BESIP sends a clear signal: “Be Aware!” In the fourth year of Signal festival, he tried to highlight the importance of using reflective vests and to show a new pedestrian visible trend. On the Fruit Market in Prague, human beings literally lit for four days…
BESIP, with the support of Europe’s “Transport 1” 2, has prepared an exhibition on the Fruit Market in Prague, based on reflexive elements, from their use to clothing to more and more popular reflective tapes. An attractive part of the exposition and some look into the future, was the use of active light on clothing.
Being a festival of light, BESIP also showed the future of pedestrian visibility. He contacted the Technical University in Liberec, where he patented the unique use of nanotechnology to illuminate various items, including clothing. While others lit up a variety of objects, people and dummies lit up in BESIP’s presentation.
As of February 20 this year, an amendment to the law, which clearly sets out pedestrians outside the municipality, is obliged to wear reflective elements that are visible to all other road users, i.e. front, back, and side. In this sophisticated period, it should be remembered that the reduced visibility is not only the time from sunset to its exodus but also fog, heavy rain or snowfall, so reflective elements are mandatory under these conditions even at the time of day.
Above all, reflective elements have saved many lives
Foreign experience has shown that reflective elements can reduce the pedestrian’s participation in a fatal accident by up to ten times, in poor visibility. In other words, 10% of pedestrians would have the chance to survive, and for cyclists, this percentage is even higher – up to 30% of riders on bicycles could live if they were sufficiently visible. That is why it is very important for pedestrians and cyclists to use reflective elements that will clearly increase road safety.
That such elements have their merits, they know, for example, in Estonia. While there were 47 pedestrians killed in 1999, there are only seven in 2010! The fact that the obligation to wear reflective materials in reduced visibility has been enforced in this country has certainly contributed to this. Since 2011, they have even been obliged to wear reflective elements in Estonia even when moving under reduced visibility in the city. However, Estonia is not the only one in Europe. For example, pedestrians in the Scandinavian countries, in Spain, or with our neighbors in Slovakia have this obligation.