Do police need to wear high vis clothing when attending traffic incidents?

[meme405]

Originally Posted by stewie

Should j walkers wear visi-vests? God forbid you can't see them either. But a portion of your taxes don't go to their salary, so you most likely don't care.

Actually no J Walking is illegal, so people shouldn't be doing it.

Why is it illegal? Because we don't want random people running in front of cars. Like officers are.

Look I am mandated to wear a safety vest while working around machinery on a construction site. Why shouldn't a fucking officer have to wear one while he is working around cars travelling 60-100km/h.

I can't believe you guys think this is okay... Especially since your only defense of the matter is that they wouldn't hand out as many tickets if they had to wear it.

If the vest even prevents 1 cop from injury it is worthwhile.

LIKE I SAID ABSOLUTELY NO TRAFFIC TICKET IS WORTH THE LIFE/WELL BEING OF AN OFFICER.

[xpl0sive]

a high visibility vest won't make any difference in those types of situations. People see the officers come out on the road clearly, especially since cops are only out doing radar traps on nice sunny days. I just think it's completely stupid for cops to be running out in front of cars to pull them over. All it's going to take is for someone to run a cop over, then regulations will change.

[stewie]

I wear orange coveralls on my construction sites. They're covered in grease and mud and barely have any visibility to them. I'd wash them but there's no point, they'd be covered in mud again in 20 minutes. People can still see me quite clearly even at 12-7am....that's with me walking across roads etc since the job sites are usually in the middle of a road and 5-10ft underground (watermains).

[J.Bell]

Good story one of my buddies told me who worked up north few years ago. Story is from his buddy that he knew while he was working up there.

Driving along one of the highways in the middle of nowhere in middle of the day. Hasn't seen a car in 2 hours, cuz it's pretty desolate. Anywho, doin maybe 10km/h over the limit, outta nowhere there's all of a sudden a cop behind him with lights flashing, so buddy pulls over. Police officer walks up to car ask for the usual license and registration, while buddy pleads his case that he hasn't seen anyone around in 2 hours, could he please get a warning. Was really polite about the thing. Police officer just laughs, buddy pleads again one more time to please get just a warning. Again police officer just laughs and walks back to his squad car to write up a ticket. Police officer comes back and asks buddy to sign the ticket, as the officer hands him the ticket, buddy passes his own ticket to the police officer. Officer has the most amazing puzzled look on his face, asks "what's this?" Turns out buddy was a WCB officer heading up to inspect some camps, so he just laughs when the officer gives him a $200 ticket for speeding and said shoulda just gave me a warning and I woulda done the same for you. Ticket was something in the $1000's for not wearing his safety vest when we got out of his squad car to walk up to buddy car on the side of the highway.

Now I know this happened in the Yukon, so I don't know if they have the same law regarding wearing safety vest as we do, however, the WCB agent fined him and it stuck for not having a hi-vis vest on during a routine traffic stop.

When I first heard that story I was like

[zulutango]

You should have been like................. If it was RCMP then it could not have happened as Province does not have authority of Fed Govt for this type of thing. I stand to be corrected but I don't believe WCB give tickets, they issue summons to court...and a fine for a 1st infraction in the "thousands' raises this to urban legend status. How about a compliance notice or max $50 fine? Made a good story though.

http://www.yukon-news.com/news/safet...-to-pay-dearly

[J.Bell]

Just what my buddy told me that his buddy told him, could be all bullshit for all that I know, but does make for a pretty good story regardless if it's true or not. Read the article you linked and the event in question would have happened before they instituted that new set of rules. Believe it was 2005 or 2006 when it all happened. As for WCB (or whatever they called these days, worksafe) giving tickets, I work in construction so I'm always on a job site somewhere in the city. Proly bout 6-7 years ago guy at my company got caught for not wearing his hard hat, Worksafe officer actually wrote him a ticket, can't remember the amount and he had to go into their office to pay it. So I know for a fact they USED to physically hand out tickets, however so many things have changed with them since then including their name to Worksafe from WCB so I really have no idea anymore what would happen. But they USED to physically hand out tickets, from what I've seen.

[MarkyMark]

More often then not now when I see officers doing radar they have those bright yellow jackets on.

