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

[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.