As of: February 15, 2024, 4:30 p.m
By: Sebastian Oppenheimer
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Safety vests are actually supposed to protect lives.
But some copies apparently hardly reflect anything.
This is the result of an ADAC test.
There are things that as a driver you hope won't happen to you: These include, for example, breakdowns or accidents.
If such a case does occur, valuable time is often lost in the excitement until, for example, the first-aid kit is found or the warning triangle is set up correctly.
This makes it all the more important to find out in advance where these things are and how to deal with them.
In particular, the high-visibility vests that have been mandatory since 2014 should always be within easy reach in the vehicle so that you can put them on before getting out.
The
ADAC
has now taken a closer look at 14 vests.
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Five times the grade “poor”: high-visibility vests with almost no reflection
Of the 14 vests that the automobile club examined for their reflectiveness, around a third (more than 30 percent) failed with a grade of “poor”.
Both child and adult models were tested.
According to
the ADAC,
the vests in question “almost don’t reflect at all”.
This poses great dangers, especially at night, as many buyers are not aware of the lack of reflection and thus lull themselves into a false sense of security.
Only recently, the ACE automobile club, in collaboration with the GTÜ, also tested high-visibility vests: only one vest failed, and it was the cheapest.
High-visibility vests are intended to protect the lives of drivers.
But in the ADAC test, some examples failed because there was hardly any reflection.
(Symbolic image) © Pond5 Images/Imago
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ADAC warns: Defective warning vests are life-threatening
An initial rapid test by the
ADAC
showed that five of the 14 warning vests did not even come close to the weakest of three reference reflective surfaces in terms of their luminosity.
Here it could already be assumed that the high-visibility vest standard (EN ISO 20471) was not met.
A further test in a certified light laboratory then confirmed almost all of the rapid test results, with one exception: a children's vest that had failed the rapid test was improved in the meantime and the second batch passed the laboratory test.
The
ADAC
emphasizes that defective vests are not only life-threatening.
If the legal requirements according to the StVO are not met, the vehicle is considered not to be correctly equipped.
Test high-visibility vests yourself: The ADAC recommends these methods
Even if only one vest is required in the car, there should always be high-visibility vests on board for all passengers in the vehicle.
Which high-visibility vests passed the test and which failed can be seen in a table on the ADAC website.
However, according to the automobile club, there are also methods with which you can test the reflection of a safety vest yourself:
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Flashlight:
If you hold a light source (torch or smartphone light) directly next to or in front of your head, a good warning vest will reflect bright white from a distance of around three meters.
The reflection from west, which is barely brighter than a white sheet of paper, is not sufficient.
Photo with flash:
Another option is to take a photo with the flash activated using a smartphone from your vest.
The image can be evaluated using the same criteria as the flashlight method.
However, you should be careful with this test: Some current smartphones detect overexposure in the bright reflection of the stripes and downscale the brightness, which can distort the result.
Test with low beam:
It is a little more complex to test the vest practically under “real conditions”.
To do this, the vest must be attached to a tree, for example, and then approached in the dark with the dipped headlights on.
Even from a distance of 100 meters, the reflective strips must shine “glaringly bright”.