Night-time vest

Text: Sarah Bradley / Photos: Simon Clay

06th October 2007

	When travelling at 65mph, we didn’t even see the pedestrian until two seconds before we passed him

With the clocks about to go back and the nights drawing in, accident rates on our roads are set to rise. But there is a cheap and simple way to cut the risk of becoming a statistic – by carry­ing a high-visibility vest in your car.

If you break down in the dark and need to change a wheel or walk along the road for help, a reflective bib could mean the dif­ference between life and death. An Auto Express investigation has revealed that wearing one can increase the distance from which you can be seen by up to 400 per cent.

We carried out a night-time experiment to rate the effectiveness of these hi-vis vests – which are avail­able from a range of online suppliers and motor factors, with prices from as little as £8.

Our study took place on four roads with a variety of speeds and conditions. One was lit by street lamps, the other three weren’t. A person stood on the roadside as we staged two drive-pasts. For the first, he wore his street clothes; for the second a hi-vis vest.

A passenger in the car used a stop watch to record the time between the driver spotting the ped­estrian and the vehicle reaching him – this was the driver’s reaction time. For every test, speed and headlamp use remained consistent in our Volvo C70 – which has xenon lights – and the pedestrian moved for each run. This meant we couldn’t anticipate his exact position.

From the reaction times, we were able to calculate the approximate distance the driver covered – and the results were shocking. Route one was a nar­row rural road. Heavily wooded, and with light but fast-moving traffic and no pavement or street lamps, it was the sort of place in which you really wouldn’t want to break down.

At 40mph, blinded by oncoming headlamps, we spotted our pedestrian ‘marker’ only three seconds before we reached him. Yet with him in reflective gear, the reaction time was more than tripled to 11 seconds. The distance travelled was nearly quadrupled!

It was a similar, if even scarier, story on our next test route: a fast, unlit dual carriageway. At 65mph, we didn’t see our man until two seconds before we passed him – in fact, we barely had time to operate the stopwatch!

It was a shock when he appeared out of the darkness, and we would never have avoided him had he step­ped into the road. With the hi-vis vest, the time was seven seconds and the distance virtually quadrupled.

Interestingly, in the third 'unlit' test – the only one carried out with our Volvo’s lamps on full beam – the differentials were smaller but the overall reaction times better.

The open A-road gave us more opportunity to spot our marker. At 40mph the figure was six seconds. With the vest, it was 16 seconds: just over twice the time and about two-and-a-half times the viewing distance. Importantly, this would enable us to take avoidance action. Our final trial was on a busy, lit suburban A-road at 35mph. As you would expect, we spied our man much sooner, without and with a vest. Our reaction time was 25 seconds when the pedestrian had the hi-vis on, so we could have pulled over to help him!

This showed that whatever the road, speed and driving con­ditions, reflective gear helps make the wearer substantially easier to spot, and thus safer from passing vehicles.

So why has Britain not followed the lead of Spain, Italy and Portugal, and made it compulsory for drivers to carry hi-vis vests and wear them in a breakdown? Especially when these countries have seen such a dramatic fall in pedestrian fatalities as a result?

A Department for Transport spokesman told us: “We’re aware of the risk to occupants in a breakdown, and we try to get a balance between advice that’s likely to be heeded and legisla­tion which may be hard to implement.

“To reinforce the importance of being seen, the imminent new edition of the Highway Code will read: 'Help other road users see you by wearing light-coloured or fluorescent clothing in daylight and reflect­ive clothing at night or in poor visibility'.”

Fair point; you can never be too prepared, especially when it’s so simple. Still, demand is growing for drivers to be forced to carry hi-vis vests – click on www.safeandseen.co.uk and sign the petition. But don’t wait for the law to make the decision for you. Be safe, be seen: it could save your life.