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Glow-In-The-Dark Smart Highways Coming To the Netherlands In 2013
An anonymous reader writes "The Netherlands is moving forward with plans to build 'smart' highways that can become more easily visible in the dark or communicate weather conditions to drivers. Work will begin as early as next year. 'Special paint will also be used to paint markers like snowflakes across the road's surface — when temperatures fall to a certain point, these images will become visible, indicating that the surface will likely be slippery. Roosegaarde says this technology has been around for years, on things like baby food — the studio has just up-scaled it. The first few hundred meters of glow in the dark, weather-indicating road will be installed in the province of Brabant in mid-2013, followed by priority induction lanes for electric vehicles, interactive lights that switch on as cars pass and wind-powered lights within the next five years.'"
but cautious corporate officials decided to wait for AOL Netscape's patent on the "blink" tag to expire.
Why don't Dutch dykes have glow-in-the-dark holes so we know where to stick our fingers?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
How will drivers see glow in the dark images when there is snow on the roads?
What happens when a really dirty set of tires goes over these markings on the road continuously? If they are not visible, will that lead to more accidents? It seems like a "smarter" thing to do would be to somehow network these highways electronically or using WiFi or something so that you can then use the computer in your car or smartphone to get very localized information about the conditions on the road on which you are driving.
http://xkcd.com/678/
High friction surface which requires constant work and they want to paint it in temperature sensitive markings which will get covered in sot and worn down in a heartbeat? Prolonging any and all road maintenance.
Why not just have a sign painted in the same material which does the same job, except you can actually see it a lot easier?
I do like the idea of glow in the dark roads for increased visibility, but not for reading the temperature.
has been around for years, on things like baby food....
And Coors Light beer cans.
interactive lights that switch on as cars pass
That sounds impressively unhelpful and annoying.
Now if the Netherlands would re-relax their laws concerning foreigners purchasing recreational drugs, I could really see a huge spike in tourism next year
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
Our roads turn white to signal that it is snowing.
I'm glad there's at least one country on the planet with a clue. Or at least way more than anyplace else.
There's a stretch of highway by my place that has these really cool LED lights countersunk into the centre line that I'm sure were marketed as a great way to increase safety. The stretch of highway is a narrow 2 lane non-divided temporary by pass around a construction zone (major interchange being built to no where).
The problem with these fancy LEDs is they are so dim that I actually find myself quite distracted trying to determine if they are in fact glowing. Had they gone with a much lower tech solution of putting countersunk reflectors, my headlights would have gladly lit up the centre line.
Glow in the dark stickers, etc. only work when the surrounding area is really dark, otherwise there just isn't enough contrast.
I hope this tech provides a significant visual contrast or else it will just be a distracting and annoying waste of money.
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
Now you know why Google wants self-driving cars. Then you don't have to pay attention to driving. Then they can put ads on the roads!
Now coming to a road near you!
The first few hundred meters of glow in the dark, weather-indicating road will be installed in the province of Brabant in mid-2013
They do realize .. you had to be outside to either get in the car or at least to pull out of the garage, right? Might notice things like "shit it's below freezing" or "shit it's snowy, roads might be slick". Just sayin'.
Like the weather station telling me it is raining right now. Yeah no shit, I can look out the window and I can hear it on the roof.
As an American, I want my country to monopolize this war on common sense. Americans don't look at road markings - that's why their SUVs are always weaving across the double-yellow at least a few times a minute. Everybody doing that makes it easy for drunk drivers to get away with it too. Oh and actually watching traffic conditions and road painting might mean putting down the cellphone we're texting on or the cheeseburger we're eating because we're fat and it's been a while 20 minutes since we last ate a 1000 calorie meal. We have to do this as much as possible because soon self-driving cars will remove the thrill of being a stupid and unnecessary threat to everyone else!
And that's the American Way. It's about time these damned Netherlands people realized they're stealing our anti-intellectual property.
Germany already has glowing lines and signs. The stripes on the major roads are highly reflective, so you need no glowing paint, as long as you have good lights. Some signs are also luminescent, but do not glow as much as it was proposed in the pictures of this design. German car manufacturers have been thinking about inductive charging too. The Electricity in here is expensive, so the proposal with inefficient charging was not welcomed by reality. I believe that the city of Dresden was thinking about inductive charging for trams and buses. Not sure what became of that, but they probably will do it after the state financed university will figure out how to do it cheaper than gasoline, diesel and gas.
~ Best man at your service.
What are the "priority induction lanes for electric vehicles"? Do they inductively charge electric vehicles? Are they toll lanes to pay for the electricity?
There's baby food which contains an image which gets visible when its surface becomes slippery? WTFBBQ.
I'd like some of that here, to reduce light pollution.
I hope they're not going to try to patent this.
Fukushima and Pripyat already have glow in the dark roads!
Thanks. I'll be here all week. Or at least until management kicks me out.....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Those socialist hell-holes get all the good stuff.
But we'll have the last laugh when the US becomes one big Foxconn dormitory, because we'll still have our liberty.
You are welcome on my lawn.
So someone invents an alien shape-shifting (OK I exaggerate, color-shifting) technology, and the first use we think of is to put it in babyfood?
time.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Speaking as a Kanuck, if you can see the road, then you don't have snow yet. The only thing that helps is a good GPS receiver.
What happens when snow covers them?
In a related story, Wired apparently is still in business.
Trippy dude
Don't all of you know that only in America can advanced products appear or be put into play. Just ask a republican. There is no global warming and there is nothing in Europe that we didn't have in America in 1910. And there are no pretty girls in France either. And they are dirt poor and live in filthy hovels and are all bankrupt due to socialism from things like trying to save lives with safer roads which is clearly an un American Marxist conspiracy.
Like, nobody's suggested markers that light up when there are zombies ahead?
Or (good luck with this one), markers that respond to cars passing over them (like the in-pavement triggers for left-turn lights) by lighting up for the next 3 seconds to indicate to the next driver that he's driving too dang close to the car in front of him.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw