What is an ANSI vest and when should it be worn?

When your team is in the field, your workers need to wear safety vests, or high-visibility vests. These vests are made with highly reflective materials that keep individual workers visible, especially at night. All safety vests are rated and approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

Does OSHA require safety vests?

OSHA recently announced that all highway and road construction workers – not just flaggers – must wear reflective vests. It did this even though no OSHA standard imposes such a requirement and even though its standards only recommend reflective vests for non-flaggers.

What does ANSI 107 mean?

What is ANSI 107? The ANSI/ISEA 107 American National Standard for High Visibility Safety Apparel and Accessories is a voluntary standard with guidelines that provide practical instruction regarding both reflective material and garment design to enhance worker visibility.

What do different color safety vests mean?

Colors can help drivers and equipment operators recognize workers. While fluorescent yellow is the brightest color on the chromaticity scale and the most widely used, orange hi-vis PPE has strong recognition as a hazard identifier – orange means “caution” or “watch out.”

Do safety vests have to be yellow?

OSHA Safety Vest Requirements The retroreflective material must be orange, yellow, white, silver or strong yellow-green and also can be fluorescent. The night-time warning clothes must be visible at 1,000 feet, minimum. Drivers must be able to recognize the wearer as a human being and make out her body motions.

When should safety vests be worn?

ANSI 107 Requirements Class one vests are worn when the worker can devote his complete attention to traffic, which will not approach at speeds in excess of 25 mph. The background in front of which the worker is standing must not be very complex, and there must be adequate separation between the traffic and the worker.

What class is a ANSI 107?

Class 3
The ML Kishigo 1565/1566 Economy Series Vest (shown above) is rated to the ANSI/ISEA 107 Type R, Class 3 standard. Class E — Class E refers to supplemental high visibility garments, including pants, bib overalls, shorts and gaiters.

What is a Class 2 vest?

Class 2 vests are typically worn by airport workers, high-volume parking or toll booth operators, and forest workers. Class 2 vests must have a minimum of 201 square inches of reflective tape. Dimensions of the reflective tape can be 8.373 linear feet of 2-inch tape or 12.2 linear feet of 1 3/8-inch tape.

What does a red safety vest mean?

Red safety vests can help quickly identify a particular type of worker and are often associated with emergency services workers. Red vests can also help distinguish worker types if other workers wear green, blue, or another vest color.