[warren brown]

G'day John -
from my days as a print artist retouching black and white photos on newspapers - red would invariably turn out as strong as black - almost indistinguishable. Light blue wouldn't appear at all - hence light blue pencils were used by compositors and the marks wouldn't show up when printed.
My suggestion is that the stripes might be more of an orangey/red perhaps, as the black type still shows up over the top - if the stripes were bold red you wouldn't be able to read the black type as red stripes would appear straight black too.
Just a guess - in the UK and Australia some diesel locomotives on dockyards were painted yellow and orangey red stripes... dunno if any of this helps but good luck,
cheers Warren.