Tag: safety reflective vest

CYCLISTS: BEING SEEN IS VITAL!

With the winter passage, the City of Besançon recalls the importance of being well seen when traveling on two wheels. The Highway Code underlines several mandatory types of equipment: White or yellow front headlight, red rear headlight, white or yellow front reflector (reflector), red rear reflector (reflector), reflectors visible from the side (reflectors attached to the spokes of the wheels or tires with reflective sidewalls) and pedal reflectors.

 

Wearing a retro-reflective vest is also compulsory for any cyclist (and his passenger) traveling outside built-up areas, at night or when visibility is insufficient. In town, it is strongly recommended.

Avoid accidents on road with wearing safety vest

It also recommends helmet on and safety vest or fluorescent textiles on. “Responsibility and mutual care are essential in road traffic,” says Professor Dr. med. Joachim, Deputy DGOU President, and President of the German Society for Trauma Surgery as well as Director of the Department of Trauma and Hand Surgery of the University Hospital Dusseldorf.

 

According to calculations by the Federal Statistical Office, in 2016 there were a total of 81,272 bicycle accidents in which people were injured. 393 cyclists died. The main cause of serious bicycle accident injuries was a car crash in 74 percent of the time. In accidents involving a car, the cyclist was only 24 percent the main cause of the accident.

 

A collision between cyclists and turning car or truck drivers is one of the causes of serious cycling accidents. Therefore, Dr. Christopher, Head of the DGOU Prevention and Senior Physician Section at the Department of Trauma Surgery, Orthopedics, and Plastic Surgery at the University Medical Center: “Attention and respect for cyclists must become even stronger.” Do not forget to turn your shoulder glance and seek eye contact with the cyclist. Eye contact ensures mutual perception. If it does not come about, the cyclist should drive restrained, in order to be able to react to a dangerous situation in time – if necessary by stopping and turning the vehicle. Sparing advises: “For their own safety, cyclists should not rely on their right of way.” This applies especially to truck vehicles. Cyclists need to be aware that they may be in the blind spot and the truck driver cannot see them. Remedy here provides technical turn-off assistance, but with which trucks are so far only sporadically equipped and on the cyclists should therefore not rely.

 

In his own interest, the cyclist should also ensure that other road users could recognize him quickly at any time of the day or night. In addition to the traffic-safe bike with lighting is suitable to wear reflective clothing. One option is the safety vest, a simple but very effective means. Reflective straps or stickers also improve visibility. “On the other hand, car drivers must not rely on this provision. Their perception for cyclists should always be sharpened – especially at intersections, “says Sparing.

 

In the life-threatening injured cyclists, the major traumatic brain injury is the main injury. “Every cyclist should therefore use a protective helmet,” advises bicycle accident researcher and DGOU prevention expert. A bicycle helmet protects the head by reducing the energy that acts on the skull when impacted – helmet wearers thus suffer less severe head injuries. In 2017, 19 percent of cyclists wore a helmet. That is an increase of two percent over the previous year. In 2010, it was 9 percent. “The increasing acceptance of the helmet is very positive. Overall, unfortunately, there are still too few people using a helmet, “says Jurua.

 

Helmet, safety reflective vest, and a look at the risks in road traffic are measures that cyclists can implement on their own responsibility immediately and at any time – but which cannot prevent every accident. “For more safety for cyclists, further measures such as infrastructural changes in traffic are therefore necessary,” says Sparing.

Safety Quiz for Beginners in the course

“Actually, we wanted to shoot a film first, but then we were not satisfied with the quality,” says Jens, former apprentice of Deutschland GmbH. The 22-year-old in safety vest is now a trained specialist for warehouse logistics and has already “taken” a distinction together with his six apprentice colleagues before the successful completion of his apprenticeship.

 

At the beginning of November, the trainees went to Bremen and were awarded the “Main Prize for Trainees” for their “Safety Quiz for Beginners” in the course of a festive award ceremony – a multiple-choice questionnaire that drew attention to the safety concept of the service company with its branch.

 

“We have a good 22,000 square meters of storage space on the entire site,” says Wald, deputy branch manager and responsible for the company’s trainees. From above it looks like a small town with marked streets and walkways between the high shelves. Operational, but not hectic, it goes on and yet: Again and again forklift trucks and so-called “ants” – officially: between the shelves back and forth. “This is the ‘Blue Spotlight'”, explains Michael Dairyman, trainee apprentice. The forklift trucks drive forward as well as backwards and to warn of any vehicles or pedestrians coming around the corner, this blue point is already ahead. The fact that in this environment it is necessary to develop a safety quiz for beginners is illuminated, especially since the entering of the terrain and especially the storage halls is not permitted without safety reflective vest and safety shoes.

 

“When I start at half past six in the morning, it has happened to me that I forgot to put on my warning vest,” says Jennifer Martin, an apprentice for warehouse logistics. But then a colleague had come immediately and pointed it out. “Behavior Based Safety” is the name of this apparently quite successful approach to occupational health and safety, which also has a positive influence on the behavior of employees. And Kai Hurling adds, “I always have the safety shoes under my desk.” As a trainee to the merchant for forwarding and logistics services, the warehouse is not his core business, but just like everyone else, he is fully “in the fabric”.

 

Around this topic, the questions that the trainees have devised are also turning. “We have already laughed a lot when thinking about the possibilities for answers,” they say. You can tell the quiz. Photographs were used to depict scenes which partly show questionable behavior of persons on the site. A correct answer is a solution word. Everything relatively simple and yet: You can tell that behind this quiz are a lot of dedication and above all a lot of fun. “We would definitely do it again”, the apprentices of Geodes Deutschland GmbH enthusiastically tell their project. “You just do something different and get to know the other trainees,” adds Kai Hurling in warning vest.