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Safe Routes to School

Safe Routes to School (SRTS) is an international program to encourage safe walking and bicycling to and from schools. SRTS is based on six principles, the “6 E’s“: Education, Encouragement, Engagement, Engineering, Evaluation, and Equity. Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs are sustained efforts by parents, schools, community leaders and local, state, and federal governments to improve the health and well-being of children by enabling and encouraging them to walk and bicycle to school, and to do so safely.

The Clark County School District SRTS program is federally funded through the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) and the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC) and is supported by many community partners

Keeping Kids Safe on the Road

Child safety has come a long way since the days when seat belts were optional equipment, but it still has a long way to go. Some of the most vital safety technology and features are now standard equipment on all new passenger cars and trucks, while others are only available as optional equipment or in upgraded feature packages.

The absolute most vital thing you can do to protect a child in your vehicle, aside from practicing safe driving habits, is to follow the letter of the law in terms of where the child sits and the restraints that are used.

Although the law differs from one location to another, according to the IIHS, every state, and the District of Columbia, in the United States has some form of child seat law. You can check your specific law to be safe, but the general rule of thumb is to always make sure that children under the age of 13 sit in the back seat and that appropriate car seats and boosters are used.

Some laws even apply to children under the age of 16, but the real issue, in terms of car safety, has to do with the height and weight of the child, so some children can safely ride in the front seat earlier, while many adults require additional safety technologies like smart airbags (Laukkonen).

Driving Safety in School Zones

Students are returning to school everywhere across the United States, and since school zones, crosswalks, and school buses are most frequently used during the school months, it is important drivers remember the laws involving them. Keeping students safe should be everyone’s priority.

Schools and Speed Limits

Areas surrounding schools often experience heavy amounts of traffic around school start and end times. With so many children walking home or running to vehicles, it is important to drive at a slower speed. Pay special attention to the following areas:

  • School Zones: Often marked by flashing lights on a speed limit sign, you should slowdown. Most areas require driving no faster than 20 miles per hour, but there are areas that require you drive under 15 miles per hour.
  • Drop Off and Pick Up Lanes: Schools have designated areas for dropping off and picking up students. When in these areas, drive less than 10 miles per hour and be ready to brake if a student runs out from between cars. If you are going to need to park for more than a small moment, park in a parking stall to keep the lanes clear for others.
  • Neighborhoods: Remember that a speed limit is the fastest you should be going, not the required speed. In neighborhoods and other areas outside of the marked school zone, go slow and watch out for kids. It only takes a small distraction for the child to not pay attention and step into traffic.

Laws for Crosswalks

While crosswalk laws don’t change during the school year, they are more frequently used. In more dangerous intersections or roads with higher amounts of pedestrians, cities will use one of the following options:

  • Crossing Guards
  •  Brightly Colored Flags
  •  Flashing Lights

In these situations, drivers are required to yield to the pedestrian. Stop when someone is in the road and wait for them to cross completely before proceeding. Keeping the intersection clear helps ensure the pedestrian’s safety because they are more clearly seen from every direction.

Stopping for School Buses

School bus drivers are tasked with getting children to and from school safely. They stop at designated areas to pick up and drop off students. When a school bus stops, they pull on a lever that opens the door and starts signals on the front and back of the bus. A stop sign also extends out by the driver. These signal to other drivers that they need to stop. This helps keep students safe who may be running to catch the bus in the morning or crossing the street to get home in the afternoon.

Safety and Enforcement

Keeping students safe is a community responsibility. While you may be in a hurry to get to school, take your own kids to school, or get to work, it is important to slow down and pay attention to the laws. Since the consequences for breaking these laws can lead to serious injury and death, they have stiffer penalties. Plan to leave a little early and drive at a slower speed. Being a little late is better than causing serious injury or death to someone else, getting in a crash, or having to pay an expensive ticket.

Be Seen

WEAR FLUORESCENTS IN DAYTIME

A 2004 meta-review of studies found drivers consistently recognized fluorescent colors faster, more consistently and from further away than standard colors. Fluorescent material reflects non-visible ultraviolet light back in the visible spectrum, making it look about 200 percent brighter in daylight than conventional colors.

There’s no research on which color creates the best contrast, but fluorescent orange is a good pick because it’s commonly used on highway safety and construction signs (i.e. drivers associate it with caution), and orange is rare in the natural environment.

