Sources
Reflective Clothing and Pedestrian Safety: The Science of Being Seen
www.sciencebuddies.org
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1
Using retro-reflective cloth to enhance drivers' judgment of ...
www.sciencedirect.com
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2
A systematic review on retro-reflective clothing for night-time visibility ...
research.polyu.edu.hk
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3
Be Safe, Be Seen - Reflective Wear | City of Lakeway, TX
www.lakeway-tx.gov
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4
Answer
Reflective clothing significantly improves pedestrian safety and visibility at night by enhancing conspicuity. Key findings:
- Retro-reflective clothing, especially when placed in a "biomotion" configuration on the joints and extremities, is most effective at increasing pedestrian visibility to drivers135. This takes advantage of the human visual system's sensitivity to biological motion.
- Retro-reflective clothing improves drivers' ability to accurately judge a pedestrian's walking direction when crossing the road at night2. This provides important cues for collision avoidance.
- The color, amount, and configuration of retro-reflective trim on clothing affects its conspicuity45. Bright colors and strategic placement on the sleeves, joints, and extremities are most effective.
- Reflective accessories like spoke clips, wristbands, and pedal lights that move draw drivers' attention more than static reflective clothing alone4.
- Wearing reflective clothing and using lights on bicycles is legally required in many areas for night riding4.
References
1. Reflective Clothing and Pedestrian Safety: The Science of Being Seen2. Using retro-reflective cloth to enhance drivers' judgment of ...3. A systematic review on retro-reflective clothing for night-time visibility ...4. Be Safe, Be Seen - Reflective Wear | City of Lakeway, TX5. High visibility safety apparel and nighttime conspicuity of ...
Author: MacMor Industries
Key insights
- High visibility safety apparel is a major component of workplace safety, allowing workers to be seen in any conditions, preventing serious workplace injuries.
- The nature of the work, work environment, lighting, and visibility are all important factors to consider when determining the need for high visibility safety apparel.
- The visual appeal of black garments with hi-viz may lower overall visibility, despite their popularity.
- Class 2 apparel is required when there are vehicles or equipment moving between 40 to 80 kilometers an hour, ensuring greater visibility for workers in different weather and lighting conditions.
- Class 3 level 2 apparel provides maximum visibility in very low light environments.
- FR treated fabrics lose luster after treatment, leading to limitations in visibility for flame resistant garments.
Video Full Text
- Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of feature friday as you can see from the products that we have on the table. Today we are going to be talking about high visibility safety apparel and more specifically the csa standard. The z9615 so high visibility safety apparel or hvsa as is commonly found online is a major component of workplace safety and mostly because it allows your workers to be seen pretty much no matter the conditions like as much as possible and you do want to make some product selections around those kind of environmental factors. So by enhancing the visibility of your employees. You can definitely help prevent some serious workplace injuries which is the ideal scenario so essentially you want to be evaluating your work environment and performing a risk assessment and that is what's going to help you develop a better understanding of what sort of high visibility apparel works for your workplace and is going to be what you'll need on site. So let's talk about the high visibility standard for csa here. So essentially hives apparel is a function of two major parts. So it's a retro reflective striping which is most commonly kind of referred to as the silver taping and then you also have the luminance of the background material which is generally a fluorescent yellow orange. There are other colors that you're going to find technically speaking that are kind of outside that primary kind of color gamut which is going to be some reds. Some navies the blacks we're going to show some of that stuff. You can see a red garment up. There. We do have a black one as well. We're going to show you guys just to show a little bit of that kind of mix. But the main kind of colors that you're going to want for under the csa standard for the most kind of luminance for the most kind of lighting and visibility is going to be your yellow or lime green as some people refer to it or that kind of orange orangey red but again not to be mistaken with a true red so before we get into the classes and levels of what really makes up the variations in the csa standard.Read More
- One of the common questions that does often come up is when do I need high visibility safety apparel when do. I need to consider it as something to wear in a workplace environment so there's a lot of different factors to consider and you know a risk. Assessment is a key thing component and in terms of all that but mainly the things you want to consider is thinking about the nature of the work that's being done the work environment. The lighting you know is there traffic around what's the visibility like around the workplace. Right is it dim lighting is it really bright lighting you know and then is there heavy machinery or different kind of vehicle operations happening around you. In those different environments you know and is there traffic barriers or other means of kind of traffic control or are you really exposed and standing there holding a sign and of course last but not least you know one of the major things to consider is their exposure to heater flames and that's where we kind of go into the level fr of things but outside of fr. We're really kind of more so looking and considering the concept of visibility.Read More
- The concept of risk around visibility all right so let's start with the class one for the csa standard. So class one is basically apparel. It can be a basic harness stripe bands over the shoulders and encircling the waist. The sash type type of kind of retro reflective gear is something that's often used with drivers and stuff like that as well. So the stripes and the bands need to meet that csa standard. But in terms of the level it can be a level one two or even fr. If you've got any concerns for that side of things for the retro reflection now a class one is required when there are vehicles that are moving slowly so that's you know less than 40 kilometers an hour or situations where the environment is considered pretty low risk. So we have a garment in front of us here that is class one level two so it does have the very high reflective taping on here and it has it all in the right places as you will see. But the fact of the matter is is. It is a red garment so it's not that bright yellow. It's not that bright orange so you know at the end of the day. The overall visibility is lowered by that factor so that is an important thing to keep in mind same that you're going to find with any kind of black garment. So we know these have become very popular. People do love a black garment with the hi-viz you know generally speaking. I think there's just like a visual appeal to the black people just enjoy it because it doesn't feel as bright doesn't feel as like here.Read More
