass beads are applied while the paint is wet. They work. So well that most people don't even know they work.2.) LEDs in the Pavement - Good idea too except for the wasted electricity. Besides, we already have street lights on every corner in urban America. We don't really need more light pollution. What about rural areas? Sure. That's what I want as a driver. Something that attracts more bugs to the road. . .LEDS are being used in traffic signals. They are quite bright. The high expense is recouped in power savings within 2 years. They are not as durable as people think they are when they are out in the elements. Just think about what would happen when the rain & snow gets in them.

How about just getting your headlights properly aligned?