Twinkle, Twinkle

In the frozen wastes of Finland's Lapland province, the reindeer is not only food, transportation and a Lapp's best friend. It is also the automobile's most frequent victim. During the dark winter days, when the sun hardly ever shines, approximately 1,700 reindeer are killed by cars each year, at a cost of about $170 each to the hapless owners of the beasts and hefty repair bills to the drivers. The Reindeer Grazers Association thought that it had the answer to the problem last year, when it painted some of the reindeer antlers with a phosphorescent paint that would shine in cars' headlights. So successful was the experiment that not one of the glowing reindeer was lost. One insoluble problem remained however: reindeer shed their antlers annually.

This year the association thinks it has a more lasting solution. Instead of painting antlers, it has started equipping the reindeer with plastic neck reflectors that twinkle when headlights beam on them.

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