New and recent cars in the U.S. have a glow-in-the-dark emergency handle to release the trunk lid, but how much light exposure do they need to glow? My Googling only confirms that they glow after exposure to light, but as a practical matter wouldn’t there be times when there is minimal or no light exposure?
If you stuff your victim in the trunk quickly during daytime, or at night with no lights around, how does the handle get enough exposure to work?
I’m not questioning the value of the emergency device itself. Perhaps the answer is that it won’t always glow but it still works if you fumble around and find it, so it’s still valuable. But I’m curious if they’re made of something super sensitive to light exposure, more than the average glow-in-the dark item.
Cars are usually used outside, where the light is extremely bright.
Even a bog-standard glow-in-the-dark paint will still have a visible glow for many hours after a brief exposure to bright light. And, the thing to remember is: the glow doesn’t have to be very bright. If you are in a tomb-black box, even a glow that is barely at the threshold of human perception is enough. I suspect that those handles will be able to emit a glow like that for days after exposure to sunlight.
Here’s a curve I found.
It shows that for this phosphor, the light emitted is almost 10,000x more than the visual threshold after an hour, and is decaying very slowly.
At least the OP didn’t say “need answer fast”.
Ah, that’s helpful. Guess I was thinking more of the cheap glow toys I had as a kid. Thanks for the quick answer.
Paint the damn thing.
And - think about it this way: these handles are really designed to let people out who have managed to lock themselves in the trunk - kids playing, for example. In those cases, they are going to want to get out immediately - seconds after the trunk closes. Cases where someone wakes up after being in the trunk for hours are much rarer, and presumably, if you find yourself in that situation, you will probably find yourself bound and gagged, too…
Mount a light near the handle that runs whenever the car does.
Not to mention, if you are the victim of a planned snatching, the emergency escape handle would likely be removed.