Copyright - John Deighton - Response Wear Pty Ltd
Load-bearing vests are worn over the the top of the uniform shirt and allow officers to move most of there duty gear to the load bearing vest vest and off of officer's hips and lower back region. Also as they are worn over the top of the uniform shirt they generally do not trap heat, load bearing vests also increase officer comfort, this is just one of the many reasons departments should be looking at issuing there officers with the load bearing vest.
Studies have conclusively shown that wearing a load bearing vest significantly decreases stress and injury to the back due to an even distribution of equipment and removal of torsion on the hip region. the other benefit is that it also decreases the level of medical days off due to back injuries which have been widely attributed to the weight on an officers hip region while wearing a duty belt full of equipment.
Check out an interesting study on Load Bearing Vest- Click on the image below to go to the study. The file is in PDF format so you can save it to a folder on your computer for later reading.
