The dark season holds danger in the traffic. This is what the action “Can you see me?”
In the past year, a total of 205 children in road traffic crashed in the city triangle. The dark season holds particularly many dangers. And this is exactly what this week saw the joint “Can you see me?” Action by the police and road patrol yesterday in the southern district.
In the intersection motorists were torn from their morning routine: Several large clusters of yellow glowing figures had positioned themselves at various points of the intersection and beamed the drivers in the dark from afar. These drove automatically slower to curious to see what was happening so unusual on the intersection. It was the children of the local daycare center and St. Josef, as well as students of the GGS, who demanded the attention of the drivers equipped with reflective safety vests and lanterns, with rattles and shouts and a large banner. “Can you see me?” Read on the poster.
One or the other motorist, who had been on the move, was stopped, enlightened and admonished by the policemen who accompanied the action. Drivers should know that children are unpredictable on the road, that pedestrians are less well off in the dark months, and reducing the speed protects the weakest road users, in this case, children as pedestrians, traffic police officer Michael summed up the key messages for motorists.
On the other hand, the children were taught that they had to make themselves visible to the rest of the road users, such as reflective safety vests, reflective materials on shoes, clothing, and backpacks which made of reflective fabric or just with the help of newly purchased lanterns, which were used for the first time, as Otto Mahler, chairman of the Traffic Watch told. Since 2015, the non-profit organization regularly distributes safety vests in day-care centers. Over the past three years, more than 1000 pieces have come together. Now 700 lanterns with the traffic signs “Tempo 30” have been added, which were distributed in advance to 40 Remscheid daycare centers. “The lanterns were financed by the Verkehrswacht Remscheid,” said Mahler. Developed by the Remscheid company Hamper and manufactured by the company from Wuppertal they should provide more security, at least make attentive and sensitize. “It is another building block in the task to increase the visibility of the children,” said Mahler.
In the St. Josef daycare center, the lanterns were not only used by the preschool children, who were standing on a green strip at the crossroads. “We have also used the lanterns on our Martin train to secure the movement and to make the parents aware of it,” said Kita director Stephanie Radix.
After all, even parents who drive their children to school themselves can sometimes become a source of danger on the morning way to school.