That being said, why would any officer who's job is to jump out onto the road full of moving cars, not want to wear one?

[XplicitLuder]

cus people would spot them from miles away duh

[MarkyMark]

Originally Posted by XplicitLuder

cus people would spot them from miles away duh

If that was true these cops who wear the hi vis jackets would never catch anyone. The drivers who actually pay attention might catch it, but there will be plenty of people speeding who are too busy looking at their phone or the car directly in front of them to even notice.

[stewie]

Originally Posted by J.Bell

Good story one of my buddies told me who worked up north few years ago. Story is from his buddy that he knew while he was working up there.

Driving along one of the highways in the middle of nowhere in middle of the day. Hasn't seen a car in 2 hours, cuz it's pretty desolate. Anywho, doin maybe 10km/h over the limit, outta nowhere there's all of a sudden a cop behind him with lights flashing, so buddy pulls over. Police officer walks up to car ask for the usual license and registration, while buddy pleads his case that he hasn't seen anyone around in 2 hours, could he please get a warning. Was really polite about the thing. Police officer just laughs, buddy pleads again one more time to please get just a warning. Again police officer just laughs and walks back to his squad car to write up a ticket. Police officer comes back and asks buddy to sign the ticket, as the officer hands him the ticket, buddy passes his own ticket to the police officer. Officer has the most amazing puzzled look on his face, asks "what's this?" Turns out buddy was a WCB officer heading up to inspect some camps, so he just laughs when the officer gives him a $200 ticket for speeding and said shoulda just gave me a warning and I woulda done the same for you. Ticket was something in the $1000's for not wearing his safety vest when we got out of his squad car to walk up to buddy car on the side of the highway.

Now I know this happened in the Yukon, so I don't know if they have the same law regarding wearing safety vest as we do, however, the WCB agent fined him and it stuck for not having a hi-vis vest on during a routine traffic stop.

When I first heard that story I was like

Not to rain on your parade, or to call your buddy a liar....but that story's been going around for YEARS, and each time it's in a different location lol. It's never a first hand story, it's always one of them "my buddy's buddy told me that his cousins best friends fathers old roommates brother told me this".

Sorry, but I just don't believe your story lol

Forgot to add, all the wcb safety officer people that surprise us at job sites...we don't get handed violation tickets, the entire crew gets a 5 day immediate suspension without pay, even if it was just 1 guy doing something wrong.

[meme405]

Originally Posted by stewie

Forgot to add, all the wcb safety officer people that surprise us at job sites...we don't get handed violation tickets, the entire crew gets a 5 day immediate suspension without pay, even if it was just 1 guy doing something wrong.

Normally what happens if is they do their inspection they notice a whole bunch of minor things. They summarize these quickly to your site safety person, then they head back to their office and generate a huge report.

This report is sent off to the company, as well as filed away by Worksafe. Do poorly continuously on these reports, or on multiple sites, and your premiums start to go higher and higher.

On the subject of premiums:

For those that don't know the way Workers compensation works here in canada is that it is a mandatory program for all employers. Your business is seperated into one of 551 classifications, and then further classified into one of 51 or so sub classifications. Based on this you are assigned a "Base rate" this base rate is then futhur affected by your work history, company history, claims history, and a bunch of other factors. The idea being that roofing is a much more dangerous business to run than accounting, and further to that if you have a bad record you are at even more risk. So then this rate your company gets will be a dollar figure. Lets say its like $5.42. That means that for every $100 you pay an employee you must pay Worksafe $5.42.

In return for this $5.42 they protect you from lawsuit, they will pay out any injury claims to an employee on your behalf. In return for having this quick and guaranteed payout, the worker forfeits their right to sue the employer for damage done.

So think of Worksafe like insurance for workers safety claims.

However their mandate goes farther then that, they are also tasked with the responsibility of worker safety. Which is why they care about stuff like Fall Protection for roofers, and proper PPE and such. Its not just because if something happens they have to pay for the injury, its because they are mandated to help improve worker safety in this fine province of ours. This is also why they help with accident investigations, and also conduct inspections.

