To wear or not to wear - is a contraversial question
Hmmmmmmmmm ............ certainly provoked some suprisingly dogmatic responses.
I work in the construction industry where hi-viz (as defined by a particular British Standard for reflectivity and so on) is mandated by most sizeable employers and recommended by the HSE, just like hard hats and toe-tectors and goggles and gloves and other things.
Hi-viz started in construction about 20 years ago and provoked much the same reaction as some of those less willing have displayed here. After a while it became accepted and now putting on a high viz vest is as unconscious a reaction as scratching your nuts.
I flew at Barton for a few years (not in the last three or so) and I wholly sympathise with the difficulties where so many aeroplanes, businesses and vehicles .... as well as people just getting to non-aviation business .... are co-mingled. However if I were to the runway side of the tower I would probably wear high viz because it's now become part of my flying culture too. I am delighted that ther have been no accidents and I hope it stays that way forever.
(My recollection is that the last aircraft/person accident report I read was at Manchester (??) with a marshaller who was wearing Hi-Viz - the accident was unrelated to his visibility but a misinterpreted hand signal).
I worked airside at Luton for a couple of years where the biggest hazard was likely to be the shuttle buses and baggage carts but high viz is certainly mandatory and second nature and I wouldn't have been without it. (Downside is that in the terminal the SLF ask you silly questions)
I now have to wear hi-viz at Fairoaks (which in all honesty isn't a bad thing as our aeroplanes are outside the clubhouse but on the opposite side of the taxiway) and because I keep the waistcoat on in the aeroplane also wore it at Sandown the other day (where I did feel rather conspicuous !!!) where with a total lack of other traffic it was certainly un-necessary.
What the British Safety Council/ HSE / CAA can prove about the improvement in statistics in any industry with the use of HV I don't know - but I'll ask my safety man and perhaps report back.
From my point of view - any unnecessary risk eliminated is the better and I will always wear my vest - even changing a tyre or cutting my hedge on a pavement-less road is bloody dangerous sometimes.
What I think I can say with certainty is ... Stand On Me - in 5 years time, you won't even be able to tramp round your own grass strip without wearing a hi-viz vest.
The possibility that it might save you some day makes it worth it in my book and the downside (other than wounded dignities decrying their lack of personal choice) seems so marginal as hardly to be worth worrying about.
Am I becoming over sensitive or are these forums becoming less polite than before ?? .... I don't think such vilification of a poor defenceless Poet is justified .... I am with Dale Carnegie and Canadian Luscombe - it didn't read tongue in cheek to me - still its PPRuNe not a literary society.
DGG