Author: stellaqi

Bus Driver for First Student Gets Reflective Belts for her Students

A school bus driver for First Student, based in Helena, Montana, recently felt the need to make school bus stops safer on her route. She decided to act after at least 7 kids were killed at bus stops nationwide last fall, or while loading/ Unloading their school buses.

 

Katee Horner has only been driving for a few months and quickly fell in love with the job and the children.

 

“I didn’t know if it was something I wanted to do when I first started, but I fell in love with it and all the kids on my school bus,” Horner said.

 

As Horner was thinking of ways to make the bus stop safer for the children she transports, she was reminded of the days she wore a reflective belt for various training exercises in the United States Army. In the army, the belts were referred to PT belts, physical training belts, and they were worn when running or conducting other activities so that cars were able to see them.

 

“Montana is very dark in the winter. If I am wearing a reflective vest in my school bus yard while I am getting ready to go out on my bus run, those kids aren’t even five minutes away from me waiting to be picked up, also in the dark,” Horner said.

 

First Student Location Manager Bevann Hamill added that some students are picked up in rural areas, where there are no sidewalks or lights. Especially in the winter there, it can get very dark. Horner said that half the time kids are standing on a dirt road.

 

Horner made it a goal to get as many kids as she can on her route a reflective belt. She also spread the word around to parents, asking them to help out where they can.

“It went from the kids on the busiest roads first, because they are the most at danger, and then I just went all around my entire bus route,” Horner said. “I am excited that so many parents like the idea. I also Had other local businesses find out about it and decide it was a very good idea too. They also wanted to help me get all my kid’s reflective belts.”

 

Hamill said when Horner presented the idea to her, she wanted to expand it to other routes and students. The transportation manager for Helena Public Schools and Hamill split the cost and bought belts in bulk.

 

“Even if in early summer here, it is bright in the day. But the colors on your clothes blend into all the new colors—the greens and yellows, they are blending in,” Horner said. “But the reflective belt with reflective tape is still making And I have about 75 percent of my kids still wearing them. I also have a few kids that are close enough to walk home, and they wear them when they walk home from school too.”

 

Hamill added that Horner has even seen kids on their bikes riding around and wearing the belts. “Especially the younger kids, they like them,” Hamill said. “She has gotten positive feedback from the kids and the families.”

 

Horner won second place for her idea in the nationwide safety category for First Student’s “Be First Awards.” Horner said she was honored to just be nominated, and even being chosen as a finalist was “super exciting.”

 

Horner was nominated by her peers and was selected as a finalist. Over 600 nominations were made in 7 different categories.

 

“Isay, second place is good enough for me, as long as the word gets around that the safety of our kids is number 1,” Horner said. “And that we need to get our kids more visible to other people, especially in the rural areas. To save a life, you can’t put a price on it. Yeah, the reflective belts, depending on what kind you get, might be anywhere from $4 to $10, but it’s nothing compared to a child’s life.”

 

The basics of high-visibility safety apparel

Workers in a wide variety of jobs and industries wear high-visibility safety apparel to alert others of their presence, particularly in dark or dim places. Users include utility linemen, construction workers, police officers, and school bus drivers, to name a few.

 

Different types

The materials in high-visibility garments, including vests, bibs, coveralls, and gloves, may look alike, but they have key differences. For example, “fluorescent material takes a portion of invisible ultraviolet light from sunlight and, through special pigments, sends it back to the viewer as more visible light,” the Canadian Center for Occupational Health and Safety explains. This type of material only functions in natural sunlight.

 

Another type of high-visibility safety apparatus is retro-reflective material, which returns light in the direction of its source. “This property will let a driver see the light being reflected from the retro-reflective tape on a person’s garment (as long as the person is standing in the light’s beam),” CCOHS notes. Although this type of material can be used in daylight, it is most effective in low-light conditions.

 

What to look for

In addition to complying with relevant OSHA standards for high-visibility apparel, employers should keep in mind certain factors when determining which apparel to supply to their workers. According to CCOHS:

 

Stripes of color that contrast with the background material provides good visibility and stripes on the arms and legs can help provide cues as to how the worker is moving.

All high-visibility garments should be fitted to individual workers. However, forget to take into account the bulk of clothing that needs to be worn under the device.

