A road in Victoria’s East Gippsland region has been given a “glow-up” with photo-luminescent paint that gives drivers a stronger visual to follow when there is minimal light.
The special glow in the dark paint has been used in line markings along Metung Road, with plans to roll this out along various regional roads as part of Regional Roads Victoria’s Road Safety Program.
Regional Roads Victoria says the special line-marking paint illuminates curves or upcoming intersections, so you have more time to react.
The photo-luminescent paint is one of three innovative treatments that will be used in the program at 70 locations across regional Victoria. Other treatments being used are:
- LED tactile paving that changes colour between red and green with the traffic lights, providing a clear signal for pedestrians when it’s safe to cross the road.
- Road line-markings with high reflectivity, thanks to thicker glass beads and thermoplastic that is added to the paint, making the linemarkings on the road more defined and easier for motorists to follow, particularly when driving on unfamiliar roads with low visibility conditions.
Regional Roads Victoria says the project was brought on following worrying statistics.
Head-on and run-off-road collisions were the most common type of crashes in Victoria in 2015, responsible for 40 per cent of Victoria’s road deaths and serious injuries.
“A breakdown of trauma shows that, between January 2015 and December 2019, nearly half the deaths recorded on Victoria’s roads happened on roads with high speeds between 100km/h and 110km/h,” it said.
“These roads make up a small percentage of Victoria’s overall road network but are well overrepresented in terms of fatal and serious injury crashes.”