Safety vest and reflectors: To make the children more visible

Only last Friday it happened again, a six-year-old boy hit on the way to school in Wermelskirchen by a car. He walked carelessly on the street and was seen too late by a driver. Luckily he was only slightly injured. Nevertheless, the police took the case as an opportunity to make the parents of schoolchildren once again to draw attention to the fact that the children should wear brighter and reflective clothing.

The purpose is also followed by the series “Glitter in the Dark”, which stopped at the Caritas daycare center Sonneblume in Hilgen on Monday. Thirty-seven preschool children between the ages of five and six were playfully prepared for the road — especially in terms of colors and reflectors.

“I can see Finn’s jacket best,” cried the children, as they stood in the darkened dining room of the daycare in jackets and winter boots and the beam of flashlights fell on the bright green of the winter jacket. Other kids thought it best to see Thalea’s jacket — a light purple model with reflective tapes.

The group of Finn and Thalea is the third, which is guided on this day by the program of the traffic guard. “This is a very good group,” says Andrea Höfer of the daycare — she means both colors of the clothes and the attention of the children. Karoline Strauch-Schmitz, Managing Director of the Traffic Watch in the Rheinisch-Bergisch-Kreis, agrees. In contrast, it is surprising how many children still wear dark or black jackets. “It’s amazing how few children wear reflective vests,” she says. The problem is especially the parents, who draw their children too dark clothes. “Parents attract children like little adults.”

Also in this group, there were some dark blue or black jackets. Light, reflective clothing is so important, says Karoline Strauch-Schmitz. The accident figures with children had gone up. That’s why the children should be sensitized. So you could also put pressure on the parents. “We can hardly reach it otherwise.”

This year, the traffic guards visited the four daycare centers in Hilgen for the first time. Uwe Graetke of the city says, there was still money left over from the pot of the state funds for transport projects, as he had requested the project for Hilgen.

Karoline Strauch-Schmitz says there is generally more money for traffic education — for all ages. Because the accident numbers rose again. Especially with children. Children, in particular, are increasingly lacking in traffic literacy. “The children are taken everywhere and driven. They lose their own mobility “- and that increases the risk of accidents. “They lose the ability to find their way around in traffic.” And if they try it from one day to the next, the insecurity is great, and so is the danger.

For Andrea Höfer of Kita Sonnenblume, it is important to prepare the children for the way to school. “Many of the children will go to different elementary schools in the coming year, sometimes with long school trips.” The daycare center also does its part: “We go for a long walk and will train in school during the winter,” she said. But any further program is welcome. Because even if many came on foot — many children would just drive by car to the daycare center if their parents would bring them on their way to work.

For the kids, the Monday program was a lot of fun. The kids did not just do the self-experiment in the dark, with reflectors in the light of the flashlight. They also painted a paper figure according to their own ideas, then to compare it with a dark-painted figure in a box: Which is more visible? There were no specifications for the design. So the kids should recognize the visibility of their own color choice. At the forefront were football-inspired color combinations such as black-yellow, blue-red and black-red-gold. But after all, it was colors that are far more visible than black, gray and brown.