Patent ID: 8534952

Claim:
An apparatus for enhancing the visibility of guardrails, the guardrails each having a highway-facing side and a non-highway-facing side, the guardrails being attached to vertically-anchored posts and extending horizontally between the vertically-anchored posts, the respective guardrails each having a double-wave shape comprising an upper crown and a lower crown on the highway-facing side of the respective installed guardrails, the upper crown and the lower crown connected by an integral component, the upper crown and the lower crown having a convex shape and the integral component having a concave shape forming the double-wave shape, the guardrails having guardrail orifices disposed in the upper crown and lower crown at two locations along the length of the respective guardrails for attaching respective guardrails sequentially together in an overlapping manner with fasteners going through the respective guardrail orifices when the guardrail orifices of two respective guardrails are aligned with one another, said apparatus comprising: a first guardrail visual highlight accessory made from a rigid material selected from the group consisting of metal and polyvinyl chloride, the first guardrail visual highlight accessory having a convex shape corresponding to substantially the entire convex shape of the upper crown of a selected one of the respective guardrails on which the guardrail visual highlight accessory is attached and a length corresponding to at least a portion of the length of the selected guardrail to render said first guardrail visual highlight accessory attached to the respective highway-facing side of the selected guardrail, said first guardrail visual highlight accessory being attached to the upper crown of the selected guardrail via accessory orifices located in the first guardrail visual highlight accessory, wherein the accessory orifices are aligned with the respective guardrail orifices of the respective guardrails to enable said accessory orifices to receive the same fasteners extending through the aligned guardrail orifices to attach said guardrail visual highlight accessory to the respective overlapping guardrails; wherein a second guardrail visual highlight accessory identical to the first guardrail visual highlight accessory is attachable to the lower crown of the respective guardrail via the guardrail orifices located in the lower crown of the respective guardrails; wherein the guardrail visual highlight accessories further comprise a visible coating for enhancing the visibility of said guardrail visual highlight accessories during daylight hours and at night time for vehicle drivers driving along a highway having the guardrails extending along the border of the highway.