Category: reflective vest

Suggestions from the City of Edmonton that pedestrians should wear reflective tape to avoid collisions with vehicles as the daylight hours diminish are being met with a bit of backlash.

 

Will Edmonton adopt “Vision Zero”?

As part of its annual “Heads Up” campaign, the City of Edmonton put out a test ad to the Edmonton Insight Community that urges pedestrians to wear reflective material or attach reflectors to themselves to avoid being struck by a vehicle.

 

While the ad hasn’t been rolled out on the streets of Edmonton yet, some have shared the poster on social media. It shows a pedestrian wearing reflective tape and another carrying a flashlight. The same tips can also be found on the city’s website.

 

“When drivers are watching for headlights, wearing a strip of reflective material or a reflector can save your life,” the city’s website reads.

 

The test ad is part of the City of Edmonton’s “Vision Zero” campaign, a global initiative adopted by the city that aims to have zero fatalities and serious injuries on city streets.

 

Troy Pavlek, a local software developer who plans to run for Ward 11 councilor in the next municipal election, said the campaign goes against everything Vision Zero hopes to achieve.

 

“The big problem with this campaign is it continues a sort of trend the city has put forward where the onus seems to be on the pedestrian to modify their behavior to stay safe on the streets and that is not Vision Zero,” Pavlek said.

 

“When we’re saying it’s behaviors that need to be modified here, that’s the problem.”

 

The council hopeful said Vision Zero seeks to have the traffic system change to accommodate user behaviors, not the other way around. Pavlek believes the city should do more to make traffic infrastructure safer for pedestrians and drivers.

 

“Lighting crosswalks, putting more pedestrian crossing lights,” he said. “Extending curbs wherever pedestrians are frequently crossing is both a cheap and very effective way at signaling to pedestrians that: ‘this is a safe and convenient place to cross,’ as well as to drivers: ‘the road narrows here so you need to slow down. ‘ ”

According to the city, a pedestrian who wears dark clothing in the dark is not visible to drivers until they are 36 meters away from the vehicle.

 

“No matter who is at fault, a human body is no match for a vehicle. Pedestrians have only a 10 percent chance of surviving if the vehicle that strikes them is traveling over 50 km / h, “the city’s website reads.

 

A spokesperson with the city said pedestrians and drivers share responsibility when it comes to preventing collisions and it was not the intention of the test ad to place blame. While changes to infrastructure are in the works, Gary Dyck with the city’s Transportation Department said change doesn’t happen overnight.

 

“As you might guess, changing infrastructure takes time whereas daylight is decreasing now. So if we can tell pedestrians, drivers, to look out for each other now, we might save a life, “Dyck said.

 

“When it comes to a collision between a pedestrian and a car, a pedestrian always loses. So it doesn’t matter whose fault it is, the pedestrian loses. So if we can remind drivers to look out for pedestrians and pedestrians to be as visible as possible, we can save lives. ”

 

Pavlek maintains the initiative will discourage people from walking, which he said: “flies in the face” of what the cities messaging is supposed to be.

 

“We’re supposed to be prioritizing active modes of transportation – walking, cycling, taking public transportation – and instead, this puts pedestrians on the same level of responsibility as cars for managing their safety,” he said.

 

“It makes walking something that a pedestrian has to plan to do,” he continued. “When we make it more inconvenient for people to walk places by saying, ‘if you don’t wear reflective tape or reflective vest you’re insignificant danger’ that is going to make everyone less safe because we will get fewer people walking.”

 

Pavlek said it’s time to stop playing the blame game and instead, rally the city for a change.

 

“We need to stop blaming pedestrians, stop blaming drivers and start encouraging people to work together and encourage better design,” he said.

 

We are used to seeing it worn by protesters. But the yellow vest could tomorrow be worn by bikers, and more generally drivers of two or three motorized wheels. The explanations of Maître Jean-Baptiste Dall, a lawyer in road law.

 

The mandatory wearing of the yellow vest, which returns to the front of the scene in recent days, is an old story for bikers. One could even say an old fight since users of two motorized wheels has so far been opposed to such a change. It is indeed not the first time that the idea of wearing a retro-reflective vest is advanced.

 

At the Interdepartmental Committee on Road Safety (IRB) on May 11, 2011, the government had already tried to impose it. After a few days of intense debate, the interior minister at the time, Claude Guéant, had backtracked. In the aftermath of the IRB’s announcements, many mobilizations were supported by the French Association of Suppliers and Users of Driver Assistance Technologies (AFFTAC). The bikers had been able to get quite easily the setting of the wearing of the vest. To be precise, he did not leave the closet but in the bag or under the saddle, since the presence of this equipment is mandatory in an automobile as motorized two-wheelers.

 

So why come out the vest?

 

Some misplaced minds could say that by imposing the yellow vest to bikers, it would tear the protesters. But this idea stems rather from the upcoming arrival in the Highway Code of the New Personal Electric Vehicles (NVEI) or Personal Movement Vehicles (PDU). Electric scooters and other hoverboards that swarm on the sidewalks of our cities for a few months. The government has therefore announced on May 4 an amendment to the Highway Code for September 2019. It’s objective: to make room in the regulation of these devices new mobility by imposing them, in addition to the helmet, the wearing of the yellow vest with reflective tape, night and during the day when “visibility is insufficient”.

 

Remember that it had long been envisaged to settle the legal issues raised by their arrival in the context of the Mobility Orientation Act (LOM). She refers to it. But its adoption is slow and the multiplication of incidents no longer allows to wait. The legal vacuum will be filled at the start of the school year using a regulatory amendment. However, the LOM law has not said its last word in terms of new mobility. And one will find probably in this catch-all text provisions relating specifically to NVEI or EDP. This is notably the case of amendment No. CD1951 filed on May 9 by 27 LaREM deputies, whose logic and content.

 

Everyone has the same sign

 

The diversity of the acclaimed machines, especially by users of agglomerations, raises the question of coherence. So we already find this concern in the announcements made May 4, for example in terms of wearing a helmet. It would indeed have been difficult to allow young users under the age of twelve to ride on a scooter without a helmet, while they must wear it when they are struggling on a bike.

 

The logic is a bit similar to Amendment No. CD1951 tabled on May 9th. We understand the concern of members to ensure the good visibility of users of electric scooters or other Monowheel, especially at night.

 

“Chapter 6 of Book 4 of the Highway Code is supplemented by a new Article L. 413-6 as follows: Article L. 413-6 – In circulation, every driver or passenger of a bicycle, a scooter, a Segway, a motorcycle, a motor tricycle, a motor quadricycle or a moped must wear a high visibility vest and be wearing a type-approved helmet. must be tied in. The fact that any driver contravenes the provisions of this section is punishable by the fine for class IV tickets.” In other words, everyone is housed in the same sign yellow mandatory vest with reflective material, bike to the bike through the scooter. Note that the question of the degree of visibility is not addressed in this amendment.

 

The question of the legal framework of these machines certainly had to be settled. But with electric scooters that can sneak as fast as scooter or motorcycle, the question of the difference in treatment arises. Why impose the wearing of the vest to the user of one of these scooters while the driver of a scooter neither more nor less fast would be dispensed? That’s why the 27 members want to impose the yellow vest on everyone.

 

In any case, many clubs and biker associations have already expressed their hostility to wearing the yellow vest.