SHE SAYS...

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31663, 26 April 1968, Page 11

SHE SAYS...

Gone are the twilight hours when it was safe for children to cycle home from their friends’ houses or after-school meetings without lights on their bicycles. The evenings have rapidly drawn in, and with occasional mists and the city’s smoky atmosphere, visibility is dangerously low. With many ill-lit streets and intersections, pedestrians and cyclists are extremely difficult for ether road-users to see. Light-coloured apparel and a torch, or the correct lighting in the ease of a cyclist, are your best protection. Any driver having to change a wheel or make roadside repairs after dark should take particular care, for other drivers may not be expecting an obstruction, and if there is not sufficient lighting they may not see the stopped vehicle until too late.

Winter and the poor visibility that comes with it always calls for more care. I vividly recall my encounter with a railway locomotive in a poorly-lit street on a drizzly night The engine was crossing on a seldom-used line a few yards from a lightcontrolled level crossing. But the lights did not work for traffic on the little-used line, and the only warning I had was the weak glow from a torch, which was waved as I approached. This was an instance where an unsuspecting motorist who knew the road, and might expect the lights to be working if rail traffic was approaching, could easily be caught On such a wet night the feeble glow of a weak torch is poor warning of danger ahead.