Back to that inspection that the WorkSafe inspector conducted, if he notices something of inherit danger, or one of the "7 deadly sins of Worksafe" he will either send the crew home, or shut down the site.

Normally when this happens it is bad news for the company responsible.

For information sake, the 7 deadly sins in construction are stuff like:

- excavations above worker height with no shoring (or engineering),
-Working near live power lines
-asbestos
-Confined space
-etc.

Source: I spent 2 months learning about this BS in some godawful construction business administration class.

EDIT: My point in all this is that Worksafe does not ticket employees, if they see something wrong it lands in the lap of the employer to deal with. This goes back to some of the fundamentals of worksafe and worker responsibilities vs employer responsibilities.

[Spidey]

Meme, I really find it hard to believe that you care about the safety of the officers, but are more frustrated that you are seeing SOME officers not wearing the vest when you are basically "forced" to for your work.

Maybe generalizing wasn't the best word to use... Maybe ignorance then? The first post you made, none of the RCMP officers in your post were even on the street. Unless you didn't know the different outfits between the city police and RCMP? Most people interchange RCMP and VPD so it happens.

Like I said before, there are a lot of factors to consider and there is more to those pictures. The problem with people and the media is that they look at pictures and videos, and pick parts of it to focus their attention on and try to fill in the blanks rather than investigate the facts. I personally have never seen officers jump on on the street without their vest on. I am not saying it doesn't happen, but you are making it sound like it happens all the time. Your pictures don't illustrate anything because they don't even show the RCMP officers on the street. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are usually multiple officers working a traffic op. The one that sees the offence (probably not wearing a vest), and the one that conducts the stop (probably wearing a vest).

With respect to the city Police forces, you are going to have to ask them about detachment policies regarding traffic stops and wearing vests. I doubt they have to wear a vest when doing a routine traffic stop as I have never seen them wear one, and if it was required, you would see at least a few of them wearing them, but I haven't seen any. I have sent a message to a friend of mine who is VPD and am awaiting his reply.

If it was mandatory, I am sure officers would wear it. You have no idea how officers get reamed out for breaking the pettiest of policies, so I am sure this wouldn't have gone unnoticed for this long.

Lastly, IMO, the average driver won't even notice a cop wearing a vest. Traffic ops aren't only done for speeding. As some of you know (the hard way), it is one to catch distracted drivers. Distracted drivers will never see you. I have walked up to the driver's side window of a car, and the driver never saw me.. had their head down looking at their phone.

PS. you are right regarding my policy/regulation comment.

[meme405]

Originally Posted by Spidey

Meme, I really find it hard to believe that you care about the safety of the officers, but are more frustrated that you are seeing SOME officers not wearing the vest when you are basically "forced" to for your work.

Maybe generalizing wasn't the best word to use... Maybe ignorance then? The first post you made, none of the RCMP officers in your post were even on the street. Unless you didn't know the different outfits between the city police and RCMP? Most people interchange RCMP and VPD so it happens.

Like I said before, there are a lot of factors to consider and there is more to those pictures. The problem with people and the media is that they look at pictures and videos, and pick parts of it to focus their attention on and try to fill in the blanks rather than investigate the facts. I personally have never seen officers jump on on the street without their vest on. I am not saying it doesn't happen, but you are making it sound like it happens all the time. Your pictures don't illustrate anything because they don't even show the RCMP officers on the street. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are usually multiple officers working a traffic op. The one that sees the offence (probably not wearing a vest), and the one that conducts the stop (probably wearing a vest).

With respect to the city Police forces, you are going to have to ask them about detachment policies regarding traffic stops and wearing vests. I doubt they have to wear a vest when doing a routine traffic stop as I have never seen them wear one, and if it was required, you would see at least a few of them wearing them, but I haven't seen any. I have sent a message to a friend of mine who is VPD and am awaiting his reply.

If it was mandatory, I am sure officers would wear it. You have no idea how officers get reamed out for breaking the pettiest of policies, so I am sure this wouldn't have gone unnoticed for this long.

Lastly, IMO, the average driver won't even notice a cop wearing a vest. Traffic ops aren't only done for speeding. As some of you know (the hard way), it is one to catch distracted drivers. Distracted drivers will never see you. I have walked up to the driver's side window of a car, and the driver never saw me.. had their head down looking at their phone.

