Traffic signs in many places use retroreflective paint which reflects light back towards the source of illumination, making them appear very bright at night. I have long wanted that paint on my commuting bike.
As long as it has a working teleport…
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Rain and grey skies are not a rare consideration in south-east Australia, where the Accident Research Centre is located!
Source: am in Melbourne and literally looking at rain 
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Hotblack’s car has spent a year as an insurance right-off for tax reasons.
@alan_olsen My brother had a rather rust 23rd-hand VW Beetle. He cleaned off the worst rust and then he hand painted the entire thing with Hammerite Red Hammered Finish paint. The coat was a millimeter or two thick, and the result was that the car looked like a close-up photo of a Matchbox/Whizz-Wheelz toy.
@jradi72 Wlecome ot Biong Biong, cmorade.
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Or a commander who can temporarily evolve into an escape capsule.
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Probably better to use Baker-Miller pink
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This was my first thought. In my area, we also get fog, and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen white and grey cars without lights on coming out of the mist. “Stealth mode” in a moving car is something drivers should avoid, not embrace.
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Zaphod’s attention however was elsewhere. His attention was riveted on the ship standing next to Hotblack Desiato’s limo. His mouths hung open.
“That,” he said, “that … is really bad for the eyes …”
Ford looked. He too stood astonished.
It was a ship of classic, simple design, like a flattened salmon, twenty yards long, very clean, very sleek. There was just one remarkable thing about it.
“It’s so … black!” said Ford Prefect, “you can hardly make out its shape … light just seems to fall into it!”
Zaphod said nothing. He had simply fallen in love.
The blackness of it was so extreme that it was almost impossible to tell how close you were standing to it.
“Your eyes just slide off it …” said Ford in wonder. It was an emotional moment. He bit his lip.
Zaphod moved forward to it, slowly, like a man possessed - or more accurately like a man who wanted to possess. His hand reached out to stroke it. His hand stopped. His hand reached out to stroke it again. His hand stopped again.
“Come and feel the surface,” he said in a hushed voice.
Ford put his hand out to feel it. His hand stopped.
“You … you can’t …” he said.
“See?” said Zaphod, “it’s just totally frictionless. This must be one mother of a mover …”
He turned to look at Ford seriously. At least, one of his heads did - the other stayed gazing in awe at the ship.
“What do you reckon, Ford?” he said.
“You mean … er …” Ford looked over his shoulder. “You mean stroll off with it? You think we should?”
“No.”
“Nor do I.”
“But we’re going to, aren’t we?”
"How can we not
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69 comments in before one of us posted this? I’m disappointed, BoingBoing. 
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Are you the UK’s notorious “white vanna man”?
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Yes, I know these things, especially the fragility of the actual coating.
I just wanted to call Anish Kapoor an asshole 
Because he is
I still do want a really black paint for the bike though. Vantablack is too black, actually.
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Doesn’t matter how black it is. When the driver ploughs into pedestrians and cyclists the car troll group will be going “but they weren’t wearing hi viz”. Because victim blaming is the absolute baseline norm for the car industry and its Nazi adjacent troll army.
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Daytime running lights are a simple fix and should be standard. Living in the Seattle area I am daily amazed at the people driving cars with no DRLs at dawn/dusk during cloudy/rainy weather with no lights on. Fucking stupid. And it seems like almost all of them are some shade of grey/silver. Connecticut added a law decades ago that if your wipers are on, you are required to have your headlights on. Again, simple fix. Bright sunny weather can be just as bad. Here we have long stretches of two lane road with passing areas that are strongly shaded on one side at various times of day. They started posting signs telling people to turn on their headlights so oncoming cars could see them in the shadows. Would be interesting to see the results of those signs. I never take my headlights off automatic. It keeps the white DRLs on all the time and turns the headlights on when they are needed. The real problem with cars exists between the steering wheel and the driver’s seat.
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PA has a similar law, but I’ve never seen one of the scores of people ignoring it pulled over and given a ticket. I guess it’s a secondary offense. With so many states trying to increase revenue through traffic fines, you’d think that this would be low-hanging fruit. Anyway, the other big issue is older cars (like mine) that don’t have automatic DRLs. My lights are off unless I turn them on, which fits your final point.
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This gives me an idea for a new kind of puzzle.
Build an intricate sliding/locking puzzle mechanism using super-precision machined parts, as seen in this video. Then, paint the whole thing vantablack.
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Daytime running lights don’t turn on the rear lights.
If the weather is bad, turn them all on.
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No, I’m a very careful and considerate driver.
I’m assuming the Vantablack paint is matte, yes? I should think a gloss coat would defeat the effect to a point.
Matt turned up to 11.
