Reflective vest test - Harbor Freight vests
 

I was at Harbor Freight today and noticed that they have a vest that's different from the one I have, which I also bought there. I bought one and did some tests this evening. The old one was $5.99, the new one is $4.29 or so. The new one has what appears to be the good 3M reflective stuff (I'm sure it's a Chinese clone); the old one has that "glass dust melted into plastic" reflective stuff. I think the old one is the same as a lot of people here have, so I thought it would be good if people saw this.

The new one is VERY VERY much more visible at distance.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7456/9...45f04c1e_z.jpg
L-R: $6 HF vest, Nashbar ankle band, Jandd ankle band, $4.29 HF vest, no flash
As you can see, the new one is a closer weave while the old one is a mesh, but even the new one is quite thin and breathes a lot.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7376/9...69e5ae95_z.jpg
With flash

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7314/9...6b686247_z.jpg
Outdoors, with flash (from 40 feet or so)

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7398/9...09bfed46_z.jpg
From about 120 feet away, at night with some wet snow falling, with flash, zoomed in and I cropped the picture down to just the vests. They're draped over the back of my car in the garage, that's what the stray reflectors are.

I didn't put the ankle reflectors in as I was getting wet and wanted to go back in, but the results are similar.

As you can see, the vest on the right (the cheaper one) is VERY bright, in fact more bright than the car reflectors. There's NO COMPARISON. The new one was even fairly visible in the weak "focus assist" light that my camera puts on for a second before taking the picture in low light.

Next time I get to HF I'm buying a few more and putting them in my cars and keeping some spares, in case I meet someone without reflective stuff.

I'll follow up in a few months to see if the material stands up to wear.

Look for ANSI Class Rating on the vest. The higher the Class rating the better and more reflective stuff there will be on it. My company requires a Class 2 minimum for most of our jobsites. So they buy them and I wear them:D
+1 on the spares, I got a case of the basic green with silver reflective stripes to hand out. I still see some of the ones I have given out along the roads near my home.


Aaron:)

That's funny I bough the exact same vest today at HF.

I bought 3 of the yellow/white reflective vests from Harbor Freight when I first started commuting last March (they were $3.99 each at the time). I have since given 1 away to a co-worker that rode a bike to work when his car broke down and didn't have any high vis gear. The other 2 vests have held up fairly well.

Some interesting phrases I noticed on the tags include: "do not machine wash" and "not ANSI approved as a safety vest" although they do mention they have "ANSI approved reflective tape."

I have been running mine through on the low agitation wash cycle and low heat dry cycle with my work uniforms at least once per week. I always make sure to turn them inside out to protect the reflective surfaces, and make sure the velcro closure is securely attached to itself so it doesn't snag on other clothing and pull threads out. They have stood up to this wash method fairly well.

Here is the silver tuna http://cgi.ebay.com/Illuminated-LED-...QQcmdZViewItem

per ANSI:

ANSI III means sleeves.

A vest can only be ANSI II, so you might think it's less reflective,but the truth is it just doesn't have sleeves and thus doesn't qualify.

Wow...Thanks for the heads up....gonna head to HF tomorrow to check it out.

or non ANSI and not have the same amount of reflective tape or an inferior quality. Actually the ANSI standard does have to do with the amount of reflective materials as well as the amount of background materials ie; sleeves...and yes the Class III has sleeves.

Aaron:)

My problem with ankle reflective straps, when I ride at night I am almost always on a bike with panniers. My panniers have reflective straps , but not so sure they are seen all that well from the rear. / Vests are the way to go. Highway workers, police , motorcyclists , fire people wear them . Why not cyclists.

Especially at night if it is reflective I am going to use it! FWIW I have come up on cyclists from behind that were using a feeble blinkie and one of the first things I spotted was the pedal reflectors going up and down from quite a distance back. Turned out to be a couple of touring cyclists that were a bit late getting to their destination. One thought to keep in mind, if you are using a vest and riding drop bars and in the drops the vest is not nearly as effective as someone with a more upright position. I have had people take a picture of me when riding just to see how much is really visible...

