The Bright Side of Darkness

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Without darkness, we would not be able to see the light. The longer and darker the winter days are, the brighter and longer are the summer nights. Scandinavians know how to make the most out of the December darkness and turn it into prime time for advent “fika” and “hygge.”

A Swedish advent candle helps us count down each day to Christmas.
Calendar candle waiting to be lit to count down to Christmas.

It’s of course also prime time for wearing safety reflectors as the Scandinavian walks and bikes a lot, also in the winter. Copenhagen has the longest days of the Scandinavian capitals, and sun sets there at 3:45.

It’s a bit of a culture shock for Scandinavians to see Christmas trees behind living room windows already the day after Thanksgiving. Although Sweden is a quite secular country, the tradition of keeping advent separate from Christmas lives on. The first Sunday of advent, kicks off a flurry of activities to prepare for Christmas, but many also make time for “advents-fika”. Fika is sitting around with friends or colleagues drinking coffee, eating some sweet treats and having conversations. Advent-fika has more candles, glögg in addition to coffee and Christmas cookies and pastries and is more for weekends with friends at home.

The Danes and Norwegians know how to “fika”, but interestingly don’t have a word for it. On the other hand they have “hygge” for which the Swedes don’t have a word… Hygge is for any time of the year, but December is prime time for top-hygge. Hygge is easier to experience than explain, so welcome to Copenhagen!

Typical Swedish Christmas window with lights, Amaryllis and Christmas curtains.
Typical Swedish Christmas window with lights, Amaryllis and Christmas curtains.

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Fall Safety

/ traffic safety / , , , ,
High viz without #highviz colors. #bicycle and #pedestrian #safety with #style because it's better to be seen than sorry! #reflectivegear

Reminders to move the clocks back were many when daylight saving time ended a couple of days ago. What few talked about is that we now have one more dark hour in the afternoon with higher risk for pedestrian and bicycle crashes. In Time, we can read “Adding an hour of sunlight in the evening year-round would save the lives of more than 170 US pedestrians annually, according to a 2004 study in Accident Analysis and Prevention.” Since that is not happening anytime soon, we all need to make sure we are visible in traffic, especially when it’s dark.

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Fall SafetyRead More »

Fall Safety Read More »

4 Halloween Safety Tips for Dealing with the Real Danger

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Are you looking for Halloween safety tips to share with your kids? We certainly hope so, but we also hope that you focus on where the real danger is – TRAFFIC!!! Enjoy Halloween and don’t go nuts worrying about things that rarely happen. We have written about this earlier years and we will keep doing it until every trick-or-treater wear reflectors!

When we look at statistics of what accidents actually happens on Halloween, there is one type that pops out: pedestrian accidents. Cars are the number one threat to trick-or-treaters and sadly, Halloween is the deadliest night all year for kid pedestrians. The graph below shows fatalities per day. Look at October 31st! The threat from cars and drivers is real. For every fatal accident, there are also about 10 seriously injured kids…

Child pedestrian fatalities by day of the year. How long did it take for you to spot Halloween?
Child pedestrian fatalities by day of the year. How long did it take for you to spot Halloween? Klick on the image to get to the original article.

Let’s focus on Halloween safety tips that make a significant difference. …

4 Halloween Safety Tips for Dealing with the Real DangerRead More »

4 Halloween Safety Tips for Dealing with the Real Danger Read More »

What’s Your Story?

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We love when our customers blow us away with unexpected designs! When we first offered promotional slap bracelets, we put the customer’s logo on, sent a proof and after going back and forth, we agreed on size and placement.  With the next customer, we wanted to eliminate the back and forth and sent them the template to fill with their own design and wonderful things started to happen. We certainly never expected storytelling taking place on a promotional slap bracelet but check out these designs!

Reflective slap bracelets for Hansa Coffee by funflector

Designer Keith Lilja made this intricate pattern for Hansa Coffee Roasters. Do you see the stylized H’s?

Without sacrificing their bold and clear style, the Bugle newspapers didn’t just print their logo but also …

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What’s Your Story? Read More »

Streets Alive!

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We can’t wait for Sunday and the Streets Alive Festival in Evanston IL! Last year, we had a great time at the Green Living Festival in Evanston, but the idea of combining the two festivals is totally awesome!

We’ll be there with America’s premier reflectors for walking, running and bicycling and with information on how you can use reflectors for marketing your brand to touch hearts and save lives 🙂

The Streets Alive + Green Living Festival takes place on Main Street in Evanston, IL this coming Sunday, September 13th, 1-6 PM. A map of all the activities can be found on the festival’s website.  Please look for the black funflector canopy  in the Green Living Festival section between Ridge and Ashbury and stop by for some treats!

