Volvo has long traded on its reputation for passenger safety, but it is also looking out for pedestrians and cyclists. In keeping with this, its newly announced Life Paint is aimed at making cyclists easier to see at night, by acting as an invisible reflective spray that glows under the glare of a car's headlights.
Volvo has teamed up with UK-based ad agency Grey London and Swedish startup Albedo100 to develop the glowing spray paint. While its main intention is to make cyclists more visible be coating their rides and helmets, it could be used by pedestrians and applied to any number of objects – think clothes, prams, dog leads, shoes and bags.
The paint is transparent and is said to make no noticeable difference to the feel of the material, lasting for around a week once applied. From there, once the user moves in front of a car's headlights, the sprayed material instantly turns to a hot white glow to improve visibility.
The question of how cyclists can be made easier to see, particularly at night, has turned up wide-ranging and innovative responses. From LED systems that light up the rims to serve as tail and headlights, to entire bicycle frames that glow in the dark, nervy night time cyclists have a growing number of options to help make them more visible to drivers.
Life Paint, Volvo's answer to this, forms part of its 2020 Vision initiative, a safety campaign promising that by the year 2020, no person will be seriously injured or killed by a new Volvo vehicle. To begin with, free cans of Life Paint will be given away at six bike stores in England. If the product is well received, Volvo plans to eventually make it available internationally.
The paint is demonstrated in the promotional video below.
Source: Volvo Life Paint
