All About Safety Clothing: High Visibility Safety Clothing Choices

Hands-on industries require hands on work. That's pretty much the main reason why many of those industries require their workers to wear clothing that's designed to protect them when they're out on the field.

If you want to know how to wear high visibility safety apparel, that's another story. Fortunately, that's what we're going to look at in this article, your frequently asked questions about high visibility safety apparel regulations.

Safety apparel garments are often designed using highly reflective materials that help illuminate people in darker settings.

This type of clothing often worn by road workers, which helps differentiate themselves from the crowds of people and vehicles when on the road. In fact, that's what high visibility safety apparel does for workers it helps them 'make their presence known' in crowded work environments on the road.

People who work in high risk environments need some way to make themselves visible when on the job. That's one reason why people wear safety apparel to protect themselves when on the job and in higher risk situations.

How does safety apparel work? What types of materials are used to produce the high visibility effect?

High visibility apparel uses reflective materials to produce their 'high visibility effect.'

Reflective materials use a technology known as retro-reflection. This material-based technology works by reflecting light rays from their originating direction.

Two types of retro-reflection exist:

Glass Lens Technology – This technology works by utilizing millions of high performance glass beads. These beads provide 100 percent surface reflection, which reflects like in all directions due to their spherical shape. This is considered the most effective way to reflect light on high visibility safety apparel.

Micro-Prismatic Technology – This method relies on a polymeric film where reflective microscopic prisms form. This produces a slick surface with a bright and reflective appearance. The prisms help reflect light in specific directions, but can't reflect light in all directions, due to their flatness. Nonetheless, this is perhaps the least expensive way to implement reflective elements onto safety clothing.

Why do people wear high visibility safety apparel when they're on the job?

As mentioned, people wear high visibility safety apparel when on the job for safety reasons.

High visibility clothing, in particular, gives people adequate protection in work environments where their visibility might be compromised. Some work environments, such as construction sites, might present situations where a worker might be placed at risk of an injury, should they work without adequate protection.

Sometimes, drivers of larger vehicles on these sites might have their vision obstructed if they can't see the workers on-site; this places the workers and the driver at potential risk. Therefore, wearing high visibility safety apparel helps keep workers visible when on site and out in other high risk work environments.

It's important for workers to wear high visibility safety apparel for that reason. After all, safety matters in this day and age, making it all the more important for them to procure high visibility safety apparel.