Keep worker comfort in mind. “Parts of the device that come in direct contact with the worker should not be rough, have sharp edges, or projections that could cause excessive irritation or injury,” CCOHS states, adding that the device should also be lightweight.

No clothing or equipment should cover the high-visibility materials.

Ensure workers keep their high-visibility apparel clean and in good condition.

Replace any garment that is worn, torn or excessively soiled, as it provides acceptable levels of visibility.

Halloween safety tips

Halloween is just around the corner and the top priority for the City of Plattsburgh is the safety of trick-or-treaters. As candy collecting on Halloween takes place in the evening when it starts to get dark, it is important to remember some key safety tips for those planning on trick-or-treating. Over the past years, the Plattsburgh Crete Center has hosted “Trick-or-Treat on Safety Street” to encourage safe trick-or-treating. Kids and families are invited to come dressed up and safely collect candy.

 

According to the event page, “Civic Center is transformed into a family-friendly environment that promotes kids of all ages to dress up and trick-or-treat in a safe and controlled atmosphere. Children will travel from house to house and collect goodies without the worries of cars, strangers, or tainted candy.”

 

SAFETY COSTUME:

 

Spookiness may often be associated with the dark, but that means it is okay to blend in with the darkness. It is unsafe to wear dark colors at night, especially in a not-so-lit area like the suburbs. Putting reflective strips or reflective materials on a costume or wearing bright reflective clothing can help a lot and need to ruin the costume. Cars will be able to spot trick-or-treaters better with the reflective headlights colors.

 

DRIVING SAFETY:

 

It is a known law to put headlights on once it gets dark, but on Halloween night, it is recommended to put car headlights on a little earlier. The use of headlights will make it easier to spot trick-or-treaters wearing bright or reflective clothing. Not only that, but it will help trick-or-treaters spot, drivers, more easily.

 

CANDY SAFETY:

 

Candy-checking is pretty wide-spread knowledge following multiple incidents in the past where razor blades and other dangers were hidden inside candies or food handed out during Halloween night. Because of these problems, candy companies started encouraging people to hand out wrapped candy rather than treats. Parents are also encouraged to then check the candy before eating it and making sure it is properly wrapped and sealed so it has been tampered with. Though this problem is not so big due to public awareness over the years, dangers such as razor blades, drugs or poison are still a possibility.

 

Being safe during the holiday doesn’t mean it dampens the fun. As long as one takes mandatory precautions, Halloween can be just as fun as it is safe.

 

Feltre prepares for the Tour of Italy with a morning dedicated to cleaning the city

On Friday 31 May and even more on Saturday 1 June, with the start of the penultimate stage, Feltre will be the absolute protagonist of the Italian Cycling Tour. The city will be in the spotlight of half the world, not only with the passage of the race and the Carovana Rosa, but also with the live television broadcast that will see tens, maybe hundreds of millions of viewers, in front of the television screens, without counting the many thousands of fans expected in our territory to enjoy the event as protagonists.

 

An opportunity not to be missed to raise awareness of the architectural and naturalistic beauties of the Feltrino area and its entire area, a few months after the terrible wave of bad weather that has redesigned, in some ways, the morphology of the city and its territory. The “post-Vaia” represents in this sense a memory still alive in everyone’s mind, but also an extra pride motivation to give Feltre an even brighter appearance.

 

Based on the response of the citizens, who took the field in those days to lend their work with a sense of community without equal, the administration decided to organize for Saturday 25 May morning of cleaning and small maintenance in the city open to all. The appointment is scheduled for 8.30 am at the municipal warehouses in Via Vignigole 21 (the intervention will close by 12.30). Citizens who intend to join are invited to present themselves with appropriate equipment (if possible high visibility safety vests, suitable shoes or boots, gloves, work clothes), bringing with them any tools available (small gardening tools, trowels, some brooms) useful for removing weeds.

 

“We have an extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate how Feltre has been able to rise from the dramatic experience at the end of October last year, thanks above all to the sense of community that belongs to it”, highlights mayor Paolo Perez. “The Giro represents a very important showcase: we ask for the help of everyone to make our city even more beautiful, showing the love that binds us to it. I invite all those who can lend a hand, to ‘invest’ Saturday morning to make Feltre even more brilliant “.

