In yesterday’s post, we talked about what class vest was needed where (see “What Class Vest do I Need?“). Today we are going to look at what makes up the different classes that we are talking about.
At first glance, the answer to the title of today’s post might seem an obvious one… “Just look at the tag in your vest!”. The problem is that what the tag says isn’t always what the vest is. We’ve talked about this in a post back on March 25th entitled “Counterfeit PPE“. Most often the issue is that the manufacturer of the vest didn’t realize that the amount of background material is reduced when the reflective material is added resulting in a vest that doesn’t have enough background material to meet the class rating that the manufacturer puts on the label. Because ANSI doesn’t have enforcement authority (they only set the standards), many of these vests end up out there with the consumer thinking that he’s got the correct vest when, in fact, he doesn’t.
With that in mind, here’s a chart outlining what is required for each class vest. It is taken from a 3M document that you can download entitled “ANSI/ISEA 107-2004 made easy: A Quick Reference to High-Visibility Safety Apparel”
