What should you look for in high-visibility safety clothing?

It happens within a blink of an eye that a distracted driver often plods into a work crew on the side of the road. Even when you work next to cars, your job is highly dangerous. However this requires a solution to stop such mishaps. High –visibility apparel is the perfect solution in such cases. The high-vis clothing is worn to alerts vehicle operators as well as drivers of the worker’s presence especially in night and low light conditions.

With high-vis apparel, it does not matter whether you are working at night, in the rain or in the fog. As the different types of high-vis clothing will ensure safety while you are working around moving vehicles. The high-visibility items will allow you to be seen by drivers of the vehicles sooner and readily. This type of clothing’s comes in vibrant orange, green and yellow colours with reflective strips so that the human eye can respond best to these contrasting and bright colours.

Factors to Look Into Before Buying High-Vis Apparel:

Brightness:

For daylight conditions, bright colours such as fluorescent materials are more evident than dull colours. However, for low light conditions, fluorescent colours are more effective than bright colours. You can also check for reflective materials. On the other hand, retro reflective material provides greater visibility especially in dark conditions. They are preferred over brighter colours.

Colour:

High-visibility safety apparel standard specifies three major colours for contrasting-colour stripes and for background materials to create visibility against working environments. The colour-contrasting stripes are either retro-reflective or combination performance. They are either fluorescent yellow-green, orange-red or simply red. The background material should be fluorescent red, bright orange-red, bright yellow-green or bright red.

Size and coverage:

Large garments that covers all around the body (360 degree full coverage) provides better visibility from different viewing direction

Stripes of colours especially stripes on arms and legs offer visual clues regarding the motion of the person wearing high-vis garment

You should look for other requirements such as water-resistance, material breathability, thermal performance, flexibility, durability, flame-resistance, tear-away features and comfort

The colour and stripe combination that gives the best contrast and visual indication movement should be selected.

Fitting:

Before choosing the fit of high-vis clothing’s, consider the bulk of clothing you have to wear underneath the garment. The garments should be fitted to the person with no other loose or dangling components. The clothes should fit correctly and stay in place during the work

The garment should be worn with no other clothing or equipment’s covering the high visibility clothing such as high-cut boots, belts or gloves

Parts of the apparel that comes into direct contact with the users should not have any sharp edges, projections or rough surfaces that can cause injuries or distraction. In short the apparel should be light-weight and comfortable to wear.

Design:

• The apparels should meet the following criteria-
• The stripes or the band should have a standardized pattern with a symmetric X on the back that extends from the shoulders to the waist
• The two vertical stripes on the front should pass over the shoulder and down to the waist
• The horizontal stripe should extend to the back till the bottom of the vertical stripes on the front. The horizontal stripe may also continue between the front vertical stripes. However, this is optional
• The stripes or the bands should be displayed in such a way that it is be visible from all angles around the body
• The total width of the stripes should be at least 50mm
• The stripes or the bands should be made of either retro-reflective or combined performance materials.

Using high-visibility apparel is the first line of defence against any sorts of accidents by providing warning to both the vehicle operators as well to the night riders and construction workers.

Rebecca Williams is a sports–addict and a committed wanderer. She loves adventurous holidays and backpacking. When she is not travelling with her friends, writing articles on is her favourite pass time. She has written articles on several topics related to high-vis clothing. To explore more about running jackets you may visit Proviz.co.uk.

Rebecca is also passionate about photography which truly shows in her G+ profile.