Carhartt Hi-Viz Jackets

By Kristi Ries

Daylight Savings Time in the U.S. is a funny thing; for most people, it merely means having to change their clocks twice a year. You lose a day in the spring, but are relieved to “gain it back” each fall. Each winter, the sun sets well before 6 p.m. on the East Coast. Evenings begin earlier and daylight dissolves into darkness faster than in any other season of the year.

This is a good excuse to hole up in your man cave and watch SportsCenter or the DIY Network, but some folks work a different shift. If your job requires you to be walking or working outside late, or if you’re a dedicated nighttime jogger during the winter months, you’ll want to make sure you’re safe on roads with low visibility and little light.

But not just any jacket will do. In addition to being easily noticeable, you also need something warm, durable and water-resistant to keep you comfortable in wet, cold and generally unpredictable weather. With their 3M® Scotchlite™ reflective tape and super-bright colors Carhartt’s Hi-Viz Jackets will put you in plain sight of any motorists while keeping you insulated from all the elements life might throw at you.

C’mon, I have other things to worry about, you say to yourself. Why bother with reflective gear? Well, in the winter, it could be a matter of life and death. Recent research indicates that pedestrian fatalities from cars soar at 6 p.m. during the weeks after clocks are set back in the fall.

Would you believe that walkers are three times as likely to be hit and killed by cars right after the switch than in the month before Daylight Savings Time ends? That alone is a scary statistic. But wait: researchers from Carnegie Mellon University also discovered a 186 percent jump in the risk of being killed by a car for every mile walked after 6 p.m. So if you need to be active outdoors after dark, consider doing so safely with Winter High Visibility Jackets.