Check urgently

Deadly invisible: ÖAMTC sounds the warning vest alarm!

Bad high-visibility vests can put road users in mortal danger.

(Bild: Viktor Schwenk)

We can rely on our car seat belts to stay in place in an emergency. The situation is different with high-visibility jackets: The ÖAMTC has tested the fluorescent jackets again - and the result is even more disastrous than the first time.

Many reflect virtually no light and are practically invisible at night. This lulls people who wear them into a false sense of security. Either in the event of a car breakdown at night, an accident or as a pedestrian or cyclist who wants to be on the safe side at night.

The good news is that, as with seat belts, high-visibility vests from car manufacturers are harmless. They are mainly products ordered on the Internet that are only good for the dustbin.

At least it is easy to distinguish between good and bad safety vests.

(Bild: ÖAMTC)

Last year, the ÖAMTC and its partner organizations tested 14 high-visibility vests for the first time with regard to their reflectivity - 30 percent failed. This year, the test was extended to 25 models and, where possible, those from 2024 were also retested. The result was even worse: "Out of 25 high-visibility vests, only ten passed, 15 were insufficiently reflective or not reflective at all. This is completely unacceptable - a high-visibility vest is there to ensure your own safety, especially in the dark. If it does not guarantee this, the consequences in road traffic can be fatal," warns ÖAMTC technician Steffan Kerbl.

20 models were ordered from various large online portals and five products were purchased incognito from retailers such as discount stores. After a quick test using a reference card, an independent test laboratory checked whether the products met the requirements of the applicable standards. "Interestingly, it turned out that all of the high-visibility vests purchased in retail stores reflected the standards, whereas this was not the case for 75 percent of the vests ordered online," explains Kerbl.

When buying online, the technician advises checking whether the standards "EN ISO 20471" for adult vests and "EN 17353" for children's vests are listed. A corresponding label was sewn into the retail items.

Check reflectivity yourself
You cannot rely one hundred percent on the test standard. Regardless of where you bought the vest, you should briefly check whether it reflects well enough. It's quite simple: if you shine a flashlight or smartphone light directly onto the vest at eye level, it should reflect bright white at a distance of around three meters.

"The tests in the laboratory basically confirmed what we were able to observe in advance using simple means: There were few borderline cases - the products either reflected properly or as good as not at all," says Kerbl, adding that the effect of the reflective strip is crucial for visibility in the dark - whether the vest is otherwise bright yellow, orange or red doesn't matter as long as the standards are met in the process. The luminous colors are used for visibility during the day.

With a useless high-visibility vest, you are practically invisible in the dark.

(Bild: ÖAMTC)

A properly reflective high-visibility vest can be seen from over 100 meters in the dark in low beam. Without reflection, visibility is reduced to a few meters. Incidentally, you can't save money with bad vests: "Many of the failed high-visibility vests weren't even cheaper", Kerbl clarifies. And a non-reflective high-visibility vest is also not valid during a traffic check.