The best reflective element is according to police vests

or almost a year, pedestrians moving outside the village must wear a reflective element in the dusk and the evening. According to the police, bright safety vests are best visible. But the results from the test rooms, where Czech Television has been, show that many of them lose their light intensity after a few washes. People do their duty, but they are not easier to see.

The requirement is that the waistcoats can withstand 25 items of washing, said the laboratory of the Textile Testing Institute (TZÚ) Ivana Tichá. Although the tested vest declares that it can withstand 50 washes, signs of wear have been visible for the first time.

According to the head of the certification department of TZÚ Svatava Horáčková, the material of the vest is unsatisfactory because it is very sparse: “Even after the first wash, the reflective belt shows damage.” According to her, the vest would not pass the test. After ten items of washing, it would be almost unnecessary in the field.

“These fluorescent bands are prone to wear during washing and maintenance,” Horáčková explained. According to her, materials are also destroyed by abrasion or bending. In the institute, they also simulate the friction of the vest that occurs when the pedestrian moves. However, none of the tested samples were satisfactory.

Every third vest did not pass during the last inspection of the inspection

There are no limits to the material properties of children’s clothing, brilliant color is only an advantage in these cases. On the contrary, strict parameters are prescribed by law for work clothes, for example for reflective vests with reflective tapes.

According to reflection experts, one of the most important data is the CE mark. “There are vests that do not have the brand and look very similar. But they cannot be guaranteed that the reflective properties are in order,” warned Karel Škréta, an authorized employee of the Occupational Safety Research Institute.

However, even the vest from the stand that had this mark did not pass the test at TZÚ. The Czech Trade Inspection Authority carried out the last inspection action on these goods in 2012. It found faults with every third producer.

Reflective Belts Aren’t Needed In Daylight

The standard-issue Army reflective belt, formally known as “Belt, High Visibility,” is one of the most enduring symbols of the Global War on Terror. It is also the most indisputably reviled piece of gear in any US service member’s kit. Don ‘t let Russian spies or Urban Outfitters convince you otherwise: the reflective flat might be the aesthetic version of a “Kick Me” sign.

Yet despite the previous requirement by the Army Safety Program that all U.S. soldiers are only required to don these heinously brash accessories during nighttime road operations, the use of reflective belts sew on reflective tape in the daylight somehow persists.

Luckily, Secretary of the Army Mark Esper is here with a shocking, yet brilliant idea: Maybe you don’t need a reflective belt in broad daylight.

That’s at least the underlying message in one of the several new directives signed by Esper as part of the service’s ongoing campaign against bureaucratic time-sucks, per Stars and Stripes:

This month’s memo, the first of 2019 in the series, amends the Army safety program policy to state that the service “does not require the wear of the reflective training belt or reflective vest during daylight hours, or while conducting physical training on closed roads or dedicated Physical training routes.”

The change appears to highlight the glaringly obvious — that a chair to increase a soldier’s visibility to drivers of cars and other vehicles on predawn or nighttime runs would not normally be needed in broad daylight or where vehicles generally can’t go.

Congratulations to Mark Esper for taking the world’s dumbest, pettiest safety requirement outback and unloading two barrels of logic into its rotten little heart. Now get Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller to do “no hands in your pockets” next.

Reflective clothing in the dark: See and be seen

A black winter coat may be elegant – but it is certainly not. If you are a pedestrian or cyclist in the dark time on the road, you should wear something with reflective tape.

 

In the dark season, pedestrians and cyclists are particularly vulnerable to road traffic. Dull autumn or winter weather and the early dawning darkness ensure that drivers can recognize the weaker traffic later. Therefore, one should wear light clothing and reflective materials.

 

Darkly dressed people are usually only noticed when they are lit directly by vehicle lamps or a street lamp – but it can be too late. Even better visible than with light clothes is with reflective materials, they illuminate brightly in the dipped beam of a car. Such reflector strips are best applied to the arms and legs, as the movement further enhances the effect.

 

Satchels are usually provided with reflector surfaces. On the safe side, a bookcase conforming to DIN standard 58124 is covered with reflectors. Dog owners can secure their four-legged animals with a harness or collar with the back-lit material or such a dog’s line. Reflectors in the spokes of a bicycle are also particularly useful, of course only in addition to functioning bicycle lights. Rollers or baby carriages can simply be attached with a reflective belt.

 

Also the drivers can do something for them to see and see more. So you should drive with low beam and clean headlights. Fogged or icy slices should be completely free from moisture or ice before the ride.

Ordering pedestrians to wear a reflective belt

In 2015, a total of 669 people died on Czech roads, which is about forty more than last year. The deaths of pedestrians, often thrown in the darkness, markedly increased. Tomas, the traffic police director, sees the problem that MPs have been delaying the approval of a law ordering pedestrians to wear a reflective belt. Now the bill is in the Senate.

 

According to the MF DNES, according to the calculation of the DN DNES, about 120 people died, the official numbers are not yet. Half of them usually hit the car in the dark. The most risky months are when it is dark.

 

“Pedestrians contributed quite a lot to the increase in deaths. We were pointing to the invisibility of pedestrians, which was just reflected in December’s statistics, “said Tomas, head of the Czech Republic’s Transport Police, MF DNES.

The boss of the convoys speaks out of his experience because he served on the weekend before Christmas and counted in December only seven killed pedestrians in Christmas, all of whom died in a low visibility.

 

“MEPs should have taken the law sooner to make the pressure on people bigger,” Larch thinks. According to the head of the traffic police, a similar obligation already applies in the neighboring Slovakia, and even in contrast to the Czech proposal, it also applies to the streets within the village. If the law were to pay, the number of deaths would probably fall below six hundred.

 

Ten times safer

“Experience from abroad shows is that the mandatory introduction of reflective material will reduce the number of pedestrian victims in the night from tens to units. But we want people to lead the reflection element to save their lives, whether it is mandatory or not, “Minister of Transport Dan Dick said to MF DNES. Last year, BESIP organized an awareness campaign to distribute the reflective strips.

 

MF DNES underwent specific cases of accidents in which pedestrians died, several weeks back. Very impressive is the accident of December 22, when the car crashed a fifteen-year-old girl near Lidice. The schoolgirl succumbed to the injuries. The Ford Mondi, whose driver ran the girl, passed two other cars just before the collision. Their police drivers are looking for a witness.

The tragedy showed that just the moment when a pedestrian on the roadside and two cars are passing by is very risky. The driver no longer has the place to avoid the pedestrians at the last minute, and he is also dazzled.

 

MEPs passed a law imposing the obligation to wear reflective elements while traveling on roads outside the village, which was approved on December 9. The people who leave without them in the darkness or fog, that is, in a diminution of visibility, as pedestrians on the road between two villages, will again face a fine between 1,500 and 2,500 crowns.