Are you often outside after dark? Do you like not being hit by cars? Are you as fabulous as you possibly could be at this very second?

After 18 people were hit by cars within 48 hours last week, I thought about what I could do to be more visible at night. I’m short, often wear black, and while I am far too Canadian to jaywalk, drivers here are notoriously terrible at acknowledging pedestrians, bicycles, other vehicles, what’s going on around them, etc. I can watch out for myself all I want, but when the majority of those 18 people were hit at crosswalks where they had the right of way .. well, I wanted to do more.

Enter being fabulous! At Superstore this past weekend, I bought several strings of battery operated LED lights for $5 each. I keep them in my bag, and if I have to go outside after dark, I’ll wrap one around my bag or neck or head and turn it on. I’m more visible, I look awesome, and I can add more or different lights depending on just how fabulous I want to be. I have some colour LED lights I’ve been saving for the holiday season, but I might just break them out tonight so I can be safe and ridiculous at the same time.

I know that drivers are really the ones responsible for paying attention and not running people the fuck over, but this is a cheap, fun way to be a little bit safer when outside after dark. As an added bonus, you’re like a walking party!

You can get battery operated lights from many places – I’ve had them in years past, and purchased them from places like Ikea, Real Canadian Superstore, London Drugs, etc. They have them at Walmart, if you’re into that sort of thing. The coloured LEDs were more expensive ($17/string) because they’re actually meant for bicycles and are built differently, but the cheap ones run $3-$5, have on/off switches, last for ages on AA batteries, and don’t take up much room at all:

so safe!

You don’t look crazy AT ALL when wearing them, either:

not crazy!

So, yeah. Be safe, everyone!