We drive and bike on the right side of the road. But did you know that on roads without sidewalks, it is safer to walk on the left side? That way you are facing the oncoming traffic and are more aware of potentially dangerous situations. It is quite obvious when you think about it, but it seems like most people have never been told.
(If you are in Britain, Australia or any other country where you drive on the left, just reverse the whole picture and walk on the right.)
The road below is the last stretch of my bike route to work and I keep looking over my shoulder the whole time. …
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
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!
20 days until Halloween! It’s time to order reflectors for everyone whose safety you care about. Choose anything from a wicked witch hat or a scary skull and crossbones to a handsome ghost.
A black cat or wicked witch hat, a skull, a ghost or a flying bat?
Halloween
To be scared is fun when it’s just for a night, but returning to life is for the bright. Be bright enough for drivers to see what along the road could be a goblin, a witch or ghost on the run out Trick-or-Treating just for fun. Your alter ego is easy to protect with a few fun things that reflect. The choices are many, the price is low no reason funflectors to forgo. A black cat or wicked witch hat, a skull, a ghost or a flying bat? Pick one, pick two or even three, a cool reflector for safety is key! Reflect yourself and your style, wake up next day with a smile!
September has swished by with vendor shows, equinox, some days of cool weather and now, what a Swede would call, summer weather. However, the warm Chicago days are numbered and October is already knocking on our door. After a very busy week with our first in-house pedestrian reflector manufacturing, YAY!!!!! (proudly Made in USA), and Evanston Green festival, Sunday was a day for enjoying the outdoors. We had fun picking out fall pumpkins and taking a leisurely stroll through the Rollins Savanna Forest Preserve. Summer and fall at the same time in Lake County, IL. Rollins Savanna Forest Preserve and a black swan gourd. Our combined booth for funflector and Norwex at the Evanston Green Festival, September 2014
Let’s go back for a moment to equinox, which occurred a week ago, when day and night were equally long. From then and until March 20th, there will be more dark than light hours each day. In Chicago and New York, we are right now losing 17 minutes of daylight a week, in Miami 9 and in Seattle 23. You can look up your city at timeanddate.com/astronomy/ (Put in your city in the upper left, under the headline “Sun”).
Soon, if not already, you might go to or from work, run your errands, walk your dog or get kids to and from activities during the twilight or dark time of the day. If you drive, you know how hard it is to see pedestrians in the dark and it is not surprising that 70% of pedestrian accidents happens while the sun is gone. Luckily, it is cheap, fun and easy to make yourself visible with our funflector® safety reflectors. Goto our webshop and pick out some for yourself and your loved ones. We offer free shipping for orders over $9 to the US and Canada!
We are looking forward to October and are dreaming of apple pies, cosy sweaters, big mugs of hot tea, rosy cheeks, frosty red leaves and of course the crown jewel of the month: a spooky and scary but safe Halloween!
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables Elisabeth
Interest is growing for the funflector® reflective slap bracelets and we thought it would be fun to find some slap bracelet fun facts and other things they have inspired. Most people remember slap wraps or slap bracelets from the early 90’s when they were a fad in schools until the kids misused them so much that the bracelets had to be banned. However, they are like all other products: if you buy good quality and use them with some “common sense”, they will serve you well.
Wisconsin teacher Stuart Anders invented the slap bracelet in the late 80’s and it was launched by the Main Street Toy Company under the brand name Slap Wrap. A slap bracelet consists of a piece of metal that needs a tap or a slap to go from straight to curled up. For comfort and style, the metal is covered with cloth or integrated in a silicon/rubber band.
We’ve seen several stories on the internet about reused metal measuring tapes being used inside the slap bracelet cover, the one with school kids getting naked ladies being the worst. We cut one of our slap bracelets apart to check, and there was no surprise whatsoever, just bare metal. However, we could not get our tape measure to curl like our slap bracelets; instead we learned how a spring loaded retractable tape measure works…
After filing a patent, rumors have been circulating for a while that Apple will release a flexible screen attached to something similar to a slap bracelet. We are still waiting…
In the Ragnar Relays, teams of 12 run a 200-mile relay over two days and one night and use a slap bracelet instead of a relay baton. The Ragnar Trail Relays are similar, but uses scenic trails instead of roads to run on and there is more focus on treating nature gently. Just like the street in Sweden I grew up on (Ragnar Lodbroks gränd), the race got its name after the legendary Norse viking hero Ragnar Lodbrok. Neat! 🙂
Viking safety reflector
There is no stable state between totally straight or completely curled up unless you hold onto it with force. An AA Design Research Lab team in London came up with conceptual design for a flexible office where they imagined giant slap bands attached together to make straight and curled sections. A creative idea, but we are not too surprised that it has not been implemented during the five years since it was suggested. Look at their ideas and models in de zeen magazine and imagine that instead of a box with cubicles as your office!
When soft reflector material became available, extra long and sturdy slap bracelets with a reflective cover became popular in the Scandinavian countries as pants clips for bicyclists. They are easy to use, keep pant legs out of oily bicycle chains and increase visibility at the same time.
Did you know that we are also taking orders for customized slap bracelet reflectors? Right now, you can make as few as 75 with your logo or slogan, but availability is limited! Contact us today for current rates and specials!
