A year or so ago a major waste company placed 12 street cleaners, wearing yellow hi viz coats in a busy out of town shopping complex and asked shoppers coming out how many they remembered seeing. The average the shoppers reported seeing was four, according to an article in the British magazine, Safety & Health Practitioner. A month later they repeated the test with 12 workers in shocking pink hi viz coats. The average the shoppers reported seeing was nine.
The case can be made that people over time seem to have become blind to traditional yellow and orange hi viz workwear. (Lime green is another popular color.) It may be the case some hi viz clothes no longer draw attention to the presence of an “at risk” worker.