Who Needs Reflective Apparel

Who needs reflective apparel is a question many people, including parents, are now asking. The simple answer to this question is to say that any pedestrian who works, lives, or plays within proximity of moving vehicles.  Having reflective apparel will help increase driver awareness of you as a pedestrian, and help increase your safety.

reflective apparel

The way reflective apparel increases the safety of any pedestrian on or near the roads is by providing the wearer with an instrument that will help make them be more visible. This is made possible by the way the reflective material is designed to function. This is special cloth that has micro glass beads woven throughout it. These beads or thread make the material reflective when a light source comes in contact with it. 

The light enters the glass beads and reflects back in a parallel course but in the opposite direction to its source. This is how a driver with their lights ion can see more clearly that they are approaching a person on or near the road. The silhouette the driver sees is an image or outline of a person with no defining characteristics. In simpler terms, the driver will be aware there is a person.

There is also reflective apparel that is similar to what road workers have on their vests. These are the strips of reflective material that are on top of florescent colored material. This type of safety material is also used by the crossing guards at schools and others that have to work where there are vehicles approaching them and they wish to be seen. The reflective material is similar fluorescent colored material in the sense that it increases awareness.  Some apparel have micro prisms embedded in vinyl.  Some use glass particles in ink!  Some reflective apparel have something similar to reflective tape sewn through out it. When a light source hits it the beam of light hits the different surfaces, YOU reflect back.

Materials that reflect back at the original light source are called retro-reflective material. The leading difference between retro-reflective and it's counter part, scatter-reflective, is that the apparel with prism based retro-reflectance  have a reduced light scattering effect and focus on returning the light back to the light source. 

For those looking at these safety apparel, the material with the glass bead thread is fashioned into more attractive types of apparel. It is true that the light scattering is greater by a few percentages than that material constructed from a vinyl prism, but this still makes it possible for others in the vicinity to better see the reflective gear. It is why so many cyclists, joggers and others out at night exercising are now investing in their safety with reflective apparel. It increases visibility especially when near or on the roads with large vehicle traffic.

School children and parents who walk their children to school, workers on or near roadways, people exercising, and night construction workers should all think about making an investment in their personal safety by purchasing reflective apparel. It is the best way today to reduce the chances of an unwanted accident.

Aug 12th 2014 Douglas Gray

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