The High Visibility Reflective Vest: When Can It Be Used?
High visibility clothing is mandatory in those jobs or actions where it is necessary to prevent a possible run over by a vehicle or a heavy machine.
Among them, the high visibility reflective vest may be the most used, and therefore, it is convenient to know when it should be used and what types are the most indicated.
What are high visibility vests?
A hi visibility workwear is a garment that is part of a work uniform that must be worn by those people who, due to their activity, need to be visible at least 150 m away, to avoid risks such as being run over by vehicles or machinery.
Also, they must be carried by those drivers of vehicles in which, for some reason, they need to be seen on roads or highways.
The regulation on reflective vest is Law 31/1995, which requires workers who are exposed to the risk of being run over to wear appropriate AV equipment.
On the other hand, the UNE 471:2004 reflective vest standard develops the specifications that AVs must have and classifies them according to the level of protection they must provide.
According to this, the high visibility reflective vest can be:
Class 1: Used in those tasks where a user can be seen by traffic moving at less than 40 km/h. These vests must have 0.14 square meters of fluorescent material, 0.10 of retroreflective bands and 0.20 of combined material.
Class 2: This category includes those users who need to be seen by vehicles traveling at more than 40 km/h. They must be made up of at least 0.50 square meters of fluorescent material and 0.13 square meters of self-reflective material.
Class 3: They must be carried by those who need to be seen by traffic traveling at more than 80 km/h.
What jobs need to wear reflective vests
There are many jobs where simply putting on a reflective vest can make a difference to your safety.
The use of a reflective vest will be necessary in the following jobs:
Road works: With a visibility of 150 m, a driver can notice the presence of a worker and has time to react to change the direction of a vehicle.
Workers: In those works where the use of heavy machinery is necessary, it is necessary that their workers wear AV garments to minimize the risk of accidents.
Cleaning equipment: Both day and night, a worker who cleans highways or urban roads, needs reflective clothing to be seen by vehicle drivers.
Work at night or where there is little visibility: Not only professions related to roads and highways need the use of reflective vests, many professions related to those places with poor visibility such as parking attendants, supermarket parking lots or security guards, they must wear AV garments.
Other jobs: In general, in those activities that are likely to be abused, such as rescue professionals, port workers, logistics centers or those who work in extreme weather conditions.
The high visibility vest can be very definitive when it comes to avoiding a very serious accident to the worker or the driver of a vehicle.
For this reason, its use is mandatory in those cases where an accident could be a probable cause.
Because prevention is better than cure, an AV vest can save our lives at a certain moment.
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