Judging by the folks I see coming out of the woods during hunting season, most of them. Many are convinced that it makes them easier for the deer to see, even though deer are apparently color blind.
Right now I believe that OSHA requires a safety vest for a number of situations. The lady that is the crossing guard by my house is required to wear one while she helps kids cross the street to school. You cannot enter any construction site anywhere in America without a hardhat and safety vest.and that is the way it should be. It keeps people from getting hurt.
All railway workers (except TMs, RMs, and ACDs – they are expendable) should be required to wear bulletproof vests in most urban areas. They could be cooled, for summer wear, and heated for the winter. Do-it-yourself! Just steal a FRED battery… With the number of deaths on major metro lines recently, it doesn’t seem that the vests help that much. HR/EO at work for the transit operators, methinks.
Hays
On the UP, anyone who comes near tracks must wear a vest or ANSI-II type approved outerwear. This inclueds TM’s, Superintendants, VP’s, and whom ever else may be out and about. Even Jim Young wears one. Contractors as well.
On MoW, anytime you come near a work area, you must have their proper PPE, plus have permission to enter. Flagmen/Lookouts on MoW have green, the rest, Orange. When entering the car shop/RIP track where work is going on, you must follow their rules no matter who you are, and have that proper PPE.
It’s all about situational awareness.
You can’t regulate stupid but they keep trying. I am required to where a harness and lanyard when I am working knee height (roughly 3 feet) from the ground. So if I have to use the six foot step ladder to change out a return roller on a conveyor I put on my harness and attach the issued 10 foot lanyard and tie off on the conveyor so in case the ladder fails I can safely hit the ground with 4 feet of slack in the line. My safety director and myself asked an MSHA inspector about this and his exact words and I quote “I don’t make the stupid rules I just write the violations”. Even though you know it does not make you any safer you are still required to play by the rules. My company has the 3 strike rule. First strike is a reprimand, second is 3 days off and third is bye bye.
Pete
High-viz is only required on road/highway crews, they are not required any where else. That is up the the company. Most use the “General Duty” clause for their basis for using them.
Complacency - It is here no matter what you do. I hear it all the time - we have always done it that way or they assumed wrong on something. Most of the incidents I have investigated are for stupid things. People quit using their brains (complacency is part of this category) or they assume something. The rest fall under the category of stuff happens.
If you have have a safety person say that they prevent accidents/incidents - get away from them, they do not what they are doing. What we do is minimize risks - plain and simple.
FYI - for construction the height is 6’ and for general industry it is 4’ for fall protection under OSHA. For ladders, I would rather have a helper stabilizing the ladder than try a harness, you will hurt yourself trying to hook and unhook.
Most of the rules out there are because someone did something stupid and OSHA felt they ought to make a rule to prevent it from happening.
I became a “True Believer” in hard-hats in 1966. Bethlehem Steel was setting up our first guy derrick on an un-used deck space of Grand Central Terminal, prior to arrival of structural steel for a new 42-story building (280 Park Ave. West). Mast and boom were about 90’. One of the ironworkers climbed to the top of the mast to pound on something. He dropped his 8-12# “beater” (sledge hammer) and it landed on another kid’s head! Wham!!! Wow! Luckily, the guy that dropped it didn’t yell, or we all would have looked up. Scary, scary… Hard hats work, but I lost all my hair to them (and steel and Kevlar pots in the army). Don’t need no stinkin’ hair!
Hays
As a retired safety specialist for a utility, I must recommend that anyone exposed to vehicle traffic wear a high visibility vest. This is especially true when flagging a train across an un-signaled street crossing.
Gasman
People also manage to hit those big trucks with all the flashing lights and reflective material on them, no matter what color they are. Point? The vest does not equal safety. Safety is people. I wear the reflective gear - but as Wabash points out, if I put myself in harms way, the vest isn’t going to save my life.
Agree… vests don’t do a thing to protect you if those who may endanger you are not paying attention to what he or she is doing. Only group pushing for vests today are lawyers and the manufacturers of those vests. Everyone forgets " What did we do years ago for protection? Maybe pay attention to what we were doing."
You and I, are not in a position to debate this. On the railroad, you are paid to follow instructions, plain and simple.¹ We are not the ones who are writing the rules, neither are the carriers. You can blather here all day about how much you hate them, and it will do not one bit of good. It will change nothing.
¹ Unless to do so would create an unsafe condition.
I see Pete’s point, although I don’t have the numbers to go one way or the other. It’s a lot like those “how did we ever manage to reach adulthood” treatises that make their way around the 'Net.
Rules is rules, and, as pointed out, most are written in blood.
Thing is, we only keep records of when the safety systems fail. Like in the fire prevention business, we’ll never know how many incidents have been avoided because safety apparel and safety procedures were in use - the ‘didn’t happens’ don’t get documented. Nobody turns in a report that states “I almost hit my conductor, but didn’t because I saw his vest.”
The fire service is trying to get into reporting such near misses, including websites where you can anonymously report same, but it’s not a widespread practice.
In the meantime - “Take the safe course.”
The reason you dont hear about the near miss is that someone ( the user of the vest) figured out he was in the line of fire. and moved himself, pure and simple the engineer wont react to a situation of i saw his vest and stopped because there is no reason to, if you see him its because he is clearly out of the way, and if i dont means he is on one side of the train and me on the other and i wont see him or his vest and if he is going to get run over that vest is not helping him at all. or if he rides into a close clearance building and gets wiped out that vest did not do a thing to help him. all it does is give the trainmasters and criminals a easy target to watch.
the only instance i can think of where it might come in handy and maybe stop a injury is if a new hire come
Right here in you own righting just like in the rule books you put down in small foot note that if it creates a unsafe condition, you have proven my point. dont wear it if your life is in more danger that with out.
I maybe a source of misinformation, but as I understand, a UP conductor was giving a roll by, or just standing near the mainline. He was told,'hot rail," which means a train is coming. Nevertheless, he got run over by the oncoming train.
After that, UP required all TY&E personnel to wear vest while on duty, inclcluding the engineer. Though I doubt a vest would have saved the man who caused the rule to be brought into effect.
I haven’t heard that the BNSF would be instituting a similar policy.
On the railroad which I’m employed, and I think this is universal, all MOW and supervisory personnel must wear a hard hat, reflective vest, and any other PPE that is required.
Reflective vests increase visibility and are therefore a good idea. Who could argue with that?
Wabash1 is…
There are times when visibility is not necessarily desireable, as has been noted.
Along that line of thought, it’s been found that drunk drivers tend to drive toward red flashing lights. Hence, that fire truck, police car, or ambulance with all those blinding flashing lights actually becomes a target. Go figure.
Phoenix, AZ now has their fire trucks configured so when they are placed in “Park,” the red lights go off and amber lights go on.
I don’t think that anyone is going to argue that, in general, more visibility is a good thing, so safety vests are, it follows, a good thing. Like most everything, though, there is no ‘one size fits all.’ There will always be exceptions.
If “Taking the safe course” means ditching your hi-viz so you don’t end up in the crosshairs quite as easily, so be it.
Those who have gotten their vest caught on something, but it didn’t tear apart like it’s supposed to. I’ve never had that issue, but I know a few you have.
Back when I was playing with the RCLs I wondered about the vest/harness we used. It seemed to me to take quite a bit of effort to pull it apart. I luckily never had to try it’s tear-away capability in actual service.
Jeff
No wabash isnt, he is done you guys wear your death traps.
Death traps? OK, in some areas you may not want to wear one, but to call them death traps? That’s like calling my lantern a death trap. I like my lantern. It’s LED light is soothing, and it has survived countless drops without a flicker.