Just for the record...

[unixronin]

I purely detest driving at night on wet roads.  I can't see a thing on the road surface at night in the rain, because my headlights might almost as well not be on, and what little light does reflect back in my direction from the wet road is washed out by glare from the headlights of oncoming traffic.

It's doubly worrisome when I remember that they can't see a damned thing on the road surface either.

Comments

[unix-jedi.livejournal.com]

When I was growing up..... scuse me, this rocking chair squeaks, where was I, oh, yeah.. when I was growing up... Most of the roads were largely gravel. Lighter albedo. (I guess?)

I just noticed at some point, when they'd repair the road, they'd use really, really, really dark pavement. Which disappeared at night, and especially if it was wet.

When they repaved the top of the local interstate, putting asphalt down on top of the nice, light concrete, I saw a similar issue.

Now they're working on one on the US highway going down to Nurse Dixie's house. 4-laneing it, and again, the old road is almost white next to the new construction..

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I believe the very dark asphalt has rubber from ground-up tires mixed into it, which I'm told increases the resilience of the asphalt and improves its wear characteristics. I think I recalll having heard it improves traction too.

I understand one thing they're doing some places is mixing finely crushed glass into the asphalt. It makes the whole road surface slightly retro-reflective. I don't know if, or how much, it helps when the road is wet though, nor whether the ground rubber and the crushed glass can be combined.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

I guess I don't really care in a car; on my bike, after a good rain I know the asphalt is clean of the really slippery stuff (e.g., tree snot, oil) and the lines are crisp and easy to follow -- like a video game.