Volvo Life Paint for cyclists

Volvo Life Paint for cyclists is highly reflective coating that can be applied to any surface.

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Car maker Volvo this week distributed 2,000 cans among London bike shops to gauge reaction from cyclists. They were gone within days.

According to Volvo: LifePaint is a unique reflective safety spray. Invisible by daylight, it glows brightly in the glare of car headlights. Making the invisible, visible. LifePaint washes off, and will not affect the colour or surface of your chosen material, lasting for approximately one week after application. Though designed for cycling, LifePaint can be used in all sorts of ways. Applied to clothes, shoes, and helmets, pushchairs and children’s backpacks – even dog leads and collars.

Volvo Life Paint website

Buy Volvo Life Paint

You can't buy Volvo LifePaint at the moment, but we have a can of it to give away. Just leave a comment at the bottom of this page letting us know what you’d spray and we will pick a name in two weeks.

Cyclists are not ‘invisible’

Volvo has an admirable reputation for safety in car design. The company pioneered the three-point seat belt and it’s vision is that ‘no one is killed or injured in a Volvo in the year 2020. But there’s the rub. The threat from cars today is to those unprotected by seat belts, crumple zone and air bags. Innovation such as LifePaint is welcome, but cyclists and pedestrians are not invisible as described by Volvo. Even at night. Drivers have a responsibility to look out for vulnerable road users – whether or not they are glow-in-the-dark or festooned in lights.

The simple rule that should see road users who kill held to account can be lost amid safety messages aimed at vulnerable road users. For most of the first half of the twentieth century, campaigners lobbied against mandatory rear lights for bicycles. To make an argument against a safety measure is bound to be viewed as controversial, foolish even, and it is hard to imagine why a groups concerned solely with the welfare of cyclists made it for decades in the face of almost certain defeat. The intention of the law was to improve safety, but the concern was that it would result not in a road network on which cyclists were more visible because they had lights, but one on which cyclists without lights were regarded as invisible. The argument made by campaigners was subtle and counter intuitive, but that a century later resonates in pressure to make cycle helmets mandatory and even the promotion of high-visibility and reflective clothing.

The ethical choice

The ETA was established in 1990 as an ethical provider of green, reliable travel services. Over 30 years on, we continue to offer cycle insurance , breakdown cover and mobility scooter insurance while putting concern for the environment at the heart of all we do.

The Good Shopping Guide judges us to be the UK’s most ethical provider.

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