The other night, at 10 pm, I asked a guy walking his dog on the sidewalk if he didn’t want to get a fun reflector. “We are never out in the dark!”, was his serious answer. The sun set at 6:44 that day. I could not help cracking up. We get that answer fairly often, but this was in the funniest of circumstances. The fact is, that most of us are out in the dark even if we didn’t plan to. October is knocking on the door and the days are getting shorter and shorter. Do you belong to those that believe you are never out in the dark?
I’ve dug through some Halloween statistics and they are scarier reading than any Halloween story. The statistics are NOT on your side if you are out between 6 PM and 3 AM. In 2008, 61 % of the fatal pedestrian accidents occurred during those dark hours! Adding the three often dark morning hours, 3-6 AM, brings the numbers up to a whopping 70%—seventy percent!
You have probably figured out that I will tell you to wear a pedestrian reflector. Yes—and no. Wear at least two! That increases your visibility from multiple directions.
A question that we often get is “Are they really powerful enough to do much good?” Yes, reflectors like the funflector™ tags that fulfill the European standard EN13356, do improve the numbers by a lot. Data from Finland, where 30-40% of the pedestrians wear reflectors, show that for every accident during the bright hours, there is only one at night. In the US there are more than two.
In summary, if a third of American pedestrians had worn reflectors, the fatal pedestrian accidents at night could have been cut in half! In 2008, about 1,500 lives would have been saved, in 2007 about 1,600, in 2006….
When did you last get a life insurance for a couple of bucks? One that is even fun to wear!
There is a lot more numbers to pull out, but let’s stop here before our heads start spinning too much…
Elisabeth
