Make me Glow

RantWoman is strangely allergic to getting run over. She has had this problem for quite awhile ever since she suddenly realized one dark and stormy night in the middle of winter when Seattle gets by on about 8 hours of daylight a day that a driver probably actually could not see her crossing a street in a navy trench coat even if she was crossing at the corner early one evening in a marked crosswalk at a place she had a perfect right to cross.

While Thwack the Badly-Behaved White Cane would happily weigh in about numerous instances of Driving While Stupid, Driving While Out to Lunch, Driving While Texting, Driving While Rude. Driving While Observing as Few Traffic Laws as Possible, and numerous other offenses against public order on our nation's roads, tonight's rant is about pedestrian responsibility, and all the fabulous options (or not) available to be visible at night.

First, a memorial moment for the latest event evoking this rant, and a promise AGAIN to harangue a couple wheelchair users I know whose vanity and lack of attention to visibility is, well, frightening. Tonight's newsppaper update includes a very sad story of a guy in a wheelchair who was struck by a car and killed while crossing a 5-lane highway after dark at an uncontrolled intersection, that is one without any kind of stoplight or marked crosswalk north of Seattle. WA state law says pedestrians have the right of way at places like this. WA State law appears not to reckon with the laws of physics.

The newspaper presumption is that wheelchair users qualify as pedestrians, although an excellent case could be made that these folks would be safer if the law treated them like a vehicle and required some standard of lights and reflectors whether just stickers or full-blown bike / automotive quality, as well, perhaps as extra reflective warning flags. Making wheelchairs easier to see is only half the problem though. Drivers also have to be able to see something soon enough to be able to stop or take evasive action. RantWoman is not feeling public-spirited enough to go look up stopping distances for cars traveling at different speeds. RantWoman is however fixated on nighttime visibility and herewith presents a few different sides of that story.

RantWoman is the kind of nerd who bookmarks highway engineering / Department of Transportation sites about how little drivers can see at night outside the cones of light created by their headlights. In other words, people operating large masses of moving metal really cannot see much at night, but unlike RantWoman, they are not necessarily aware of this. Alas, RantWoman is not always the kind of nerd who can find things like this that she has previously bookmarked.

In terms of nerdy reflective looks, nothing beats running a Google search for "Safety Vests." These are highly functional and come in numerous models guaranteed to make one feel like a proud construction worker. RantWoman even knows a few different blind people who use different models of safety vests. RantWoman herself keeps thinking about going that route though she still has fantasies about clothing that is functional but does not scream "outdoor exercise freak" even at formal occasions.

When RantWoman needs sudden low-budget foreign travel opportunities, she visits websites in England or in Finland that specialize in reflective items to help schoolkids get safely to and from school in lands of even less winter daylight than Seattle. The stock tends to run to zipper pulls with cute animals and minimalist vests. Those bookmarks seem to have gone the same way as the nerdy headlight cone ones above!

RantWoman can say she has a friend who taught for many years in Denmark. This friend says it is really quite the thing for nearly everyone to have a reflector tied into their winter coats and to pull it out anytime they go out walking. The one RantWoman's friend has is simple and clear/ white like a front reflector for a bike, simple enough.

RantWoman has bag envy. Every time RantWoman meets someone on Da Bus who has an especially easy to see bag or backpack, she has to ask where the bag was purchased. Lots of bike messenger bags come with one reflective tag. RantWoman considers this barely adequate; she swoons for bags with an entire flap of reflective material. The last such bag she saw reportedly came from REI . Tonight's search for "reflective" on the REI site yields a number of interesting items though no bags.

The current Lands End site has a reflective collar and leash for pets but nothing for their humans.

A favorite RantWoman shopping fantasy site, Junonia has one or two really stylish reflective items in almost every catalog. Of course, one part of RantWoman's shopping fantasy is that even more clothing manufacturers would include reflective features in stylish outdoor wear

The truth is that RantWoman more often than not winds up doing a do-it-yourself approach

RantWoman buys a wide variety of reflective pants clips, stickers, and vests at any of several Seattle bike stores. Some of these places also stock reflective clothing although the clothing tends to run in sizes that fit exercise gods but not necessarily the likes of RantWoman.

Despite Seattle's wintertime daylight limitations, it is also the land of bicycle commuting. The most dedicated bicycle commuters favor combinations of clothing and lights that make them look, basically like space aliens who have landed and somehow taken up bicycling perhaps due to malfunctioning jetpacks or tractor beams which for some reason are inoperable in the Seattle environment.

RantWoman assumes her readers are bright enough to find their own bicycle stores. RantWoman knows of several in different parts of Seattle and does not want to play favorites, especially since the exact stock available tends to vary in each one.

RantWoman does want to sing the praises of one of her very favorite sources of assistance for do-it-yourself visibility, Seattle Fabrics on Aurora. Seattle Fabrics stocks all kinds of materials to sew your own camping or outdoor gear. It has never really occurred to RantWoman to want to sew her own camping gear, but it just now occurs to her that there might be some interesting fashion apparel options featuring ripstop nylon and RantWoman's favorite item, reflector tape sold by the yard, in a variety of widths and colors, plastic tape, grograin ribbon with reflective stripes, and some kind of stick-on tape that RantWoman never buys!

RantWoman usually pays a visit about once a year and buys several yards of tape in different colors. RantWoman uses some to make zipper pulls. She sews some on canvas shopping bags and sometimes attaches the tape to jackets. RantWoman has a few other ideas she keeps meaning to try, but you get the idea. Oh, and the navy trenchcoat: it got the full treatment: reflector tape on epaulets, cuffs, pockets, the back cape, and a couple places along the front button line. That was years ago and the coat is long worn out, but drew notice all the way from Seattle to St. Petersburg.

Okay, so RantWoman is resourceful and the marketplace does indeed serve up a number of wonders. RantWoman stil wants MORE, more stylish reflective clothing, more canvas shopping bags that might come with reflectivity imbedded, more bags with serious visibility enhancers, more , more, more. Come on world, make me glow!