cat's eyes

We don't see these cat's eyes road markings here, but they are used throughout Britain.  Two mirror-backed glass marbles reflect headlights at night and mark centre lines and road edges.  They can be white, red, yellow, green or blue indicating different road conditions.
They were invented in 1933 by Percy Shaw, who patented them and then set about manufacturing them.  The glass marbles are set in a rubber block mounted in a metal casting embedded in the road.  If a car drives over it, it is pushed into the road and the rubber decompresses after, raising it up again.  There is a small reservoir that collects rain which washes the glass marbles keeping them clean. 

In my youth I spent a summer in England with the Commonwealth Youth Movement, and we were billetted with various county families as we travelled about.  Staying somewhere in Yorkshire and driving home after some do we were at, no doubt at an army base, I noticed that my billetter turned off his headlights whenever we went through a village or small town, and then turned them on again when on the open road.  Not on full, just on dipped, which shines about 5' in front of the car.  It all seemed quite dark to me, not to say dangerous. 

However, then, you didn't put on your headlights while going through villages as they would shine into people's windows and disturb them, besides there were dim streetlights or light from other people's windows to give enough light to drive by.  On the open road, the cat's eyes caught even dipped headlights far enough ahead to be a sufficient guide.  Cars didn't go fast: small winding roads and small engines did not allow it, also the phrase 'mustn't frighten the horses' comes to mind.  Life was deferential, quiet, frugal, measured.  People invented things.  They were allowed to be eccentric, as evidently Percy Shaw became. 

I doubt that any of this exists anymore in our over-developed OECD countries, however, one could travel the world looking for quiet, frugal, measured, polite societies where life is slow rather than headlong, and I expect one would find people inventing things of great usefulness – an eccentric concept in itself.