Buy Safe T Signs from our website here: http://www.safetowing.co.uk/buy-now.htm
Safe T-Signs are strikingly visible – reflective, bright, hatched. They catch the light and catch the eye. Meant to warn other drivers that you’re “TOWING”!
Conspicuity
Conspicuity is the ability of a vehicle to draw attention to its presence, even when other road users are not actively looking for it.
Other road users may not see when a vehicle is towing, for a number of reasons:
• Some trailers are too low to be easily seen
• Emerging from a junction or busy roundabout where there are other vehicles, buildings or hedges means that trailers aren’t always apparent
• When it’s dark, it’s more difficult to see in general. Trailers often aren’t visible, especially from the side
• Even with larger trailers, their colour and/ or speed means that they often aren’t conspicuous to other road users
• Work on “conspicuity” is behind initiatives on fluorescent clothing for cyclists, pedestrians and lorry drivers and the requirements for trucks to use retro-reflective markings.
• The work on conspicuity acknowledges the problem which many towers have – that even though other road users ought to be able to see that they’re towing, they don’t...
Transport Research Laboratory, 2011
“Analysis for the five year period 2005-2009 identified a total of 4,173 reported accidents involving at least one car or light goods vehicle towing , representing 0.5% of the overall reported accidents. Of these accidents, 100 were fatal (2.4%), 671 were serious (16.1%) and 3,402 were slight (81.5%). The corresponding percentages for all cars/ vans are about 1% fatal, 11% serious and 88% slight, so there is some indication that tow combinations are slightly more likely to be involved in severe accidents.”
What we see depends largely on what we expect to see.
“You may have experienced at one time or another, pulling out and narrowly missing a bicycle coming from the direction in which you have just looked. Errors of this type are common because drivers are generally looking for cars or lorries but not for smaller objects such as bicycles or motorcycles which they fail to see. When we concentrate we don’t just look at a particular part of a scene, we look for particular types of objects in that scene. We find it easier to detect objects that we expect to see, and react more quickly to them.
“Conversely we often fail to see objects that we do not expect to see.”
The essential towing handbook, TSO
The European Commission Road Safety Action Programme (2003-10) concluded:
• one of the main causes of road accidents was the poor visibility of other road users
• improved vehicle visibility and vision in difficult conditions are the prevention factors which offer the most encouraging prospects for improving road safety
Research by the University of Darmstadt found that 37% of all side collisions with trucks at night occurred because the trucks were seen too late
“... The driver should have seen the truck but for some reason did not appear to do so ...”
Safe Towing
We see the acceptance of the need for conspicuity every time we take to the road and we see large lorries with conspicuity markings along the back. These are big vehicles that, on the face of it, you’d say “how could you miss that”...
Safe T-Signs work on the same principle – they alert and warn other drivers. The difference being that when you are towing, people might miss your trailer because they can’t see it; other’s may miss your trailer simply because they don’t see it.
Safe T-Sign – be seen, be safe
Whatever kind of trailer you’re towing, Safe T Signs mean Safe Towing! Be seen and be safe when you emerge from junctions or roundabouts, and when you are towing in the dark.
Buy Safe T Signs from our website here: http://www.safetowing.co.uk/buy-now.htm
