What Is High-Visibility Clothing?
High-visibility clothing is any clothing worn that is either highly luminescent or a colour that is easily discernible from any background. Most commonly, hi-vis clothing is worn on the torso and arms, however hi-vis shorts, trousers, bags and hats can also be worn for extra visibility.
The most common hi-vis colours include fluorescent shades of orange, yellow and green as these colours naturally draw the attention of the human eye and are easily distinguishable from most backgrounds.
Why Is High-Visibility Clothing Important?
The primary role of hi-visibility clothing is to separate wearers from the background environment they are working in, quickly, at a distance and from all angles. High-visibility clothing is crucial for protecting workers in dangerous conditions such as in low-light, environments with heavy machinery or when a worker is in close proximity to a road.
Wearing high-visibility clothing has been proven to hugely lower the risks of accidents on worksites alongside lowering the number of collisions experienced by motorcyclists and cyclists worldwide.
How Does High-Visibility Clothing Work?
Contrary to popular belief, high-visibility colours are not just chosen for their eye-catching appearance; they are selected based on scientific principles to enhance visibility and safety.
Fluorescent clothing is made from special pigments that are brighter than normal colours. These fluorescent colours absorb invisible ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun and then re-emit it as visible light. This process makes fluorescent colours appear vibrant in both daylight and low-light conditions like fog, rain and dawn/dusk.
The second component of high-visibility clothing is the reflective strips/tape. These reflective strips are most effective in darkness and work by reflecting light back to wear it came from. For example, if a person is working near a road, the reflective strips will reflect a car’s headlights back to the driver, therefore alerting them that there is someone in the road they will need to avoid.
