Road Safety Clothing Blog

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Road Safety GB Conference

Posted on 23/11/2011 by Serena Groom

To everyone who attended the Road Safety GB conference in Chester last week, we would like to thank you for a fantastic 2 days!

Road Safety GB Conference

The conference was very informative and the speakers were superb (the food and entertainment at the dinner was also superb!).  It was great to talk to you all in the exhibition – we really enjoyed meeting everyone and taking part.  Our STOP sign cupcakes created a bit of a buzz too – check out our photos!!

School Crossing Patrol Cupcakes

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BRAKE road safety week in the West Midlands

Posted on 22/11/2011 by Serena Groom

We’re very proud of our Corporate Partnership with BRAKE who as you know this week have launched Road Safety Week! Road Safety week is an annual event, now in its 15th Year.

Young people, victims of young drivers crashes and emergency services are launching Road Safety week through demonstrations showing the horror of road crashes.

We put a significant amount of our profits back in to road safety. we’re delighted to be able to help Brake to achieve their objectives of cutting road deaths and injuries.

Casualty statistics revealed by Brake today show that a young person is killed on Roads in the West Midlands every week.  Every 18 hours, a young person suffers a serious injury that in many cases can be life changing.  There are 4 main causes of road deaths concerning young people are drink, drugs, speed and seatbelts.

Families in the West Midlands who have lost loved ones in devastating young driver crashes are calling for action on the biggest killer of young people at the launch of Road Safety Week.

BRAKE is demanding government action to tackle these needless casualties.  They are doing this by highlighting evidence that “graduated driver licensing”, including a minimum learning to drive period, and restrictions for novices, would prevent 200 deaths and thousands of injuries each year.

Emergency services, local authorities, colleges and other agencies are taking part in the Week to get the message across about the horror of road crashes.  Keltic are urging everybody to get involved, to find out more about how to get involved, please follow the link below:

Guidance for organisations

To find out more about BRAKE, Read Brake’s campaign calls.

 

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Prismatic Tape – The Only Option When it Comes to Safety?

Posted on 21/11/2011 by Serena Groom

As we all know, it’s Road Safety Week, and as a corporate partner of Brake, we’ll be blogging all week in support of the fantastic work they do. At Keltic, we put a significant amount of our profits back in to road safety. In line with Brake’s road safety messages, we thought we would take this opportunity to highlight some new reflective tape technology that we feel should be more widely used in our industry.

Our School Crossing Patrol do such a great job keeping our children safe, and their high visibility jackets obviously contribute to this. What we find exciting is that a new garment tape technology – prismatic tape – is now available which allows wearers to be seen up to 7 times further away than glass bead tape. Glass bead tape is the older, less reflective ‘plain’ looking silver tape that can still be seen on many garments.

Just as exciting is the fact that prismatic tape also retains its reflectivity for the lifetime of the garment and gives exceptional performance in the rain. With the older technology (glass bead), tests show that the glass beads wear off over time and with washing, so the reflective values drop dramatically after wearing and washing which is clearly a concern.

The reflectiveness of glass bead tape is also dramatically reduced in the rain. At last week’s Road Safety GB conference, we demonstrated how glass bead tape ‘blacks out’ in areas where rain hits it. With the amount of rain we get in this country, and the fact that school crossing patrol staff work in all weathers, that’s also a concern.

With this in mind, should all School Crossing Patrol’s be wearing  Prismatic Tape?

 

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School Crossing Patrol: The Technical Stuff! – Part 2

Posted on 18/10/2011 by Serena Groom

What does the law say about your school crossing patrol uniform? Next on our list is school crossing patrol headwear.

School crossing patrol uniforms

School crossing patrol headwear

The law states that every school crossing patrol warden must  follow these guidelines:

  • School Crossing Patrol Wardens must wear a peaked hat, a beret, or alternative headwear for religious reasons.

Some wardens choose to wear the more formal wear hats while others prefer a more relaxed alternative like a baseball cap or trappers hat.  Either way suitable headwear is a must!

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School Crossing Patrol: The technical Stuff! – Part 1

Posted on 02/09/2011 by Serena Groom

What does the law say about your school crossing patrol uniform?  Well, let’s start with the coats.

school crossing patrol uniform

School Crossing Patrol Jacket – The Facts

The law states that every school crossing patrol coat (summer or winter) must follow these guidelines:

  • A knee length outer garment with full length sleeves, consisting of no more than two fluorescent colours covering the whole outer area of the garment (but may include non fluorescent *trimmings).
  • The Garment shall be certified, by a Notified Body, to the highest Class of the standard for “High Visibility Warning Clothing”, currently Class 3 BS.EN471:2003+A1 2007 or future ISO 20471 equivalent.
  • The garment is to include a retro-reflective tape configuration of at least two bands on the torso and one, 50mm band, not greater than 300mm from the hem of the body.
  • The retro reflective tape must not exceed a 15° angle.

Don’t forget to keep up to date with the important stuff, check our blog next month for Part 2 of “What does the law say about your school crossing patrol uniform”

 

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How to Make Sure your Hi Vis Clothing Doesn’t End Up in Landfill

Posted on 28/02/2011 by David Barry

We don’t want to add to landfill unnecessarily so we make sure our customers benefit from having High Visibility clothing that lasts many times the life of cheaper products. Here are some things to look for when choosing your Hi Viz clothing:

  • Yellow hi vis clothing should meet EN471 Class 2.  We recommend you check each supplier has not only the EN471 certificate but full certification for both the fabric and reflective tape used – there are many cases where the fabric and tape only pass the requirements very marginally – a marginal pass this week could be a marginal fail next week!
  • Beware hi visibility clothing that is too short – it’s generally not possible for them to meet EN471 Class 2 unless they are at least 60cm long
  • Reflective tape used on hi vis clothing will generally always be Class 2 glass bead tape (Reflexite tape takes hi viz clothing out of most clients price range)
  • Fluorescent yellow is very bright, and needs to stay bright to be reflective, does the hi vis clothing you are about to buy have Teflon coating to repel dirt?
  • Think about style –check the arm holes are large enough to comfortably get in and out of it– to use less tape and cut costs some suppliers make the shoulder bands shorter by making the arm holes shorter, making the garment harder to get on

Hi vis clothing is worn by all and sundry these days – the high street is awash with hi vis… We offer very high quality standard hi vis clothing, but we also offer something different, so you can spot your staff amongst all the other companies and government employees out and about in hi viz yellow clothing. We offer over 30 different colours from stock – something to suit all corporate images, and many of our garments incorporate Reflexite hi vis tape, the most reflective tape on the market, enabling your staff to be seen from up to 7 times further away. More about Reflexite hi vis tape in a later blog!

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