What standard do I follow for flagger apparel?

OSHA’s work zone safety rule requires compliance with either the 1988 Edition, Revision 3, or 2000 revision of Part VI of the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). However, more and more states are finding that the MUTCD comes up short for protecting highway workers and require adherence to ANSI’s ANSI/ISEA 107-2010—American National Standard for High-Visibility Safety Apparel.

The MUTCD only requires the wearing of “warning garments” for flaggers and only affords protection for other highway workers with traffic control signs or devices. Another problem with the MUTCD is that it only describes the color warning vests need to be. The regulation says: “For daytime work, the flagger’s vest, shirt, or jacket shall be either orange, yellow, yellow-green, or a fluorescent version of these colors. For nighttime work, similar outside garments shall be retroreflective. The retroreflective material shall be either orange, yellow, white, silver, yellow-green, or a fluorescent version of these colors, and shall be visible at a minimum distance of 1,000 ft. The retroreflective clothing shall be designed to clearly identify the wearer as a person. The ANSI/ISEA standard goes a step further and describes high visibility clothing as Class I, II, and III depending on many parameters the foremost of which is traffic speed. Class III garments will meet OSHA/DOT requirements above that requires “clearly identifying the wearer as a person.”