A safety harness is a form of protective equipment designed to safeguard the user from injury or death from falling. The core item of a fall arrest system, the harness is usually fabricated from

rope A rope is a group of yarns, plies, fibres, or strands that are twisted or braided together into a larger and stronger form. Ropes have tensile strength and so can be used for dragging and lifting. Rope is thicker and stronger than similarly ...

, braided wire cable, or synthetic webbing. It is attached securely to a stationary object directly by a locking device or indirectly via a rope, cable, or webbing and one or more locking devices. Some safety harnesses are used in combination with a shock-absorbing lanyard, which is used to regulate deceleration and thereby prevent a serious

G-force The gravitational force equivalent, or, more commonly, g-force, is a measurement of the type of force per unit mass – typically acceleration – that causes a perception of weight, with a g-force of 1 g (not gram in mass measur ...

injury when the end of the rope is reached. An unrelated use with a materially different arresting mechanism is bungee jumping. Though they share certain similar attributes, a safety harness is not to be confused with a climbing harness used for mountaineering, rock climbing, and climbing gyms. Specialized harnesses for animal rescue or transfer, as from a dock to a vessel, are also made.

Standards

In North America, safety harnesses designed for protection against falls from heights in industrial and construction activities are covered by performance standards issued by the

American National Standards Institute The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organ ...

(ANSI) in the United States and by CSA Group (formerly known as the Canadian Standards Association) in Canada. Specifically, the standards issued are ANSI Z359.1 and CSA Z259.10. These standards are updated approximately every four to five years.

Classifications

There are four classes of fall protection systems: * Class 1 Body belts (single or double D-ring), designed to restrain a person in a hazardous work position, prevent a fall, or arrest it completely within ( OSHA). * Class 2 Chest harnesses, used only with limited fall hazards (including no vertical

free fall In Newtonian physics, free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it. In the context of general relativity, where gravitation is reduced to a space-time curvature, a body in free fall has no force acting on i ...

), or for retrieving persons, as from a tank or bin. * Class 3 Full body harnesses, designed to arrest the most severe free falls. * Class 4 Suspension belts, independent supports used to suspend a worker, such as boatswain's chairs or raising or lowering harnesses.

Other types

Other forms of safety harnesses include: * Seat belts. * Child safety seats. * Over-the-shoulder restraints used on

thrill rides Thrill may refer to: Music * ''Thrill'', a 2000 album by Eleni Mandell * "Thrill", a 1995 song by Tomoyasu Hotei * "Thrill", a song by Band-Maid from the 2015 album '' New Beginning'' Other uses * Thrill (TV channel), a Southeast Asian movie cha ...

at amusement parks. * A seat with a full-body harness such as used by fighter pilots and racing car drivers. *

Diving harness Surface-supplied diving is Underwater diving, diving using equipment supplied with breathing gas using a Umbilical cable#Diver, diver's umbilical from the surface, either from the shore or from a diving support vessel, sometimes indirectly via ...

es as used in

surface supplied diving Surface-supplied diving is diving using equipment supplied with breathing gas using a diver's umbilical from the surface, either from the shore or from a diving support vessel, sometimes indirectly via a diving bell. This is different from ...

by professional divers.

Uses

Occupations that may involve the use of safety harnesses include: * Window cleaner * Theatrical

fly crew Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...

member * Construction worker * Crane operator * Bridge painter * Lineman * Rock climber * Motorsport * Scaffolder *

Sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' ( sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' ( iceboat) or on ''land'' ( land yacht) over a chose ...

High ropes A ropes course is a challenging outdoor personal development and team building activity which usually consists of high and/or low elements. Low elements take place on the ground or above the ground. High elements are usually constructed in tre ...

* Bungee jumping * Professional diver

References

Jones & Bartlett. Fire Fighter Skills. 2nd ed. Boston, Toronto, London, Singapore: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2009. pp243–244. Print.

External links