What are the important applications of reflective materials?

The glowing stripes on police uniforms are made from a special reflective material, which mainly includes reflective film, reflective ink, reflective line paint, reflective fabric, reflective leather, reflective webbing, and reflective safety silk fabric.
Not only do police uniforms have these magical glowing stripes, but when night falls and you are driving through the bustling streets of the city or on the highway, you will not only see the signs by the roadside shining brightly, but also the road markings appearing like shimmering light bands. These glowing signs and light bands are truly amazing!
However, after the car passes, if you look back, you will find that those glowing signs have disappeared, leaving only dark shadows. What is going on here?
It turns out that this is the effect of a new type of retroreflective material, which can reflect most of the light from the car's headlights back along the original path, making it easy for the driver to see the road signs.
The traffic signs we commonly see by the roadside are generally made of metal, but those that can reflect light or change color at night are coated with a thin layer of lead film, and the surface of the lead film is adhered with tiny glass beads that resemble flour.
These small glass beads gather the incoming light, enhancing the reflective properties of the lead film. When light or sunlight shines on the sign, it reflects the light back, causing the color of the sign to change or making the sign more noticeable, thus helping pedestrians and drivers to recognize it more easily.
How are such magical glass microbeads produced?
The production process is as follows: first, the raw materials are melted into glass liquid at a very high temperature. The glass liquid is then formed into many mist-like droplets through a special nozzle. Under the action of surface tension, these droplets automatically form regular spherical shapes, and after cooling and undergoing certain treatments, very useful glass microbeads are obtained.
Glass microbeads can be used to manufacture many retroreflective materials, such as luminous fabric, reflective coatings, reflective inks, and so on. The application of these materials spans across public security, transportation, fire protection, railways, coal mines, and they can be seen in labor protection products and civilian products.
The reason reflective materials can reflect light is mainly due to the presence of high refractive index glass microbeads in most reflective materials. It is their presence that reflects the incident light back to the light source, creating the retroreflection phenomenon.
Because it reflects light almost entirely within a very small angular range, its brightness is far greater than that of ordinary objects.