 

 

In the State Duma will be offered to make mandatory reflective elements of clothing

State Duma Deputy Vyacheslav Lysakov will propose that the government of the Russian Federation oblige enterprises to equip children’s, school and sports clothing with reflective fabrics or other reflective materials, the Parliamentary Newspaper reports.

 

On March 18, a decree comes into force, obliging drivers to wear a reflective jacket or reflective vest of drivers in case of a forced stop of the vehicle outside settlements when leaving the car. Drivers must have protective vests in many European countries.

 

“It is necessary to develop mandatory, rather than recommendatory standards for each group of goods: school clothes, children’s, sports and tourism, profile enterprises should strictly follow these national standards,” the author of the initiative explained to the newspaper.

 

Lysakov noted that the requirements will apply to both domestic and foreign suppliers.

 

According to preliminary estimates, additional elements can cause a rise in the price of goods by 10-15%. “But the question concerns the safety of Russians, this is the responsibility of the state. The state is obliged to protect the lives and health of citizens not only by increasing fines for violating traffic rules or introducing new punitive measures against offenders but also by regulating the activities of industrialists in the interests of people’s safety”.

 

According to statistics, in the first six months of 2017, over 7.5 thousand pedestrian raids recorded on Russian roads at night. This is 10.2% less compared to the same period of 2016. As a result, more than 1.3 thousand people died, more than 6.5 thousand people suffered.

Fatal accident in Barnaul: who is to blame – the driver or a pedestrian?

On the night of January 8 in Barnaul, at the intersection of North-West and Smirnov, a car hit a pedestrian to death. Eyewitnesses of the accident in the comments of the public “Incident Barnaul” say that the car rushed at high speed and did not even have time to slow down. The pedestrian died at the scene.

After the incident in public, a dispute broke out – who is to blame: the driver or a pedestrian?

“Sorry for the driver. At night, pedestrians without reflective vests are very difficult to see and not leave the car in one second. This is forgotten.”

“Generally not sorry for the driver! It is necessary to slow down in front of a pedestrian!”

“How much could he fly? Our roads have not been cleaned since October, my navigator has an average speed of 20 km per hour!”

“Normal roads! Not perfect, but the car slows down normally if you don’t fly 80! Before pedestrians need to slow down for your own good!”

Barnaul noted that the road section, where the fatal accident occurred, is notoriety – accidents often happen here.

“They constantly fly there, despite the cameras!”

In the North-West from Yurin to the 80th Guards, few drivers leave to go on pedestrians. Sometimes 10-15 cars will pass before someone stops. Wines are always only on the driver. He manages a means of increased danger. You do not know how to slow down before a pedestrian crossing, sell your car and go public!

A year ago there was the same tragic situation, there was a dialogue with a woman. I told her that it was a road, not a sidewalk, to which she replied to me – I was tired, I was leaving work and I do not care. Hence the conclusion – the salvation of the drowning, the handiwork of the drowning. Do not judge strictly, but we have winter and it is easier for a person to miss the car than to stop the car. In no case, I do not deny the guilt of the driver, but first of all, you need to take care of yourself!

One of the commentators, in order to avoid such cases, suggested the use of reflective materials:

“Reflective tapes of clothing in the dark can save your life. They cost a penny, but life has no price,” writes Mikhail Medynin.

Study reveals low use of helmet, lights and reflective in cyclists

Although 84% of cyclists wear a helmet and it is a high number, only 20% use reflective vest and lights.

 

The Law of Road Coexistence came to fix as mandatory the use of helmets. In addition to this fundamental element for security are added the reflective vest and lights.

 

However, despite the fact that its use is mandatory, there are still those who do not learn. A study conducted by the NGO No Chat in conjunction with the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Chile revealed the preferences of cyclists.

 

84% of cyclists wear helmets when moving through the streets. At the same time that 21% of them use reflective vests and 22% have some type of light installed on their bicycles.

 

The study considered the measurement of 2040 cyclists, where 1002 of them were observed in the morning and 1038 in the afternoon, corresponding to 29.5% of women and 70.4% of men.

