From what we know, high visibility workwear or high-vis workwear are garments that are made from fluorescent materials, along with reflective tapes in shapes on the garment to increase the visibility of the wearer to those around them, especially in the dark. Even though this is common knowledge, what is unknown is just how important it is for the safety of workers from a workplace injury, increasing road safety and protecting cyclists. So without further ado let us shed some light on the topic of high visibility workwear.
So, how exactly does it work?
High visibility workwear is made out of fluorescent material which reacts with the ultraviolet rays of sunlight and creates a glowing appearance. This glow is stronger when there is less light, especially during dusk or dawn. The material does not only react with the ultraviolet rays of sunlight, but it can also react from the ultraviolet rays of other sources as well such as car headlamps. This is a basic understanding of how hi-vis workwear works. It can be made out of different colours such as pink, red, green and blue. but it is often made out of yellow and orange for safety purposes.
The colour is an important aspect of high-vis workwear . For example, people who work in the ocean use orange reflective vests for contrast against the dark blue background of the sea. This gives them maximum visibility. Similarly, road workers, they wear the colour yellow for maximum visibility among car lights.
To know more about high-visibility workwear, we would like to tell you about the history of high-visibility workwear and how it has evolved over the years.
History of High Visibility Workwear
Over 50 years ago high visibility workwear first made its debut in the UK when it was given to railroad workers as an experiment. Since then it has now become the standard safety workwear for people working in building sites and other places. It is also widely used by cyclists and other road users. The success of the early experiments helped change the landscape of hi-res workwear and today it is the industry standard to use these at outdoor work.
High-vis workwear is made from reflective materials that help them get their light-reflecting properties. There are two main materials that are used in the making of high-visibility workwear. They are micro plasmatic tape and glass bead reflective tape.
The micro plasmatic tape is made out of a special type of plastic vinyl that has small prisms in it. These prisms work for reflecting the light within themselves before reflecting it back at the source. The reflected light travels far and is concentrated towards only one direction making it strong.
On the other hand, glass bead reflective tape is more commonly found. It is a cheaper alternative to micro plasmatic tape. It is found in general commercial hi-vis clothing as silver-grey strips. It reflects the light back at a wider angle which makes the reflected light travel lesser distances in comparison to micro plasmatic tape.
Today hi-vis workwear has become unanimous among different industries and all types of workplaces have brought it to use for employee safety when working outdoors. It is used most commonly on construction sites.
It is important to wear protective clothing on construction sites and hi-vis jackets are a part of that. Heavy materials are often moved around in a construction site and having proper hi-vis workwear protects the workers from any accident from human error as the hi-vis jacket makes the people easy to locate and observe.
This concludes our article on hi-vis workwear. We hope that this article has given you a basic understanding of high-visibility workwear. If you are interested in knowing more about this topic. We would like for you to contact us; we are UNITO Apparel. One of the leading safety workwear manufacturers from India. We specialize in making high visibility workwear that is high quality and available at affordable prices. So, if you are interested in high-visibility workwear or any other type of safety workwear, feel free to contact us.