Last week I ventured the idea that walkers should wear hi-viz. You’d think I had said they should be shot!

IF you’ve ever driven along a dark country road with no streetlights and no footpaths, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Where I live, in north Co. Wexford, is a semi-rural area where neither of those things is a given. On the road from Gorey to Courtown, the path runs out half-way along, and then on the other side of Riverchapel it disappears into darkness again.

People still have to walk there after dark, though, to get to the shop or the pub or even just for exercise after work, and this is where the problem starts. Last Sunday, around 7pm, I was driving up to Dublin to meet friends. Within a few hundred metres of my house, a woman wearing dark clothes was walking a black dog, on my side of the road and in the same direction; her back was to me.

Now I saw her early enough to avoid her, and had to take no evasive or emergency action, because I drive within the speed limit and carefully too. Not everyone might be as alert, though, and I was shocked that she was not wearing a hi-viz vest or carrying a torch to make herself visible.

Shocked

Mind you, while I was shocked, I wasn’t surprised, because I see it literally all the time. There’s no public transport around here and taxis can make a trip expensive – who wants to spend €14 on a return trip to the pub before they even buy a drink? – so a lot of people walk. I don’t tar all with the same brush, because many of them, the majority in fact, actually do take every precaution necessary to ensure they’re visible. Indeed, since Sunday, I actually have seen a few with dogs that were wearing collars studded with LED lights, a good idea in case Fido breaks away and runs onto the road. You even can buy LED leashes, another good idea putting technology to work in the service of safety.

But here’s the thing. When I parked the car after encountering the woman, I put out what I thought might serve as a public service message on Twitter. ‘I drive a lot on unlit rural roads with no footpaths and I see them all the time, including just now,’ I tweeted. ‘Though when I say “see”, I mean only just about. Folks, I beg you – if you’re walking after dark, please, please, please wear hi-viz vests. Give us a chance. #StaySafe’.

A simple enough and friendly plea, you would have thought, and one with which no one could argue. Sadly, our world has changed. Within minutes, I was told I must have been speeding. I wasn’t. So you must have been driving without due care and attention? I was, as always, driving with both. Then I was told I had a legal obligation to inform my insurance company that there was something wrong with my eyesight, even though my distance vision is perfect and I need glasses only for reading.

‘Maybe you should just slow down and then even if you do hit somebody, you won’t kill them – you’re the one piloting a deadly weapon,’ I was told.

A man called Oliver Moran, who styles himself as the ‘Green Party representative’ in Cork North Central (other parties usually just say ‘local election candidate’), assured me I must have been driving too fast if I saw the woman ‘only just in time’, even though I never said that. I saw her in lots of time, but ‘only just about’. There’s a big difference.

Mr Moran said he took issue with me because he was ‘wary of shifting responsibility’, and continued, ‘if someone regularly finds themselves suddenly up on pedestrians, that’s an indication they’re driving too fast’.

Tweeted

Now the same Mr Moran proudly tweeted previously about a letter that was published in the Cork Evening Echo. In it, he wrote: ‘Gardaí in Dublin recently undertook a spot check of cyclists during the dark evenings, handing out lights and hi-viz vests to those without them. This is a positive approach to enforcing the law [and] I would welcome it in Cork as well.’

He also pointed out that while wearing hi-viz vests was not mandatory for cyclists, it was recommended by the Road Safety Authority. So why, if he thinks this is a sensible precaution for cyclists, does he take issue with my suggesting it for pedestrians? My guess is that it simply was because I am a driver and not, as he is, a cyclist.

The response that annoyed, and indeed upset, me most was from a man who accused me of victim shaming. In other words, by suggesting pedestrians should wear hi-viz vests, I effectively was saying that pedestrians killed on rural roads and who were not wearing them were responsible for their own deaths. What an astonishing slander, and what a leap to make. I have absolutely no doubt that pedestrian deaths pretty much exclusively are down to bad driver behaviour, but what comfort would that offer the dead? None whatever.

As many of you know, this newspaper, in association with the RSA, gave out free hi-viz jackets last year. We did so because we believe in that agency’s unambiguous advice in increasing your visibility. ‘Always wear a pair of reflective armbands, highvisibility belt or other reflective or fluorescent clothing which will help you to be seen from a distance, and carry a torch on country roads,’ it urges.

Drunk

It also addresses the elephant in the room, because while drivers and cyclists must ensure their lights are working and they are sober in charge of their mode of transport, there is no law that says pedestrians must light up – and none to say they must not walk while intoxicated. ‘Drunken pedestrians are a source of danger to themselves and other road users,’ the RSA says.

‘If you have had one too many, don’t attempt to walk.’

In all instances, ‘be safe, be seen’ makes sense. Indeed, Mayo County Council yesterday reminded us that thousands of people will take to country roads after dark soon as they follow the leaders on Operation Transformation. It advises against wearing headphones or, if you must, wear a bud-style headphone in just one ear, and it reiterates the advice to wear bright or reflective clothing, before starkly laying out the entire crux of the issue: ‘Drivers can’t avoid what they can’t see.’

That was the only point I was trying to make but, as someone defending me said, if you tweeted that you loved the letter A, a mob would pitch in to tell you why every letter from B to Z had been shamed and excluded. That’s our world nowadays.

I have had family and friends die on the roads, as drivers, passengers and pedestrians. The grief that follows for their immediate families is not something you would wish on anyone, and the patchwork of crosses and memorials on roadsides all over Ireland is a reminder that far too many have needlessly died.

So, for the record, I also appeal to drivers to be careful and stay alert on country roads. Ours is the primary responsibility and we always should be mindful of that.

But I also believe that every road user – on four wheels, on two, or on foot – has a proactive role to play in his or her own safety. Anything that makes you more visible lessens your chance of harm. Unapologetically and in the spirit originally intended, I beg you again: Please, please, please wear hi-viz vests on dark country roads.