- I am this is me at the end of the day you really need that here. I am this is me factor in different work environments especially anything related to traffic safety. Now we're gonna get into one of the more common garment types which is a class two specifically the one in front of us. Here's a class two level two so again. We're focused on a very high reflective taping so the class 2 is apparel that has full coverage of upper torso front back sides and over the shoulders. The stripes the bands. This stuff here as well as the whole background fabric and everything meets that csa standard and again technically under a class 2. You can have a level 1 level 2 or fr for the retro-reflective material but ideally in our experience. When you get into the class 2. You're going to want cost 2 level 2. Class 2 is required when there are vehicles or equipment that are moving between 40 to 80 kilometers. An hour so the workers who require that greater visibility under different kind of weather conditions different lighting conditions. They will definitely want to be wearing something that is class two level two so sorry guys. If you're in those environments the black garment is not gonna do the trick. We know you guys love it but unfortunately you need that visibility you gotta stay safe and we don't want injuries.Read More
- Nobody does all right so for the last one we're gonna talk about class three. So this is apparel that has class two in addition to bands encircling both the arms and the legs so we have an example of that right. Here. This is a one piece garment you can technically do a class three level two with a two piece garment. But it is only going to be qualified as the class three level two when you have both the jacket or the top as well as the pants or bottom. So in this case you have the main ritual reflective as you normally do and then you have this encircling the arms as well as the leg parts down here. So this is how you get a class three level two very reflective if you're doing flagging if you're doing things that are very much in a high traffic area around construction sites and things like that you know you've got to wear something. Like this. It's very important you need that maximum reflective you can see. A lot of these are built with that meshing and everything like that because breathability is key and that's the other thing too is that like if you're wearing this in 30 plus degree weather during the summer. It is completely understood that this is not necessarily going to be the most comfortable thing to wear all day so luckily more and more manufacturers are making a good valid effort at trying to make sure that these are as breathable as possible and to just try to kind of help with dissipating some of the heat that really kind of builds up inside some of these garments so that is a major factor to consider so class. Three is going to be when you're around vehicles that speed you know exceeding that 80 kilometer. An hour mark so again high speed high traffic areas and the work activities are usually going to take place potentially as well in the low light or at night time so again not necessarily all around traffic all the time that's not. The only thing to consider. The lighting conditions is also key so in very low light kind of environments. You're also going to want that maximum visibility and that's class 3 level 2. So now we're just going to talk about the levels real quick so primarily for what we carry here at macmore.Read More
- We're essentially going to mostly just touch on the level 2 or the level fr but we'll just still talk about it so at a level 1 is going to be your lower performance level of reflective striping. It still requires that the background material meets the csa standard of course but the retro-reflective level is usually about 70 of your level 2 requirement at level 2 which is essentially all the garments that you're going to see here in front of you like. I said pretty much what we stock here at macmore. It is your highest level of retro reflection and requires that the background fabric also meets the csa standard as well as the striping advance to meet the highest coefficient level of that brightness and then finally we've got the level fr which you're going to find in. Fr treated garments. So you have to allow for the flame resistant garment to have the striping in the bands where the total retroreflective level is at about twenty percent of level. Two requirements uh and a big part of that is that fr. Treated fabrics uh they lose luster after treatment and things like that. So there is going to be some limitations to the visibility but that doesn't mean that we don't you know still need some retro reflection. It's just it's not necessarily going to perform the same way that you're going to expect from that level 2 retro reflection on on the hi-vis apparel gear so last but not least one of the other things that we want to talk about is corporate branded safety equipment.Read More
- I'm sure you already know this if you're watching this video and if you follow us on that corporate branded equipment is super popular if you're a customer of ours. I'm sure you know this but if you aren't really familiar with it it is a very very popular service and for a reason people like to have their logo on their stuff. So very popular different kind of locations to place their branding but one of the ones that we see the most of is typically on the bottom on the back of different garments. So we can offer a range of options for personalizing your pve embroidery and silk. Screening is the most popular kind of options you're going to find in clothing but there's also some cases where embossment takes place and that's primarily when you're going to see hard hats and those types of kind of different apparels. So yeah we have a mix of reliable third-party embroidery and screening shops that we work with but also some of our manufacturers offer a custom kind of branding service directly through them. And we do work with a few manufacturers that offer these types of services. So we we greatly encourage customers take advantage of it if they're interested in branding their gear. It's it's a really fun way to really kind of keep everything kind of branded keep everything you know really consistent with the look of things and we highly recommend it.Read More
- So if you have any questions about that please reach out to us and just in general. If you have questions about high vis safety apparel and you want to know what works for your environment. We are going to encourage that you do a risk assessment that is a crucial step. You have to pay attention to all the different conditions of a risk assessment but that is something that we are going to be more than happy to kind of give you. Some information on what to consider uh refer you to some different links and then once you kind of have a better idea of what you're working around and what you're working with then we'll be more than happy to show you. Some different options. Different garments that will work for your environment that will allow you to have your staff working in the safest conditions as much as possible of course. So thanks again for tuning in guys really appreciate it have a great weekend and we will see you next time cheers.Read More