Good reflectors should make pedestrians visible from a distance of 125 meters (410 feet), but we wanted to know if we could see our funflector® reflectors from even further away. Would they meet the 500 feet visibility target? However, first let us be clear about why we care so much about safety reflectors:
That is how much of a difference reflectors make! We found a dark street, straight for over 500 feet and with very little traffic. Here is what we saw of a pedestrian facing us with two reflectors hanging from front belt loops.The first image below was captured at 600 feet. We are very excited and pleased with the result since it is very important for us to provide as much safety as possible for our customers. A note of caution though: reality is rarely staged like this, so please wear at least two reflectors, but place one back and one front – OR- one left and one right. You never know exactly how you will be turned the moment the driver needs to see you! Alternatively, put a slap bracelet around your ankle, the visibility from all directions is pretty good unless you carry bags in your hands that hang low down.
Every day, more people discover walking as an easy way to get moving. Did you know that
– 30 minutes of daily walking lowers the risk for diabetes, heart attacks, stroke, cancer and much more.
– Kids walking to school perform better than when getting rides.
– Home prices in walkable neighborhoods increase faster than others.
– Commerce flourish where people walk.
There are an overwhelming amount of information on the benefits of walking for you as an individual and for society. The two videos below condense the information very well and explain why you need to walk and how it all is interlaced:
“The benefits of walking are so good, they are hard to believe”. Listen to Kaiser Permanente Chairman and CEO George C. Halvorson explain the benefits of walking in a 6 minute video.
Urbanist Jeff Speck explains in his TED talk “how America can be more economically resilient, how America can be healthier and how America can be more environmentally sustainable”. You’ll be surprised about how a walkable infrastructure improves health, quality of life and the local economy and how it is all correlated!
Jeff mentions that Portland, Oregon is far ahead of other cities in the US on planning around people, but there is activities in many places. Learn about what’s going on in Oklahoma City, New York,Dallas and Chicago and more generally with redevelopment of urban centers.
As mentioned in the intro, kids who walk to school perform better than when getting rides. Here are the results of some studies:
– Let kids walk to school by University of Buffalo medical school and
– Exercise before school improves concentration in the class room, a joint study by researchers at the universities in Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark, also reported by the Atlantic Cities.
– Check out these fascinating MRI scans by the University of Illinois of kids’ brains after sitting still and walking for 20 minutes respectively!
If your kid’s school doesn’t have a walk-to-school program, consider organizing one!
Walking is good, however, when dusk comes around, the risk of fatal pedestrian-vehicle accidents increases significantly. In the Scandinavian countries, pedestrian reflectors have saved lives for over 40 year. If you are looking for thoughtful and useful giveaways, check out our American-made logo reflectors! Together we can make a difference and we hope you want to join us. The funflector team
Having grown up in Sweden, I would have loved a skate safety reflector instead of a boring hard circular reflector. Even in the very south, skating and skiing was an obvious part of most winters. No classes or fancy outfits, just hanging out at the neighborhood soccer field which had been turned into an good-enough ice to skate on. We skated, we cross-country skied on the fields and had snowball fights – and watched winter sports, especially the Olympics. After 4 days of the Sochi games, the Canadian and the US hockey women are looking good! We have also already been blessed with some spectacular figure skating performances. 15 year old Yulia Lipnitskaya stunned us all with a perfect performance. Equally amazing and mezmerizing was Meryl Davis and Charlie White’s ice dance! Do you know we now have both a black hockey skate reflector and a white figure skate reflector? Order yours here>
Fall erupted last week, when a cold frost night made all leaves fall at once. The morning was crystal clear and the world was suddenly buried under golden leaves and offered some spectacular eye candy. Enjoy!
It was the perfect day to set aside all the must-do’s in the office and head out with the camera. What an enjoyable neighborhood walk!
We got one warm day with pouring rain and now the temperature is heading south again. At subzero temperatures (Farenheit), sitting inside reading and pinning about walking feels healthier than going out for a walk. New to me is ChiWalking, walking with mixed in elements from Tai Chi, yoga and Pilates, which I will have to try. I also found a lot of interesting research on the benefits of walking that I thought I’d share with you:
Winter walks are fun with good gear (including safety reflectors). Just remember to check temperature and wind chill first.
Here are eight good reasons to start walking as summarized by CNN: 1. A brisk 30 minute walk is good for your heart. 2. Walking lowers breast-cancer risks 3. An afternoon walk helps you sleep better 4. ChiWalking can reduce aches and pains. 5. Walking makes you happy because your body produces more endorphins. 6. Walking keeps you slimmer 7. Walking helps ward off Alzheimer’s disease 8. Walking makes your bones stronger If you are a man and want to lower your lifetime medical bills: start walking! Extreme Longevity reports on a Japanese study that shows that even if walker live longer, they spend less on medical care. Women walkers also live longer, but don’t necessarily save on medical care during their life time. You have a good reason to worry when an elderly friend or relative slows down their walking speed. Walking speed has shown to be a good indicator of life expectancy independent on age, race and height.
Kids need to get moving on weekends as well as on school days to learn and to be able to focus.
Walking is not only good for living long and healthy, walking also helps learning while you are young. If your kid’s school doesn’t have a walk-to-school program, you should start organizing one. A Danish study (in English here) found that students who walk to school learn and concentrate better that those who go by bus or car. In addition, walking keeps the air around schools fresher than cars. Exercising is all about making it a habit. It takes some work to make it a habit, but after a while you notice how good it makes you feel and you’ll miss it when you don’t do it. In summary, it is pretty simple: Open the door and get out. Start slow and short and build up. Get a good pair of shoes. And don’t forget pedestrian reflectors if you get back after dusk. Here are some resources with more details on how to get started: The Mayo Clinic walking advice The Walking Site
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