it should be illegal to sell childrens winter coats without reflecting stripes...

[mousymouse]

tried to find a winter coat for ds that is both suitable for the damp cold weather as well as the school run in the dark.
no luck in the usual high street chain stores.
so irresponsible imo!
still looking...

Only during the winter months I should say. A sure sign of autumn, the distribution of the orange bands!

round here they give those clip on things away every year at primary schools.

if your children are primary school age it's the parents responsibility to ensure their children are safe. Not to allow them on the road, etc.

Totally agree with A1980 - where is *parental responsibility" in this OP?

because I am a responsible parent I want something reflective on my dc's coats. walking home in twilight/dark with invisible kids is irresponsible in my mind. our last winter coat had reflective seams. discreet and visible.
my own wintercoat has reflective material at the seams.

I don't understand why compulsary high-vis tabards, hard hats and safety glasses are the province of local government, even when there is no apparent risk or danger. Surely the UK would be a safer place if everyone was required to wear this nonsensical shite important safety wear all the time, whether indoors or out. I suggest a reasonable fine of £2000 plus up to 10 years inside for non compliance.

Fantastically neurotic OP

here's a novelty - make your kids walk on the pavement - and not jaywalk infront of cars

Oh and if any car mounts the pavement in - some dayglo stripes wont's save you

sometimes there are no pavements
what about crossings? are we supposed to fly?

Or we could spend money on hovercrafts so the little darlings never risk a stone in their shoe and can just float home from school

Parental responsibility def!
BTW, whoever reckons it's not dark at 3-3.30pm should try coming up to the North of Scotland. I live in Abereenshire, and in the middle of winter, it is dark (as in night-time dark) by approx 3.30-4pm! I imagine further north, it gets dark even earlier! Its only 'properly' light at that time of year roughly between 9/10am-2/3pm. I say properly because it is rarely sunny, but extremely often rainy or snowy (snow from end Oct 2010 til March/April 2011 before it was all gone!)

I really don't see how fluorescent strips would make kids any safer. DD is only 4 so I always cross her over the road. She only goes on the road on an adults say so so she is as safe on the roads as me.
I won't allow her to cross roads on her own until I'm confident that she has adequate road sense.
How old is your child OP and are they crossing the road alone?

But mousy if your child is with you then you can hold their hand, keep them the far side of the traffic and use your road sense. Why would they need fluorescent strips? If you are keeping an adequate eye on the traffic and staying in pedestrian areas when required then there's no need for your child to be lit up.

dds schools coat has reflective silver stuff on it when you buy it, its part of the design.

you can get kids high vis vests from home bargains and poundstretcher for a couple of quid, my mum has them for when she takes dd out.

Debenhams do a 4-in-1 coat that has reflective strips on the back and sleeves. It costs a LOT (my Ex-H bought it for DS2), but it also has a zip-in, zip-out inner jacket for extra warmth when it snows, which DS2 needs as the cold air on his chest sets off his asthma. Here is the coat DS2 has : Posh coat

For some reason, on the website, it doesn't state that the silvery bits on the sleeve are reflective - but they are.

I don't think it should be a legal requirement, but I do think that school uniforms should not include the requirement for dark coloured winter coats because there are visibility problems, and children do occasionally have to cross the road or live where there are no pavements, or cycle. People in dark coloured clothes are almost invisible in the dark (including dusk/twilight). My children wear ski jackets which are bright coloured (and include reflective bits), but they don't go to a uniform school so can wear what they like. As most of their buddies wear similar stuff there doesn't appear to be a non cool factor (but then it can get as cold as -30 here so proper winter wear is fairly essential!)

i think illegal is taking it a bit far....I do always try and buy coats with the reflective stripe on though. We have the h&m coats that someone linked to earlier....they're great, really warm and very reflective, reflective bits.

I think the op is getting a hard time. OK, the way she expressed herself wasn't great, but I wonder how many of you have kids in secondary school?

Almost without exception, secondary school uniform coats are either black or navy. This renders the average 12 - 16 yr old practically invisible when going to and from school. In heavy traffic on a rainy evening, this, I believe is one of the reasons so many of this age group are involved in accidents.

Kids this age will NOT wear any kind of reflective garment. I can just about persuade my dd to wear a white scarf. No chance at all with my boys. A bit of white piping, or a narrow band or single stripe - anything - could save a life.

Dd's (compulsory) school uniform coat is black. One of her classmates was run over only a few days after the evenings started getting darker.

So - reflective stripes are a bit OTT, but schools could come up with some sort of white logo, or band on the uniform coat, IMO.

But lots of teenagers wear adult coats, and lots of adults are bad at crossing roads, so really it would need to be all coats!

Much easier for schools to insist reflective thingies were part of the uniform.

Not stylish at all

Some people on this thread don't seem to realise that there are roads with no pavements....we are in London (zone 5 so not central) and the road behind our house has no pavement.

And if you walk alone, so one adult to one or more children (you tend to walk single file where there is no pavement) then you are either going to stand out less from in front or behind.

My DCs wear tailor made woollen coats, because I am a wanker, and reflective strips would look vile.

If they needed them I would buy them......wouldn't anyone?

My children do actually have vizzi vests. We make them wear them when he feels it necessary.

If teenagers don't want to get run over, maybe they should learn how to walk sensibly on their way to school. I drive sooo slowly past the the teenagers making their way to our local high school because I don't trust one of them not to randomly push a friend into the road. Some of them seem to have no concept that pedestrians should use the pavement, and traffic should use the road.

Teenagers are the highest accident rate group beause they don't cross on crossings and are plugged into Ipods etc, so are oblivious to danger.

All we need are lit places to cross/side streets and for people to use them.

Then we need to slow down the traffic and stop bad parking, which can be a cause of accidents ie pedestrians have to walk into the road to get past.

If drivers are driving to fast and a pedestrian isn't following road safety, being head to toe in reflective clothing isn't going to stop them from being hit.

All these increased safety measures are giving us a false sense of security and we are not using; common sense, awareness, slowing down, following driving rules and allowing enough time for journeys.

Also of coures getting rid of lolly pop people doesn't help

www.thisislondon.co.uk/.../article-23951063-more-children-hurt-crossing-roads-after-mayor-slashes-budget.do

www.telegraph.co.uk/.../School-crossing-patrols-face-the-axe-to-save-money.html