The City of Spartanburg, SC has a new program to increase the awareness of pedestrian safety. Because of the many pedestrian injuries and deaths reported in Spartanburg they are working on teaching people about pedestrian safety and bicycle safety. In celebration of this new initiative they gave out thousands of free Bright Ideas
reflective slap bracelets with their slogan "Reflect for Safety"
DontGetHit.com
I haven't been able to get to updating our safety blog because I was so busy with our fantastic new design. (The design is by 1choiceforYstore. they are also working on matching our blog to the design as well). I was reminded about my blog by the following picture.
Unfortunately last night a man biking was hit by a car on Rt. 9 in our town Lakewood NJ. As you can see in the picture the only
reflectors or
lights on the bike are the small reflectors that are on the spokes most probably from the bike manufacturer. This made me think of a couple of things that I would like to share with our readers.
About 5 yrs ago we added a line of affordable
bike lights to our store and this is the reason for it.
There are people that have or can afford cars but are cyclist because it is their hobby or their passion. These people are more likely to spend the money on a good bike and safety equipment. There are also many more bikers who buy an inexpensive bike from walmart or a used bike from the flee-market or a yard sale. They buy the bike because they really need it for transportation because they can not buy a car for what ever reason (too young, not a US Citizen or just simply can't afford it). Unfortunately they don't usually bother with visibility wear. We have tried to give them the option of spending under $10s and being highly visible. I see many bikers in town with just our basic
reflective belt (which the county has given out a couple of times for free) and it makes a world of a difference.
There is a really nice guy that lives not far from us, he is actually a senior citizen and he has a wonderful safety project. He comes to us every now and then and buys our highly visible
reflective tape in red and white and our
spoke reflectors. When he is driving around Lakewood and notices any bicycles on side walks or chained to a post or rack, he goes over in his quiet way and puts red reflective tape on the back of the bike and white tape on the front and spoke reflectors on the spokes. With these small acts of kindness who knows how many people he has saved from harm.
I hope you liked this post. Please feel free to share with us your experiences with bikers being visible and safe.
DontGetHit.com
