The recently adopted amendment to the Road Traffic Act requires pedestrians to wear reflective elements outside the municipality. What is it, why should we wear it, where it can be ordered and bought - and how much will they find us?
The new obligation concerns reflective elements made of material reflecting light from another source. Model situation: walking in poor visibility along the side of an unlit road winding between two villages. It is not enough to have a flashlight in your hand or to shine on your mobile phone. Reflective elements here are primarily reflective bands or bracelets; they are often retractable, some of them are equipped with Velcro.
"Reflective and fluorescent items are not expensive. You can buy various pendants, patches, iron-on elements, stickers, hand straps, etc. in haberdashery or bicycle shops," According to media reports, reflective elements are also sold in supermarkets, household goods stores, drugstores, newsagents, post offices and petrol stations.
Reflective tapes, which can be used quickly and easily if required, can also be purchased in a variety of e-shops. Internet buying advisor Heureka.cz after entering the term "reflective tape" into its search engine in the first position of such products found retractable reflective tape Force 3x38 cm. It costs from 15 to 89 CZK, most often around 25 to 29 crowns. "You can wear rolled bags or a belt on your clothing over your ear," wrote one of the customers of the online store www.element-shop.cz in his mini-review. Another - apparently a cyclist - after buying at www.bike-eshop.cz noticed that "it is enough to straighten the belt and then tap over the destination and the belt will wrap itself. Excellent, visible, helps to hold the trousers on the leg so that they do not get entangled in the chain".
Heureka also looked for reflective tapes Spectro (CZK 21 to 119), PAVEXIM (CZK 33 to 49) and others. By the way, the price of transport usually exceeds the price of the tapes themselves.
According to BESIP instructions, safety elements made of reflective materials are best placed at the end of the sleeves, close to the knees and at the waist level (cyclists also wear helmets and bikes, for example). Children can then get clothes that are already equipped with elements of reflective fabrics, just like school bags.
The reasons that led the legislature to adopt the amendment to Act No. 361/2000 Coll. on traffic on roads are preventive in the case of reflective elements. Reflective material is visible at night three times longer than white clothing and more than ten times longer than blue clothing. These distances have a major influence on whether the driver can avoid us or not. Reflective materials can reflect incident light up to a distance of 200 meters. In contrast, a walker in dark clothes is almost invisible in the dark on the road.
"More than seven hundred people die on our roads every year. And the pedestrians targeted by the campaign are one of the most vulnerable groups. Every seventh person in our country dies as a pedestrian in a traffic accident. Of these, every eighth out of the village. And this is a warning!" Dan Ťok, Minister of Transport, said last October at the presentation of the BESIP "See You?"Campaign on pedestrian visibility.
In 2014, 112 pedestrians were killed in accidents, 65 at night. Night accidents thus accounted for over 58% of pedestrian fatal accidents - but outside the village, it was 79%.
The aforementioned amendment to the Road Traffic Act came into effect on 20 February this year.
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