《TAIPEI TIMES》 Group supplies vests to help kids

VISIBILITY: The advocacy group urged parents who take their children outdoors for bike rides at night to put reflective vests on them to help drivers see them

By Rachel Lin and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer

請繼續往下閱讀...

A child-protection advocacy group has teamed up with a government-funded research organization to provide reflective vests for children, saying that poor visibility leads to the deaths of many children who are struck by vehicles at night.

From 2017 to last year nearly 13,000 children were killed by vehicles at night or in the early morning when visibility is poor, the Jing Chuan Child Safety Foundation said, citing statistics from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

The foundation has worked with the Taiwan Textile Research Institute to donate 5,000 reflective vests for children to wear when outdoors outside of daylight hours.

“Children first learn about traffic safety as pedestrians. In countries like Germany, teachers and parents try to better protect children who go outside during the night or early morning by giving them reflective strips to put on their clothes,” foundation chief executive officer Lin Yueh-chin （林月琴） said during an interview on Thursday.

The Children’s National Hospital in Washington has also published a list of safety tips for children while they are outdoors when visibility is low, which advises parents to dress them in brightly colored clothing or reflective vests.

“It is also a good idea for parents who take their children outdoors for bike rides at night to put reflective vests on them, which helps drivers and parents to see where they are,” Lin said.

The vests donated by the foundation use a high-color fastness material developed by the institute, along with other materials from Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp, Tongjou Chemical Industrial Co and other Taiwanese companies, Department of Industrial Technology Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey （邱求慧） said.

“The vests are really high quality and we hope that in the future they will be widely used at Taiwan’s kindergartens,” Chiou said.

The raw material of the vests are made with high-fastness fluorescent dye and the finished vest does not need to be dyed again, which greatly reduces carbon dioxide emissions and wastewater, he said.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES