On reflection
When driving along a country road, do we expect to find something placed in the way that can damage our car?
Do we expect the person who placed it there to fit it with adequate lighting or reflection and is it a good enough excuse that the object placed is painted yellow?
We do, of course, by law, have to have lights on our car so driving along the road, we should see the object placed, providing of course that it has good reflecting properties.
On the water, it is entirely different. We have no lights and on a cloudy moonless night, nothing but a black mass exists beyond
our coat collar. The chance of hitting something without it being seen is very real and not within our ability to avoid.
Modern location devices these days are extremely cheap and can be fitted in minutes. A good many of us have similar devices attached to our car keys so we can find them using our mobile phone. It is not beyond the wit of man to adapt such a device to show buoy locations.
It should be mandatory that anything placed upon the water from pot buoys to racing buoys should not only be large and reflective enough to see and be marked with ownership details but also have a location device fitted. Tony Barlow