PS. you are right regarding my policy/regulation comment.

No, you are absolutely wrong in your view of me. I am an advocate for safety and an advocate for the protection of human life. So I genuinely do care for the safety of everyone.

If I were not forced to wear a safety vest I would likely wear it anyway, much like how I wear fire proof carhartts and safety glasses whenever I am out on site.

Also the pictures posted here have nothing to do with my argument, and they are certainly not my pictures. I am speaking from countless personal experiences witnessing officers stepping into traffic to flag a car to pull over.

^THAT specific scenario is when I would like to see an officer wearing their high Vis.

I don't care about routine stops when they pull someone over in their car and then block with the vehicle and stuff like that. Although I certainly do not believe that it is a bad thing for them to wear it at that point either.

But I just cannot see the logic, you setup a radar trap, you know you will need to flag cars to stop and possibly get in front of them to direct them over, why the hell wouldn't you put on your high vis as part of your setup.

In my industry we do whats called an FLHA before we start any task. This is a "Field Level Hazard Assessment", it takes litterally 2 minutes, and it just makes you go through the process of thinking, and quickly writing down the hazards of the job you are about to do, and what steps you can take to mitigate the danger. Maybe this would be a good thing for officers to do before they embark on their task.

Or another thing we do, is we develop SWP (safe work plan), for high risk practices, or common tasks which may have dangers to them.

I am not using the fact that I am forced to wear a vest or the fact that I do these safety things for any reason. I do and advocate my workers to do these things because if it even prevents one single injury or fatality during my career it would be worth it to me.

I am unfortunate enough to have been on a job site and witnessed a fellow tradesperson lose his life. It is an experience I think about almost daily, and especially so when I am out on site. I would never want anyone to ever have to see or go through something like that.

TL;DR: My opinion on this matter GENUINELY comes from a position of wanting to promote safety.

[Spidey]

well if you are speaking strictly about traffic ops, I personally have never seen any colleagues, or other officers (when i am off duty), flag cars over without wearing their vests.

you initial post was confusing because none of the pictures you posted showed officers flagging a vehicle down in the middle of the street without a vest on. and the last picture looks like a traffic stop.

[meme405]

Originally Posted by Spidey

well if you are speaking strictly about traffic ops, I personally have never seen any colleagues, or other officers (when i am off duty), flag cars over without wearing their vests.

you initial post was confusing because none of the pictures you posted showed officers flagging a vehicle down in the middle of the street without a vest on. and the last picture looks like a traffic stop.

I never posted any pictures in this thread. Instead of getting defensive and calling me ignorant, maybe you should take the time and go realize that I am not the OP of this thread..

And I have seen countless cops flagging cars over without vests on, like I said in another post, I saw two officers on the lions gate 3 weeks ago now doing exactly that. Others have posted saying they as well have seen this.

[meme405]

Look Spidey its not this complicated:

Wording in the Federal OH&S:

12.13 Where an employee is regularly exposed to contact with moving vehicles during his work, he shall
(a) wear a high-visibility vest or other similar clothing, or
(b) be protected by a barricade
that is readily visible under all conditions of use.

Wording in the provincial OH&S:

High visibility apparel
8.24 (1) Repealed. [B.C. Reg. 242/2006, s. 1 (a).]

(2) A worker exposed to the hazards of vehicles travelling at speeds in excess of 30 km/h (20 mph) must wear high visibility apparel meeting the Type 1 or Type 2 criteria of WCB Standard Personal Protective Equipment Standard 2-1997, High Visibility Garment.
(3) A worker whose duties on the work site result in exposure to the hazards of mobile equipment must wear high visibility apparel meeting at least the Type 3 criteria of WCB Standard Personal Protective Equipment Standard 2-1997, High Visibility Garment.

These are NOT optional regulations. They are to be ENFORCED by all employers.

If you step out onto the road, as I have seen officers do while trying to pull someone they just radared out of traffic over, they are exposed to vehicles moving at more than 30km/h, directly at that moment they have done something wrong. PERIOD.

I have seen this done, as I am sure others have as well.

