Each year, nearly 300 pedestrians sustain some type of injury in motor vehicle accidents in the Oakland area. Many of these injuries occur on cloudy days or during inclement weather. While city leaders have a comprehensive plan for keeping pedestrians safe, you must do your part.

If you walk when skies are gray, you may want to take steps to increase your visibility to motorists. Investing in high-visibility clothing may help. Because high-visibility workout gear comes in many different colors, you may wonder which color offers the most protection.

Conspicuity

Whether orange, yellow, blue, green or another neon color, high-visibility gear alerts motorists to your position on the sidewalk or roadway. When you are picking out your clothing, you must focus on conspicuity.

Conspicuity is simply your ability to stand out from your surroundings. Accordingly, you must not only consider the hue of your walking clothing, but you must also think about the colors of the environment.

If you regularly walk in lush areas, for example, donning high-visibility green or yellow may be a mistake. That is, these colors may blend with the background, making it more difficult for motorists to see you.

Versatility

Because Oakland is a diverse place, you may regularly walk in places that look vastly different from one another. If so, you should consider choosing walking clothing that features more than one high-visibility color.

Neon yellow is typically ideal for urban areas with vast swaths of concrete. Orange works better in forested or grassy places.

Regardless, when you focus on both conspicuity and versatility when picking your high-visibility gear, you increase your visibility to approaching motorists. This, in turn, decreases your chances of sustaining a serious injury in a collision with a motor vehicle.