Keep in mind that fluorescents simply don’t work at night, when there’s no natural sun for the fabric to reflect. Artificial light sources like car headlights and streetlamps don’t emit UV light either. At night, your fluorescent yellow jacket is no brighter than anything else in your closet.

WEAR REFLECTIVES AT NIGHT

At night, your best bet for visibility shifts from bright colors to reflective material, which shines (literally and figuratively) in artificial light. Since reflectives can be expensive and often impair the breathability of the garment, it’s important to be selective with placements—which brings us again to biomotion. A 2012 study by Dr. Tyrrell and other researchers found that drivers correctly identified a rider wearing a reflective vest 67 percent of the time; the rate jumped to 94 percent when ankle and knee reflectors were added.

“A jacket has no movement, so a driver could see it as a road sign,” says Trek Product Designer Kurt Heggland. “When you put the reflective material in places that move, you become more recognizable.” Also, reflective material higher up on the body may not capture and reflect as brightly from light sources such as car headlights, which are aimed low.

One thing to remember is to make sure you have enough reflective material. The reflective piping on lots of garments is simply too small to make a difference, says Dr. Tyrrell. To create contrast, the material must be large enough to draw attention and pop out of the background. For comparison, the minimum ANSI recommendation for reflective material on road workers’ apparel is 155 square inches, equivalent to a 10x15 square patch.

And don’t forget your wheels. “Reflective-sidewall tires are more effective than clothing in some cases,” says Trek’s Michael Browne. They’re so distinctly different from other reflective elements that, when drivers see them, they instantly recognize them as belonging to a bike.

USE LIGHTS ALWAYS

Because they convey both brightness and a sense of motion, flashing lights work well even during the day. A 2012 study in Denmark found riders with so-called “permanent running lights” had a 19 percent lower “multi-party” crash rate than a control group without running lights.

It sounds counterintuitive, but in the brighter ambient light of daytime, you actually need a more powerful light than at night. Rating brightness is sometimes problematic because light output is measured various ways and brightness also depends on reflector design, but 20 lumens is a good minimum output for a rear light in daytime use (more is better) . Flashing front and rear patterns draw attention and set you apart from your environment during the day, but at night, it’s best to use a steady pattern for the headlight unless you’re in a brightly lit urban environment.

Also, take care to angle the beam correctly; many rear lights have reflectors angled for maximum brightness when mounted on a seat post. “In some of our research with rear lights, if the angle is off even 10 percent, brightness is greatly reduced,” says Jon Quenzer, an electronics design engineer at Trek.

SEE INTO THE FUTURE

Improved batteries and technology like printable and flexible LED lights open up other possibilities for the future. For two years now, POC has shown a prototype wind vest and jacket with printed LED lights on the back, creating a flexible pattern of dots that creates a large total lit area out of very small light sources. Startup Lumenus is creating packs and apparel with built-in LED lighting on flexible strips.

But Dr. Tyrrell sounds a note of caution about going crazy with lights. “We don’t have enough data on how drivers process visual information,” he says. LED lighting, if not done well, could potentially confuse drivers who can’t quickly recognize what it is that they’re looking at. POC’s Huss says for that very reason, in developing the Light Vest, the company consciously decided to go with a gray/blue LED light color to mimic a reflective look.

The next step may not involve vision at all, but active safety systems similar to the emergency braking and lane-departure warnings that are already in place in many new cars. Garmin’s Varia radar system, for example, can warn riders of vehicles rapidly approaching from behind.

And even more sophisticated technology may be coming. POC is in the second year of a collaboration with fellow Swedish company Volvo. At the 2015 Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the companies demonstrated a technology that paired warning systems in the car to a rider’s helmet. “The car is connected to the cyclist with a cloud service, and the driver and the rider are both alerted to the other one, even coming around a corner where they couldn’t see each other,” says Huss.

The product is still a prototype demo, but Huss says it uses existing technology. “Everything is there,” says Huss. “It’s just about deciding what we want to do, and convincing the customer that they should pay for it.”

Perhaps, one day, autonomous vehicles will return fluorescent colors to the province of second-division Italian pro teams. Until then, when it comes to safety, grabbing as much attention as we can, as early as we can, remains our best bet.