Hi Guys, I just thought I would throw this in the ring for discussion and IF anyone has any questions or comments please feel free to add or contact.

The new law for wearing safety vest was passed some time ago. On November 24th, 2008 the grace period comes to an end.

ANY and ALL workers who will be working on or near a federally funding highway MUST wear an ANSI safety vest class 2 or better. At last, someone is beginning to consider knock downs as a problem. There are NO exceptions! Police, fire EMS, tow truck drivers and even the guy cutting the grass.

However, if you are a fire fighters that MAY cause you a problem. The new law does NOT state that the vest has to be a breakaway design nor does it state it has to be flame retardant or flame resistant! But whatever vest you have you will have to wear it!
This LAW is basically being extended to ALL public roads across the U.S. in early 2009 via the publication of the new MUTCD. That means anywhere the public can drive a car is included.

At the Baltimore Expo the buzz phrase "if your feet are on the street, your vest is on your chest" is being sung.

My concern is that IF you have a current/old vest it is more than likely to be flammable, and highly flammable at that. So PLEASE check out your vest ASAP. and IF it is flammable, either get news ones or if you are in a road situation and fire is in effect, ensure your own safety by using the fire truck as protection from passing traffic, close the damn road down if necessary and at that point knowing you are moving into a burning scene, do not wear your FLAMMABLE safety vest. You have a damn good reason not to and NO sensible person is going to fault you if you protect the scene, consider yourself and then deal with the scene itself. After all what is the point of you getting burnt and injured as well as the people in the accident as well?

The suggestion moving forward is that your vest should be an ANSI 107-2004 vest which is 5 point breakaway and at least flame retardant or hopefully flame resistant. Do not sell yourself short on this.

The police complained loudly about the fact that an ANSI 107 vest MAY cover their gun belts and therefore endanger them if they need to draw their guns quickly. They were lucky and 3 weeks after the new law was effected ANSI came out with the ANSI 207-2006 standard. This has exactly the same amount of reflective; however instead of 775 square inches of background fabric, it uses only 450 square inches of background fabric.

So it generally rides up higher on the body to give them access to their guns.
At the Firehouse Expo, we still had a few people think that the new laws do not include them! Wow are they in for a nice surprise and several fire fighters looking for ANSI 207-2006 vests instead of ANSI 107-2004 vests.

Let me state clear and LOUD, ASNI 107-2004 vests are FINE. In fact they are better for most firefighters as they have increased visibility as they are larger than the ANSI 207 vests.

BOTH standards do NOT include five point breakaway OR flame retardant or flame resistant features. These features can be ADDED to BOTH vest designs.

Most police in reality are not that concerned with getting to their guns and wearing a much smaller vest than doing traffic control on a winter’s niters night in the rain when the power is out. Then of course the more reflective and background fabric they wear the better for them.

So just to let you know you can get an ANSI 107-2004 vest that is flame retardant and five point breakaway and actually folds up to form an ANSI 207 vest all in one garment. One size fits most.

Now in November of 2009 new fire appliances will need one vest per riding position that is ANSI 107-2004 and flame retardant and five point breakaway. So there is hope going forward.

If your dept, cannot afford new vests use caution. You can get funding for vests from a wide variety of sources now.

Slowly manufacturers are responding to the new laws and demands and bringing out product to comply. So shop around get a flame retardant vest at least, with five point breakaway, and washable too. You can cut a deal for around $30 a vest for flame retardant or $50 a vest for flame resistant. DON'T get ripped off, higher price does not mean better quality or more features!

One final point, ensure each vest has a serial number. Why? Let’s say you decide to have one vest per rider instead of personal kit issue of one per staff member.

Let’s say Monday night that vest attends a nasty chemical incident, colorless, odorless, but highly irritating chemicals get on the vest, it's dark, cold and you are there for hours. Finally you get to go home, safe, warm and tired you leave the vest on the truck not even thinking you got it covered in this chemical.

You go home, sleep and a few days later another call comes in during the afternoon. Your day off, your buddy rides in your place, it's only for a small grass fire. It's hot; he's wearing a t-shirt and his turnout pants and boots. He sweats he rubs against the seat as the truck travels to the scene, the vest rubs against his arms, his skin starts to itch, the sweat mingles with the molecules of this nasty toxin. After all it wasn't washed.

Now it silently seeps through his skin and into his blood stream, the toxins react under hot conditions. Just like snake venom, the more you move the faster it works. Slowly he becomes tired, restless, and finally collapses from the effects of the chemical.

Everyone thinks it is because of the heat, no-one understands it was because his vest was contaminated. He gets worse, he is rushed to the hospital, a victim of cross contamination, yet no-one has any idea what it is, and so the medics cannot help him fast enough and he slowly slips away.

So is one vest per rider or is one vest per person a better. SAFER policy?

You see, most people look at a vest and don't think there is much behind it. Almost like a t-shirt really. Well some people out here understand much more of the science of trying to keep people safe that you can see from just the outside of a vest.

I look forward to your ideas and thoughts.

BTW these are just a few of the issues regarding vests, there are plenty more to consider down the road.