 

AND THE OTHER OBLIGATORY ELEMENTS FOR CYCLISTS?

According to the information collected, 84.2% of cyclists use helmets (1718 cases), while 15.8% decide not to occupy it. Women slightly outperform men in this item, with 86.3% compared to 83.3, with the mornings also being the time when their use was most detected.

 

Faced with the use of other security elements, the figures are lower. 21% of the observed cyclists had some type of reflective material as indicated by the law, be it a vest or other type, reaching a greater number of cases during the morning shift, which reached 24.6% compared to 17, 6 in the evening.

 

The use of lights, duly installed on the bicycle, reached 22.7% of the cases. The highest number of observations in this item occurred in the morning, with 30% of the cases, which doubled the observations of the afternoon (15.7%).

 

“The low interest in using security elements, such as lights or reflective, is probably related to the confusions that existed on the reflective vests as a mandatory measure, which is false,” explains Claudia, director of No Chat.

 

HEARING AIDS AND CELLULAR

The measurement also included the use of hearing aids and bicycle holders on bicycles, elements that can cause distraction and generate road accidents. In the first case, it was detected that 32.9% of cyclists observed used hearing aids, almost identical figure if differentiation is made by men and women (33.19% and 32.2%, respectively). The largest number of these cases occurred in the morning, with 55% of these.

 

On the other hand, only 5.5% of cyclists used cell carriers, a practice in which men almost double women, 3.98% of them, compared to 6.2% of them, detecting a greater number of these cases in the afternoon shift (3.2% vs. 7.8%)

 

“It is worrying that three of every ten cyclists observed on average use hearing aids when cycling, because not only limit the sense of hearing isolating the cyclist from the environment, it also reduces the ability to detect potential threats or situations of risk,” explains Cristián Escobedo, one of the researchers who carried out the study.

 

“In Spain, the General Circulation Regulation, equivalent to our Law of Road Coexistence, recognizes cyclists as a mode of transportation and prohibits them from using headphones while driving, setting penalties of up to 200 euros, equivalent to talking on the phone while he drives. Neither of them exists in our country,” adds the expert.

 

Finally, the study also considered knowing the owner of the bicycle. Only 10% of cases corresponded to leased cycles via public or private applications or systems, compared to 90% of presumably own bicycles.

The reflective vest disappeared from the obligatory outfit. The ministry says no

With the October Decree, drivers have no obligation to drive bulbs or fuses in their car, and the contents of the first-aid kit have changed. Almost no one has noticed, however, that a reflective vest is missing in the mandatory equipment. The ministry tried to simplify the decree and go through the Austrians. However, experts point out complications in interpreting the law.

 

The Ministry of Transport has simplified the technical equipment of the car. Decree No. 208/2018 Coll. Came into effect with the first October day of last year, which amended the decree on the approval of the technical competence of the car and on the technical conditions of operation of the vehicle on the roads. For example, you do not need to carry spare bulbs in a car, for example, which most drivers can no longer replace, or fuses or, in certain circumstances, a spare wheel. And from the first-aid kit, the drivers could take out a lot of things.

 

The Czech Republic was one of the last countries where the law ordered drivers to carry the equipment. By decree, the Ministry has simplified many things and is actually going through the Austrians, who also do not have to carry everything from a flashlight to a light bulb in their car, but their equipment is mostly related to the driver and is more on his responsibility than he wants to be prepared for. You can find a detailed overview of the changes here.

 

But few have noticed that after the revision, the reflective vest with reflective tape has been dropped from the decree, and thus from the mandatory equipment of the car, also recommended and expertly discussed. This is already mentioned only in the Act on Road Traffic No. 361/2000 Coll., According to which the driver must wear it in the case when it is moving on the road outside the village during an emergency stand. There is no obligation to wear reflective elements in the village.

 

Experts criticize the gap in the law, as this innovation can lead to speculation in the technical and roadside control of the car, but also to reduce road safety.

 

“I’m surprised that almost no one noticed. All of them, after the amendment of this decree, were limited to information on bulbs, fuses and the contents of the first-aid kit. Thanks to this, we almost missed the big topic of visibility of road users and possible complications associated with missing a vest in the vehicle,” comments the transport specialist Martin from Dekra, who drew attention to the hole in the paragraphs.

