The Needles vehicles transporting disabled visitors. This is because the single track road's position close to the cliff edge is considered dangerous for multiple car use. The Isle of Wight Coast Path has its westernmost point at the Coastguard Cottages. The Needles' pointed shape is a result of their unusual geology. The strata have been so heavily folded during the Alpine Orogeny that the chalk is near vertical. This chalk outcrop runs through the centre of the Island from Culver Cliff in the east to the Needles in the west, and then continues under the sea to the Isle of Purbeck, forming
Guglielmo Marconi longwave transmissions travel much farther at night than in the day. During the daytime, signals had been received up to only about , less than half of the distance claimed earlier at Newfoundland, where the transmissions had also taken place during the day. Because of this, Marconi had not fully confirmed the Newfoundland claims, although he did prove that radio signals could be sent for hundreds of kilometres, despite some scientists' belief that they were limited essentially to line-of-sight distances. On 17 December 1902, a transmission from the Marconi station in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada became the world's first