I cannot believe this discussion has gone on this long with you and Zulu still not fathoming this.

You can continue to dance around and call me out for mistaking worksafe for federal employees and stuff, but the concrete evidence is right here in front of your face. I have no idea why you are calling your friends at the PD trying to find out more information and crap like that.

I ask two questions of you:

1. Are you supplied in every vehicle with a high visibility vest? Or are you given one as part of your standard equipment?

2. When you were given this what was explained to you about its use?

[Spidey]

Originally Posted by meme405

I never posted any pictures in this thread. Instead of getting defensive and calling me ignorant, maybe you should take the time and go realize that I am not the OP of this thread..

And I have seen countless cops flagging cars over without vests on, like I said in another post, I saw two officers on the lions gate 3 weeks ago now doing exactly that. Others have posted saying they as well have seen this.

You're right, I mistook you being the OP. I wasn't calling you ignorant due to being defensive. I wasn't using it really in a negative way. A lot of people use RCMP, VPD, Delta PD, New West PD etc interchangeably, thinking they are the same, which they are not.

I never said it doesn't happen, I said I have never seen it personally. If you are so concerned about it, why don't you report them to their respective detachments?

Originally Posted by meme405

Look Spidey its not this complicated:

Wording in the Federal OH&S:

12.13 Where an employee is regularly exposed to contact with moving vehicles during his work, he shall
(a) wear a high-visibility vest or other similar clothing, or
(b) be protected by a barricade
that is readily visible under all conditions of use.

Wording in the provincial OH&S:

High visibility apparel
8.24 (1) Repealed. [B.C. Reg. 242/2006, s. 1 (a).]

(2) A worker exposed to the hazards of vehicles travelling at speeds in excess of 30 km/h (20 mph) must wear high visibility apparel meeting the Type 1 or Type 2 criteria of WCB Standard Personal Protective Equipment Standard 2-1997, High Visibility Garment.
(3) A worker whose duties on the work site result in exposure to the hazards of mobile equipment must wear high visibility apparel meeting at least the Type 3 criteria of WCB Standard Personal Protective Equipment Standard 2-1997, High Visibility Garment.

These are NOT optional regulations. They are to be ENFORCED by all employers.

If you step out onto the road, as I have seen officers do while trying to pull someone they just radared out of traffic over, they are exposed to vehicles moving at more than 30km/h, directly at that moment they have done something wrong. PERIOD.

I have seen this done, as I am sure others have as well.

I cannot believe this discussion has gone on this long with you and Zulu still not fathoming this.

You can continue to dance around and call me out for mistaking worksafe for federal employees and stuff, but the concrete evidence is right here in front of your face. I have no idea why you are calling your friends at the PD trying to find out more information and crap like that.

I ask two questions of you:

1. Are you supplied in every vehicle with a high visibility vest? Or are you given one as part of your standard equipment?

2. When you were given this what was explained to you about its use?

Like I said above, if you care so much, why don't you report it to their employers? It isn't in front of my face because again, I have never witnessed it personally. All my colleagues wear the vest while conducting traffic ops, and when attending motor vehicle accidents.

Regarding the Provincial regulations, I am asking my buddy at VPD because who else am I going to ask? I didn't ask him regarding his personal opinion on the matter but how he was trained/told. If this happened all the time, and you believe it is a huge deal, why hasn't Worksafe done anything about it? Why don't you call up Worksafe and The local police departments and ask them what is up? I am sure regardless, you won't be satisfied with their answers.

I called you out on mistaking Provincial employees for Feds and vice versa, because they both have their own Regulation. If you are going to complain about seeing a North Van Cop (RCMP) commit an infraction under the Provincial OH/S Reg, it is completely irrelevant.

I know this is going to rustle your jimmies big time, but, regarding

(2) A worker exposed to the hazards of vehicles travelling at speeds in excess of 30 km/h (20 mph) must wear high visibility apparel meeting the Type 1 or Type 2 criteria of WCB Standard Personal Protective Equipment Standard 2-1997, High Visibility Garment.