Aaron:)

Yeah, that's the same reflective material as the one on the LEFT. I thought it was OK too until I took the above photos.

The LEDs LOOK impressive but from what I've seen of them, they don't work very well. LEDs are nowhere near as bright as good reflective material in with a headlight pointed somewhere near them. Also, LEDs are very directional, so at best you might have ONE of those LEDs pointed right at someone's head, but the odds are against it.

I'd certainly like to test one of the LED vests but I wouldn't pay a dime for one. I've seen one in the wild one time and it wasn't all that visible from a distance.

Active lighting is certainly important, but I think it's best to put that on the bike. Effective active lighting is mostly all directional, and on a person's body there's no way to keep it pointed in the right direction.

Given the choice, I'd rather have a good reflective vest than the LED blinkies any time.

HHMMMMM I've had more comments about how more aware people are being able to see the lights on the vest than I can count. Even had a couple comments from the guards on the gate at work that they could see me about a mile down the road. I think most of the time we are either being overtaken by traffic or they are coming from ahead of us. That and the fact I have a planet bike super flash and I'm running two headlights all helps. No single source is going to keep all the meat heads on alert but this vest I have is as bright even without the LED's as I have seen. We need all the measures to be seen we can get.

I had mine on when I was hit from the rear at 3:30pm....he said he didn't see me...I still wear the blood stained vest every day.

Another cager that needs to be flogged. They always give that old " I didn't see you" crap. that cause they are usually on the freakin phone of playing with the radio or whatever lame excuse they can come up with. Part of the sentence these hammerheads should get is to ride a bike to work or for at least 10 miles on the road for a month to see what kind of idiots we have to deal with all the time. Glad you are ok but man don't this kinds of stuff make your blood boil

Well, after having done this test, I took the old vest, which has the same reflective material as the LED one indicated above, and threw it out, because as you can see, compared to the new one, it's like the old one isn't even reflective at all. I thought my old one was good too until I put it side by side with this one.

I'd look forward to seeing actual tests with an LED light. If I can find one locally where I could test it then return it (because I don't expect much from it) I'd do the test myself. I still might if I decide to spend the $20. I don't expect to ever use it though so I'd just be spending $20 on curiosity.

To each his own. I just don't rely on one piece of the equipment to make myself visible is all I'm saying. Its the vest the superflash the reflective piping on my jacket reflective material on the helmet and backpack and also the trunk bag. Oh yeah and the pedals have reflectors. Its a whole package that helps from being maimed or killed by some nut job in a car. IJM stay as visible as you can and take it easy out there we have enough trouble being seen in the daylight much less in the dark

bought the nathan LED vest and not impressed. Reflectively its great. The LED mechanism is cheaply made The battery and control circuit has 3 no solder contacts to the LED strip. A little too much flexing and it easily separates. Hang my Superflash from the back of the vest now.

Used mine for a year now and not problems.

Well right, don't rely on any one thing. But if you're going to buy a vest, ISTM that it makes sense to buy one that is like 10x more reflective than the other.
I'll try to check out an LED vest at some point but honestly the one I saw was very weak, and I don't expect much from them. They seem to me like something that demos well in the store or at home but on the road doesn't work worth a darn. If I get hold of one I'll wrap it around a human-diameter tree trunk or something along with the above vest, walk off a couple hundred feet, shine a flashlight that way and take a photo (or video if that shows the LED flash better).

One thing to notice about the better reflective material is that it reflects well regardless of the angle of incidence. The stuff on the left reflects great, as long as the light is hitting it fairly square on. If it's wrinkled or around the side of the vest, it reflects very little.
The better stuff forms a solid white line regardless of wrinkling or angle.

I thought the old one was pretty good until I got this. Then I threw away the old one.

The yellow reflective stuff sucks. The white stuff (even the worst stuff) is way superior.

Absolutly.

Don't anyone worry that the white tape on your panniers does not show up well.


http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/8...ghtsoffkb2.jpg

The white reflective stuff won't have the longevity of the other, but for the price of that vest, it will still last plenty long enough to make the vest a good investment.

The white wears out?

If you wash it a lot, yeah.