If you're searching for rucksack lights, you might be worried about your visibility walking home on dark evenings.
Perhaps you work late shifts? Perhaps your child is walking to and from school and you're worried about traffic? Perhaps you need to walk through dark countryside or your streets are very narrow?
Whatever the reason you need rucksack lights, read on as we have the lowdown for you.
Rucksack lights - the options
Rucksack lights are small LED lights that you can clip or strap onto your rucksack to make you more visible while you're out and about in the darker months.
When my eldest daughter started at secondary school, she needed to walk to and from the school bus stop. Our village had no pavements and no streetlights so I was worried about her safety as she walked right next to the traffic. Rucksack lights were the first thing I searched for.
But quickly I realised that rucksack lights have considerable drawbacks:
- they are fiddly to attach so that they shine in the right direction
- they need to be taken off the rucksack during the day to keep them safe
- they are time consuming to find in the bottom of the bag and reattach especially when it it's dark, cold or raining.
What's the alternative to rucksack lights?
So, once I had decided that rucksack lights weren't the solution, the idea of creating a rucksack with built-in bright LED lights was born. This was the start of the Futliit journey.
Futliit rucksacks have two strands of LED lights built in, avoiding the need for clipping or strapping rucksack lights on to your existing rucksack.
We wanted to create a professional looking rucksack where the LEDs could be easily turned on when you needed them. The LEDs are encased in a plastic tube to protect from everyday knocks and wet British weather! They are visible from the back and side and combined with the reflective panels, make you easy to see at night and in low light conditions.
Better still, the rucksack lights are fairly unobtrusive during the day when they aren't needed, and don't need to be taken off and stored, making the whole rucksack much more versatile and easy to use.
So sure, rucksack lights are probably cheaper than a whole new bag, but actually I think our Futliit rucksacks win out every time.
Why do you need a rucksack with lights?
Many of us who walk to work or school, know that it can get very dark out there at night and that street lights only cover part of where we walk. A rucksack with lights can make you more visible at night or in low light conditions, giving drivers and other road traffic a clear indication that you are there.
That can be particularly important for kids who are starting to walk to school on their own for the first time. They need their independence but haven't yet developed the road sense of adults. No matter how much you've drilled them in road safety, even the most sensible child can step out into the road without looking or fool around on the edge of the pavement.
Kids walking to school with their Futliit rucksacks
Although there is never a substitute for drivers paying proper attention, a rucksack with lights can make you that little bit more visible at night and give you the confidence that you can be seen.
The Futliit rucksack is packed with clever features and if you want to see it in action, you can visit the Futliit YouTube channel. Alternatively, head over to our social media and #BeFutliit.