 

He added that it is necessary to alert the driver to the absence of a vest in the compulsory gear, as this should be clearly and completely defined in the decree to avoid speculation and speculation about the interpretation of the law. Now, drivers need to have a vest in the car.

 

The ministry insists that the vest remains compulsory. However, it is not really in the decree. Therefore, the editors asked for an interpretation of the transport law expert Michal Diablo. “It is necessary to distinguish between compulsory equipment, that is, what must be in the vehicle at all times and between what the driver must sometimes wear. And since the reflective vest has dropped out of the Decree on Technical Approval and Technical Conditions for Vehicle Operation on October 1, 2018, there is no doubt that it is no longer part of the mandatory equipment,” Dlabola pointed out.

 

Likewise, Roman, an expert on transport safety, sees the new Vision Zero security platform. “The reflective vest is no longer listed in the mandatory vehicle equipment. It is hard to say whether this is a mistake or a ministry’s intention,” he said.

 

The topic of visibility is often discussed and road safety experts often resemble the vest. In addition, since February 2016, the obligation to have reflex accessories for pedestrians outside the village has been introduced in the Czech Republic. “For this reason, the absence of a reflective vest appears to be a mistake in the compulsory equipment of the vehicle. If there is a mistake, the immediate remedy is in place,” Bednar appeals.

 

What does it mean in practice? The driver doesn’t have to drive her in the car. “This means that if the driver does anything other than move on a road outside the village in an emergency, due to an accident, failure, or nausea, no one can skip it and fine for not having a reflective vest in the vehicle. The police cannot blame the driver even if he/she is in an emergency state in the village or if he/she is in a state of an emergency outside the municipality, but does not move along the road,” explained Michal Dlabola, an expert on transport law.

 

Since the vest is not directly listed in the decree, it should not be interested in the STK technicians as part of the mandatory equipment of the car, which may not cause it to malfunction during the technical test of the car and threaten the driver that his car will not pass MOT due to a missing vest. Only mandatory equipment items are subject to control.

Half of the reflective tapes are awkward!

Reflective tapes, which pedestrians should wear under reduced visibility outside the village, do not always perform their function. This is claimed by the Czech Trade Inspection Authority, according to which half of the sold samples do not have the required properties and are thus practically unnecessary. The light does not reflect sufficiently and the driver cannot see the pedestrian in time.

 

“The Czech Trade Inspection Authority inspected 37 reflective tapes, of which 33 violated the law. Most often, it was the fact that reflective tapes do not have sufficient retro-reflective materials,” said Czech Trade Inspection Authority spokesman Frohlich.

 

“The quality difference between the tapes can be up to sixty-fold. If they are of poor quality, then we see the one who moves outside the illuminated area sixty times worse,” said Igor Sirota, spokesman for the Central Automobile Club.

 

The inspectors awarded fines in the total amount of CZK 300,000 for the sale of low-quality reflective tapes. The Czech Post also had to pay. Although it was selling quality but not CE marked.

 

“Of course, we paid the fine with the fact that we claimed the tapes at our supplier. He supplied the correctly labeled tapes and paid the fine,” said Czech Post spokesman Matyas.

 

And even if you have a quality reflective tape, it’s important that you place it in a prominent position. Top on hand and foot towards the road.

Children want to be obliged to wear flickers on clothes

On Tuesday, the Kaluga Legislative Assembly held a meeting of the working group on improving legislation in order to prevent accidents involving children. Participants in the meeting are going to seek changes in federal legislation in order to oblige all parents to place reflective elements or reflective vests on children’s outer clothing.

 

The relevant initiative will prepare Kaluga deputies. It is planned to consider it at the next session of the regional parliament.

 

“Such measures will require adult awareness and responsibility,” they say in the Legislative Assembly. According to members of the working group, it is also necessary to consider the possibility of amending the Code of Administrative Offenses in order to strengthen the responsibility of adults for non-compliance by minors with these rules.

 

A traffic police representative, who also took part in the meeting, noted that wearing children’s reflective elements significantly reduces the number of accidents at night. In Russia, such a requirement, enshrined in the Rules of the road, is still a recommendation.