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Paper Title:
The importance of being
seen in traffic
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Authors:
Mette Kolderup
Abstract:
During the Olympic Games
in Sydney last year a Nigerian athlete was killed on the road as
he failed to recognize the traffic rules and regulations in a foreign
country and was possibly not seen as he stepped off the pavement
onto the road in the early evening darkness.
Sight is the driver’s
most important sense. More than 90% of all messages to the brain
are visual when driving. When a car is travelling at a speed of
80km/h, or 22 meters per second, the average reaction time is one
second and the physical response takes another second. During this
time the car has already traveled 44 meters. A child pedestrian
is visible at 30 meters with low beam headlights (ca. 1.3 seconds
reaction time at 50 mph). A child pedestrian wearing a reflector
is visible at 150 meters with low beam headlights (ca. 6.5 seconds
reaction time at 50 mph). Pedestrian reflectors have been used successfully
in Scandinavian/Nordic countries for over 30 years. This is the
time for Australia to start using this simple pedestrian tool used
worldwide.
In recent years there
have been many advances in the motor vehicle industry for increased
safety for occupants, few of these improvements are relevant to
pedestrian safety yet 1 in 5 fatalities on Australian roads is a
pedestrian. Awareness is major part of reducing child accidents
and by educating primary school children will show results in the
statistics in secondary school age. By secondary school age stage
the children will have developed a perfect knowledge of how important
it is to be seen in traffic. Accident prevention is essential and
Reflectors have proven their effectiveness in accident prevention
for more than 30 years in many countries
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