Visibility is an important facility safety consideration. In addition to vehicle conspicuous tape, reflective surface, wall, and floor tape varieties may be used in warehouses and industrial locations. This reflective tape is especially helpful to mark hazards, entry locations, and pathways in dim or dark areas. To determine which options are best for your facility, explore the benefits of reflective tape, discover common uses, and review the application requirements.
What Is Reflective Tape?
Reflective tape improves visibility in a variety of locations and lighting conditions in order to prevent accidents and injuries. It consists of a highly reflective, chemical-, UV-, and weather-resistant top layer, backed with a pressure-sensitive adhesive. Some reflective tapes carry warranties of up to ten years.
For more reflectivity, conspicuous tape featuring micro-prism reflective elements creates a mirror-like surface suitable for extra-brightness and long-distance visibility that reflects at all angles.
Types of Reflective Tape
Reflective safety tape is often placed on the Reflect Tape backs and sides of trucks, trailers, and construction equipment or other vehicles, but reflecting tape isn’t just for the roadway: It’s also important to bring attention to warehouse machinery such as forklifts, pallet jacks, hoists, and service carts. While reflective tape has a long lifespan, the application will last the longest when using tape designed for the intended application conditions. Ensure you’ve selected outdoor-rated tape for outdoor use, such as at loading docks, on trailers, or to bring attention to traffic barriers.
Reflective Versus Retro reflective
While similar in design and use, there are differences between reflective and retro reflective tape. Reflective tape acts more like a mirror: It bounces reflected light, scattering it in different directions depending on where the original light comes from. Retro reflective tape, however, features a prismatic surface that directs light back toward its original source, making it easier to identify what and where the reflection comes from. Prismatic retro reflective tape offers an incredibly bright reflection for greatly improved visibility
Where to Use Reflective Tape
Our reflective tape is backed with pressure-sensitive adhesive to make application simple. The adhesive is designed for indoor or outdoor use, with varieties available for specific needs. Choose the width, color, and style options that work for your location. Additionally, you can request custom tape in printed or cut-out designs.
A well-known reflective tape variety is DOT-certified red and white striped tape, which may be applied to trucks and trailers for better visibility. Reflect Tape Other reflective tape uses include marking pathways, bringing attention to uneven surfaces, changes in elevation, or low clearance, creating borders around emergency exit doors, highlighting barriers, objects, and hazards at the loading dock or in the warehouse, and providing better visual and directional cues in case of power outage.
What Is the Best Reflective Tape Color?
The best reflective tape color depends on its intended use. Follow all OSHA requirements and roadway guidelines, refer to facility color standards, and choose the appropriate reflective tape color based on use. For example, chevron stripes in contrasting colors are used for ambulances, fire trucks, and other emergency vehicles, worksite hazards and areas that must be kept clear may be marked with reflective tape in different colors depending on risk, and red and white striped tape is often required by the DOT for marking trucks and trailers.
Reflective tape can improve visual communication throughout industrial facilities, provide better visibility of emergency vehicles and trailers, and boost Reflect Tape facility safety in buildings, warehouses, and parking lots. To choose the best reflective tape for your purposes, consult the appropriate guidelines from DOT, OSHA, or other safety organization. For more information on improving safety in industrial locations, explore our Resource Center.
Retro reflective tape is defined as a film that through the use of glass spheres or man made prisms, reflects light or radiation back to its source. Glass bead tapes reflect using microscopic glass beads that act as parabolas and direct light back to where it came from. Prismatic tapes use man made prisms or mirrors to collect light and send it back to its source. When a transparent color is applied to the surface of either tape the light that is reflected is colored.
Reflective and Retro-Reflective surfaces are often confused with each other. A surface that is Retro-reflective is always reflective but a surface that is reflective is not always retro-reflective. For example, a mirror is reflective but not retro-reflective.
(Note – retro-reflective tape is normally shortened to simply “reflective tape”.)
One of the most important features of retro reflective tape is its ability to collect light, change the color of that light and send it back to its Reflect Tape source. That is why stops signs are visible at night in a red color. Yield signs are visible at night in a yellow color. And so on. Without this feature, night time driving would be different than it is now.
The types and colors of reflective tapes are mind boggling. The huge variety of applications are what create the need for all the different intensities, types and colors. For example, trucks need a bright red and white alternating dot tape that can be seen from thousands of feet away. Life vests need a super bright white tape that can be seen from even farther away. The life vest needs a sewable reflective tape whereas the truck does not. Stop signs in neighborhoods can utilize basic affordable reflective tape that uses glass beads for reflectivity. However, street signs on interstates need a more expensive prismatic film. Distance is what dictates this necessity.