In many safety vests, drivers cannot leave in an emergency. That is the conclusion of a product test; the AUTO BILD has conducted jointly with the Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (IFA) in St. Augustine (NRW). In the test, 13 vests were tested, ten for adults, three children. The result: Four of the tested reflective vest did not meet the German standards and were given the assessment ‘poor’: The vests of MBW and Aral the reflective tape not threw back enough light, and in Help vest the surfaces of the reflective material were too small.
The vests of Calf and ATU were “sufficient” The very small values in reflection or luminance of the color areas of AUTO BILD with. Recommended are only seven vests, especially the Bauhaus, the “very good” was the only the predicate. “Good” with the West from ADAC, Obi, from Leona-aid kit and Shell, as well as children from the ADAC and west of Max Bahr. Your colored areas are large and very powerful lights. The reflective tapes are properly seated on the vest and throw back a lot of light. In this west one is both a day and night saw good.
So AUTO BILD has been tested: The surface of background and reflective stripes and the spacing of the strips were measured with millimeter accuracy. For determining the reflectivity of the IFA technicians cut parts of the strip from, glued them on a so-called goniometry and irradiated the surface evenly with light strength ten lox – the value of a streetlight at night. They measured how much light has been thrown back.
The test judgments of all investigated safety vests can be found above in the gallery.