Cool, branded high visibility products for children to use whilst walking to school, designed to save lives.

London 14th April, 2008 - Colan Limited has launched a campaign to improve the safety of children whilst they walk to school, particularly in adverse weather conditions and on dark mornings and evenings during the winter months. They have teamed up with Reflexite, manufacturer of retro-reflective prismatic tape, to create awareness of the dangers of children on route to schools and have designed a range of products that are specifically for children to wear.  

According to a report from the AA, a staggering 5000 children under 16 years of age die or are seriously injured on the roads each year and this campaign is designed to create awareness for the children themselves via local government and schools. Helen Smith, Marketing Manager at Colan Limited, says of the awareness campaign, "I am a parent myself and the only way we can keep our children safe on busy roads is to encourage them to be aware of the dangers of traffic and ensure that they can be seen by drivers. It is always difficult getting children to wear safety garments and accessories and the range we have developed is designed to be a ‘want to wear’ range as apposed to a ‘have to wear’ range. There are slapwraps that can be branded with cool messages for children, funky clip-ons, badges and various stickers which can be worn on bags and outer garments. It’s about making visibility safety ‘cool’ for these children and we hope to role this out to various councils and schools throughout the UK."

The product range for this campaign is made from Reflexite material and includes slapwraps, that are snapped around wrists, reflective stickers, tabards, PE bags, badges and tags that can be worn in a variety of ways making this range novel for children. Reflexite’s material is made up of thousands of microprisms held beneath a layer of vinyl, which shows up brightly in the glare of a vehicle’s headlights, giving higher visibility, even in the wet, therefore preventing unnecessary accidents and keeping children safe and seen.

Andrew Bright, UK Sales Manager for Reflexite, who are backing Colan Limited in this campaign, said, "The safety of children is of paramount importance, and we fully support Colan Limited utilising the Reflexite material to highlight the road safety message. The visibility difference of the Reflexite product compared to some other materials available on the marketplace is incredible, and with Colan’s school product range using the material we hope to reduce the number of accidents of children on the busy roads. The problem with poor visibility is compounded when it rains as it can take 24m to stop in dry weather, at 30mph and up to 120m in rainfall* and as Reflexite’s material performs better than any other material available on the marketplace when wet, this campaign should be a great success, and the fact that Colan Limited are using this material shows that they have really thought about children’s safety."

To see a demonstration of the difference between Reflexite’s prismatic tape and other tapes on the market please contact Andrew Bright on 07831 617320 and for further information about Colan’s product range please Helen Smith direct on 01926 831584 or visit Colan’s website ^{www.colan-uk.net.}

*source - using equation based on research from Minnesota safety council