SHE SAYS...

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32636, 18 June 1971, Page 7

SHE SAYS...

He had nearly run down a girl in a maxi-coat, my husband announced when he arrived home the other evening after driving across the city. This, I discovered, was not because of his feelings about the fashion, but simply because the girl had been almost invisible.

It was very dark and very wet as he drove along a suburban street, he told me, and when the girl ran from a house on one side of the road to a car parked on the other side, he barely managed to see her in time. The full-length darkcoloured maxi-coat, dark shoes, gloves, and dark head-gear meant she was virtually invisible against the wet road.

So now my husband claims he has really good reasons to back up his dislikes of the midis and maxis!

Seriously, though, how many of us do give thought to being seen at night? Those of us who drive must realise the dangers, yet once on foot it’s so easy to forget that while we may be able to see the cars, the vehicles’ drivers may be quite unable to see us—

at least until too late. In much the same vein, most parents realise the dangers of bicycles on these winter evenings, when children can be cycling home from sports practice or late studying. Yet so many parents never appear to bother checking their children’s cycles to see if they have got enough lights, and if the lights are working properly. I think we all know the

rules, but we just don’t bother to do anything positive about them until someone close to us has a “near miss**—or an accident