A disproportionate number of fatal road accidents occur during the hours of darkness.
Several factors lead to this fact, including the increased likeliness of drink driving and fatigue, but a large contributor to accidents at night, particularly away from urban areas, is poor visibility caused by inadequate illumination.
It's neither economically viable, nor environmentally friendly to cover the country with street lighting, so cat's eyes have been in use since the 1930s.
They go some way to easing a driver's passage through unfamiliar and unlit areas, particularly in the countryside, but a new invention is now in production that promises, at least in theory, to improve road safety even further.
The Intelligent Road Stud is the product of a British company called Astucia and initial trials in Britain and Ireland suggest that the new product could have a significant impact on road safety.
Simply put, the new road stud stores solar energy during the day, which is then used to power bright light emitting diodes when darkness falls.
The makers claim that visibility is increased tenfold. As the cat's eyes reflect the light from a headlight, its range is limited to about 90 metres, but the new road stud should be visible from up to 900 metres away, regardless of the quality of the car's lights.
At a a speed of 100km/h, that potentially allows the driver up to 30 seconds to react to the road ahead, as opposed to just over three seconds with traditional cat's eyes.
Trials of the new product on select routes in Britain have produced clear results that indicate that accidents at night can be significantly reduced by the adoption of the stud.
Up to a 72 per cent reduction in accidents was recorded on a stretch of narrow, winding road in Wales used as a commuter route.
Many of Ireland's busiest national roads would be of similar construction.
The National Roads Authority (NRA) has also begun trials of the stud in Ireland, with a pilot scheme on the N71 west of Cork returning positive results.
A spokeswoman for the NRA confirmed that Astucia's road stud was in use and would probably be adopted in the future, but only in "certain accident remedial applications".
Further information from the company itself suggests that installations on the N11 south of Dublin and on the winding N86 from Tralee to Dingle will take place in the near future.
Other applications exist for this road stud for the future, including advanced warning of fog, ice, standing water and stationary traffic.
It can be hard wired into traffic-management systems for those purposes and is already being used at certain parts of the Luas network in Dublin and at school pedestrian crossings, where the crossing warden can turn the studs on to warn motorists.
As a replacement for current cat's eyes, the road stud is claimed by its manufacturer to be cost neutral, as it has a much longer useful life.