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An 89-year-old woman is campaigning for greater road safety by offering free high-visibility vests to Cambridge cyclists.

Hard-of-sight retired art teacher, Janet Slade, was inspired to do something about the high number of road cycle accidents in Cambridge after seeing cycle causalities during a recent hospital trip.

Speaking to drivers and cyclists confirmed her suspicions that drivers and pedestrians just ‘couldn’t see’ the cyclists coming.

So, since last November, she has ventured out into the city’s streets with her shopping trolley to offer free neon visibility vests to any cyclist who will listen. Janet hands out the vests any time she goes shopping or visits the hospital, where she says “hundreds of people go by all in black”.

Speaking to the News, Janet, who is currently recovering from cataract surgery, added: “I went into hospital for another reason and they were saying they have wards full of people who have been in accidents.

“I hear the ambulances every day and I guessed that many of the calls out were for accidents. Then I met some ambulance crew and they said ‘yes you are right,’ so here’s the wards taken up with people who are invisible.

“I’m in my 90th year this year and I still have the advantage of age and ability, physical ability, to walk about with a shopping bag and trolley full of visibility vests and if I see a shadowy figure in black fleet before me and prop a bike against a wall, I say ‘you all in black, yes? ...well nobody can see you and all the drivers complain.’”

Janet says about half of cyclists she approaches will take a vest, and while none of the good people of Cambridge have ever been rude to her, some are taken aback.

“Some say ‘really, how much? I haven’t got any money now’ and I say ‘look take the so and so thing put it on, wear it: it’s a Christmas present.

“I simply go around being a busybody to people and challenge them,” she said. “I just hope to be completely logical about people’s dress code.”

When the idea was first sparked in Janet’s mind she went into a cycle shops in the city to look at jackets, but left dismayed at the price tag of upwards of £30. She now bulk buys vest in 50s from her local Wilcos at £1.49 a piece.

As well as highlighting the need to be seen on the road, she believes cyclists should consider wearing white boots, just as she does.

In fact she wears as many white things as she can to stay visible, because she can’t see well due to macular degeneration.

She thought of the idea after seeing two teenagers with white boots.

“If you have got white boots you can be seen on a dark rainy day, you can be seen at night and you can be seen in the early morning light,” she said.