The recently adopted amendment to the Road Traffic Act requires pedestrians to wear reflective vests outside the community. What is the reason why we should wear them, where they can be ordered and bought, and how much will they cost?
The new duty concerns reflective elements made of a material that reflects light from another source (car headlights). Model situation: walking under reduced visibility on the verge of an unlit road winding between two villages. It is not enough to have a flashlight in your hand or to shine on your cell phone. Reflective elements are understood here primarily as so-called reflective tapes or bracelets, they are often retractable, some are fitted with Velcro.
“Reflective and fluorescent items are not expensive. You can buy various pendants, patches, iron-on elements, stickers, hand tapes in haberdashery or bicycle shops,” says BESIP. According to media reports, reflective elements also sold in supermarkets, household goods stores, drugstores, newsagents, post offices, and gas stations.
Reflective tapes, which can be used quickly and easily when needed, can also be purchased in a variety of e-shops. The online shopping advisor Heureka.cz, after entering the term “reflective tape” into its search engine, offers a self-retracting Force-Reflective tape of 3x38 cm in the first position. It costs from 15 to 89 CZK, most often around 25 to 29 crowns. “It can be worn rolled over the ears of a bag or some garment belt,” one of the customers of the online store wrote in his mini-review. Another — apparently cyclist noticed that “you just need to straighten the strap and then tap over the destination and wrap it around itself. Excellent, visible, helps keep pants on the leg so they don’t get caught in the chain”.
Heureka also searched for Spectro reflective tapes (21 to 119 CZK), PAVEXIM (33 to 49 CZK) and others. By the way, the price of transport usually exceeds the price of the tapes themselves.
Safety elements made of reflective materials are best placed at the end of the sleeves, close to the knees and to the waist level (cyclists also for the helmet and bike). We can then buy clothing that is already equipped with reflective materials, as well as school bags.
The reasons that led the legislator to adopt an amendment to Act №361/2000 Coll. on road traffic, they are clearly preventive in the case of reflective elements. The reflective material is seen at three times the distance of white clothing at night and more than ten times the distance of blue clothing. These distances have a major impact on whether a driver can avoid us or not. Reflective materials are capable of reflecting incident light up to a two hundred meter distance. In contrast, a walker in dark clothes is almost invisible in the darkness of the road.
“Every year over seven hundred people die on our roads. And just the pedestrians on which the campaign is heading are one of the most vulnerable groups. Every seventh person will die in a traffic accident as a walker. Of these, every eighth is outside the village. And this is a warning!” Said Transport Minister Dan Ťok at the presentation of the BESIP campaign “We See You?” Last October.
In 2014, a total of 112 pedestrians were killed in accidents, 65 of them at night. Night accidents accounted for over 58% of fatal accidents among pedestrians, but out of town, it was 79%.
The above-mentioned amendment to the Road Traffic Act came into effect on February 20 of this year.