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OSHA's new letter of interpretation requires that construction workers wear high-visibility warning garments. High-visibility warning garments are required safety attire for highway and road construction workers according to a new letter of interpretation recently released by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

There are several outstanding issues concerning the new requirement for emergency responders to wear high-visibility clothing on federal-aid highways. Please read this summary for some additional information and links to download original documents.

New regulations for high visibility apparel will go into effect on November 24th of 2008. The Federal Regulation CFR 634 states that, "all workers within the right-of-way of a Federal-aid highway who are exposed either to traffic or to construction equipment within the work area SHALL wear high-visibility safety apparel."

New regulations for high visibility apparel will go into effect on November 24th of 2008. The Federal Regulation CFR 634 states that, “all workers within the right-of-way of a Federal-aid highway who are exposed either to traffic or to construction equipment within the work area SHALL wear high-visibility safety apparel.” Since there are over 975,000 miles of Federal-aid highways it is extremely difficult to determine what is and isn’t “Federal-aid” so many employers are opting to assume that all roads are covered under the regulation to avoid inadvertent non-compliance.

The ANSI guidelines in our landscape today continue to evolve in our industrial business world. Where once there were a set of guidelines introduced in 1999, they have since become more explicit in 2004. As the American National Standard Institute, Inc. has broken down these specific guidelines into classes, so have they included parameters under each of them that need to be addressed. These parameters include design, requirements for background and combined-performance retroreflective materials, photometric and physical performance requirements for retroreflective materials and care labeling. The reflective apparel manufacturer today must have a firm grasp on this important criteria and know it well if they are to survive among the competition? This is a high level overview to try and simplify these guidelines and provide needed understanding to those in the relective apparel community.

This article takes an in-depth look at the ANSI reflective garment standards from a manufacturer’s perspective giving a better appreciation for the evolving requirements for that marketplace and the direction that it is headed. Rich Boven, who has 32 years experience in the garment industry tells the story as it is. To compete with the top tier manufacturers in this industry, this is a “must read!”