Glow-in-the-dark roads will guide drivers

A smart road with glow-in-the-dark pavement and illuminated weather indicators will be installed in the Netherlands in mid-2013, its designer says. Daan Roosegaarde says his design studio has developed a photo-luminescing powder that will replace road markings, charging up in sunlight to provide up to 10 hours of glow-in-the-dark time once darkness falls. "One day I was sitting in my car in the Netherlands, and I was amazed by these roads we spend millions on but no one seems to care what they look like and how they behave," Roosegaarde told Wired.co.uk. "I started imagining this Route 66 of the future where technology jumps out of the computer screen and becomes part of us." Roosegaarde said special paint would also be used to paint markers like snowflakes across the road's surface, images that will become visible when temperatures drop to a certain point, warning drivers the surface will likely be slippery. The first few hundred yards of glow-in-the-dark, weather-indicating road will be installed in the province of Brabant in mid-2013.