The way I read it is, if I was doing traffic control or attending a accidents where vehicles are travelling at their normal speeds of about 50-70km/hr, yes a high vis vest would be required. If I am conducting a traffic ops where the target vehicle was clocked speeding a few hundred feet away, or the driver was observed using a cell phone, by stopping the vehicle, the vehicle would have slowed down significantly by the time they reached the officer. So it isn't as if the officer was working in an environment where cars were going above 30 past him left, right and centre. So IMO, the regulation isn't black or white. It leaves room for some argument. Is it best practice to wear a high vis vest if you are going to walk onto the street to pull a car over? Yes. I won't argue with you on that. But by saying it is crystal clear, I don't agree with. I won't bother posting the reply I got from my buddy since you didn't feel his insight would be valid.

As for

12.13 Where an employee is regularly exposed to contact with moving vehicles during his work, he shall
(a) wear a high-visibility vest or other similar clothing, or
(b) be protected by a barricade
that is readily visible under all conditions of use.

Being on the sidewalk and then entering the street every 10 minutes or so doesn't constitute "regularly exposed", imo. Directing traffic while standing in the middle of the street would be "regularly exposing" myself to the vehicles.

I cannot answer for the municipal departments, but every RCMP officer is given their own high visibility vest. Personally I don't remember being told about the Federal OH/S Reg, but I could have been, and wasn't paying attention . As for when to wear them I was during traffic ops, mvi's, traffic control, and construction zones/around hazardous machinery.

[meme405]

Originally Posted by Spidey

I know this is going to rustle your jimmies big time, but, regarding

My jimmies remained un-rustled...

[Spidey]

Originally Posted by meme405

My jimmies remained un-rustled...

Good man!

[underscore]

Officer I saw today doing a speed check had his hi-vis vest on and was still easily picking people off since he was around a curve. The best part is he's been in the same spot off and on for weeks and still getting people every morning.

[Hot Karl]

if they don't legally have to rock the high vis then who cares?

it'll become mandatory when someone smokes a cop on the road. just like how lots of states in the us have the rule when a cop has someone pulled over on the right you're supposed to switch to the left lane to avoid even being in the lane beside the shoulder.

just like in construction. it often takes some idiot dying before real changes are made. i await that idiot.

[meme405]

Originally Posted by Hot Karl

just like in construction. it often takes some idiot dying before real changes are made. i await that idiot.

Well in an ideal world Safety should be based off a proactive response, not a reactive one.

Even if said idiot, is truly an idiot, he shouldn't die because of that. Although I guess you could argue natural selection, and the fact that he was bound to get picked off sooner or later.

[Spidey]

Originally Posted by meme405

Well in an ideal world Safety should be based off a proactive response, not a reactive one.

Even if said idiot, is truly an idiot, he shouldn't die because of that. Although I guess you could argue natural selection, and the fact that he was bound to get picked off sooner or later.

You probably are well aware that everything this pretty much reactive.... it's unfortunate but it's true. There are some proactive things being done, but not enough, and most people have the "it won't happen to me" mentality.

Going back to traffic stops. The officer can always approach the driver from the passenger side as well. I have done this numerous times, especially on the highway.

[Brianrietta]

My takeaway from this thread is that we should follow the immortal words of Fafine in the smell beer fibbing thread:

Originally Posted by Fafine

then go file a complaint,
LOL no one gives a fuck

Yes, cops should wear their high vis. At least in Chilliwack, they almost always do. I just about asked a member to take a pic with me yesterday at Starbucks because he was still wearing it while getting a coffee. If you really watch for it, among the RCMP at least in my experience you will rarely see a traffic member not wearing one.

All this back and forth. Shit, if you see a cop doing something wrong, do something productive about it.

Spoiler!

sadly, posting on RS does not qualify as that

Take down what information you can, officer descriptions, what they did, where they were, a police car number, etc., and call in to the local detachment.

[zulutango]

Originally Posted by Spidey

You probably are well aware that everything this pretty much reactive.... it's unfortunate but it's true. There are some proactive things being done, but not enough, and most people have the "it won't happen to me" mentality.

Going back to traffic stops. The officer can always approach the driver from the passenger side as well. I have done this numerous times, especially on the highway.

And on the Police MC course it is how we teach to approach the driver. Safer...and you get to see lots of interesting stuff as they look at the other side to see you.