The funflector booth at the Evanston Green Living Festival 2014.
The funflector booth at the Evanston Green Living Festival 2014. This year we’ll have space for our full booth 🙂

We believe that making “green choices” is important for all people on earth, and having the choice of walking/biking instead of driving is part of that. However, walkable neighborhoods do a lot of good to people in terms of general health and building a sense of community. The philosophy of the Streets Alive is right up our alley: “Streets Alive also encourages the community to collectively reimagine and repurpose our precious public spaces. Although car-free streets are temporary, they help us visualize different ways to use these spaces, and they demonstrate the pent-up demand for permanently safe, complete streets and vibrant, people-oriented open spaces.”

Looking forward seeing you there!

The funflector team

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Happy Labor Day

/ thoughts

We hope you got the day off and that you had some well deserved vacation this year. Research shows (projecttimeoff.com) that more gets done better at work when people don’t work non-stop.

Happy Labor Day from the funflector team

At a time when workers’ rights are questioned, it is easy to forget that also employers benefit from having healthy, rested workers, who don’t need to worry about working two jobs to make ends meet but instead can focus on the job and do it well. Quality and improvements come from people who love what they do and are proud of it as much as from complex and costly quality control systems.

Happy Labor Day everyone!

The funflector team

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Glow In the Dark or Reflective?

/ reflector basics, traffic safety

“My reflector does not glow in the dark, what’s wrong?” That’s a question we often get and luckily, nothing is wrong. It’s “reflective”, not “glow-in-the-dark”, and there is a big difference!

Glow-in-the-dark products make light on their own, and have a built-in energy source. It can be a battery or a chemical reaction (like in glow sticks that you need to “pop” before they light up). Eventually they run out of power and stop emitting light.  Glow-in-the-dark products often emit light in all directions and light up the nearby surrounding but have a limited range.

Reflective and glow-in-the-dark is not the same and the products have different purposes. Glow-i-the-dark toys are good at lighting up the immediate surrounding. Reflectors are good at bouncing back the car head light to the driver at a long range. Choose wisely!
Reflective and glow-in-the-dark is not the same and the products have different purposes. Glow-i-the-dark toys are good at lighting up the immediate surrounding. Reflectors are good at bouncing back the car head light to the driver at a long range. Choose wisely!

Reflective (or more correctly “retro-reflective”) means reflecting light back to where the light came from. If you shine a flash light on a pedestrian safety reflector (or a reflective road sign) …

Glow In the Dark or Reflective?Read More »

Glow In the Dark or Reflective? Read More »

Call it Crash, Not Accident

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The Vision Zero Initiative is taking root in the US. It is a fundamental principle that requires ambitious work on infrastructure and attitudes: “Vision Zero is the Swedish approach to road safety thinking. It can be summarised in one sentence: No loss of life is acceptable. The Vision Zero approach has proven highly successful. It is based on the simple fact that we are human and make mistakes. The road system needs to keep us moving. But it must also be designed to protect us at every turn.” We wrote about it here and a good Vision Zero primer is given here.

Today, a big attitude changer showed up in our Twitter feed. …

Call it Crash, Not AccidentRead More »

Call it Crash, Not Accident Read More »

5 Things You Need to Know Before Buying Reflectors

/ reflector basics / , , ,

Good reflectors have saved lives in the Scandinavian countries for decades. There are funflector® and other brand name as well as generic pedestrian reflectors on the market. What is the difference? And how do know if you are buying a “good” reflector or not?

Reflective slap bracelets in cheerful colors and designs
Reflective slap bracelets in cheerful colors and designs. How do you know if they are effective?

What do consumers, walking and running groups, PTA boards, corporate buyers and other organizations need to know before they buy safety reflectors?

If you want to make it easy for yourself, look for the mark EN13356, a European standard grown from research in the Scandinavian countries. It’s become the de-facto world standard for reflectors for non-professional use. Behind the fun designs, we take safety very seriously and you should too. Here are the most important things that you need to know:

1. Distance

The purpose of safety reflectors is to let drivers know that you are there so they can adjust their driving accordingly. …

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5 Things You Need to Know Before Buying Reflectors Read More »

Darker Days Ahead!

/ thoughts / , ,

Today, Sweden is closed. It’s Midsummer Eve and you will have trouble even finding a hotdog stand that is open. Celebrating the longest day of the year is an important business in a country where even the southernmost parts have 17 hour long nights in December. Watch “Midsummer for Dummies” if you don’t believe us:

The Swedish attitude about midsummer lives on in Minnesota, where we found this in a blog post by Paul Huttner “Sunday is a day many Minnesotans wait for all year. After the long dark winter, and generally stormy springs the sun reaches the highest point in the sky in Minnesota.”

On Sunday, June 21st, the north end of the earth axis is tilted towards the sun as far as it goes, which gives us long bright summer evenings.

Sun's angle in the summer by University of California Santa Barbara
Sun’s angle in the summer by University of California Santa Barbara

Unfortunately, that also means that the days will get shorter again, so watch out for dusk. Warm summer nights should be enjoyed outdoors, not in the ER because the driver didn’t see you. It’s better to be seen than sorry!

Check out our red, white and blue reflectors or 4th of July themed reflective slap bracelets for safe and fun summer nights!

Happy midsummer!

the funflector team

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