Vacations: beach flags that comply with standards
Size and height of flags to delimit supervised bathing areas, color of lifeguard uniforms, signage for safety posts, vocabulary for risk levels, pictograms for aquatic and water sports activities… An AFNOR document takes stock of beach signage. To keep in mind while tanning!
Voluntary standards are making their way into your daily life, even during the vacations… But not to annoy you: for the comfort, safety and understanding of all! Here’s another example at the start of the 2020 summer vacations, with a document, requested by the French Ministry of Sport and labelled ” AFNOR Spec X50-001 “, which takes stock of the signage for bathing areas. The aim: “to review everything that’s being done in this field, with a view to developing the regulatory framework in the direction of greater harmonization and better understanding, for greater safety “, sums up Florent Giraud, the AFNOR project manager who assisted the twenty or so players involved in drafting the document.
Bathing areas: complementary standards and decrees
Strictly speaking, the document is not a standard, but it does recommend signage principles that could one day become the norm. The standards route has already been used in this field, with the international reference ISO 20712 on “ Water-related safety signs and beach safety flags “. Decree no. 62-13 of January 8, 1962 sets out the main characteristics that signage used on beaches must respect, including the famous red, orange and green flames. ” The format and color of the flags are regulated, but not complementary devices, such as information panels at first-aid stations, the dress code for lifeguards, or the delimitation of zones for aquatic and nautical activities such as surfing or kitesurfing. Today, this signage varies depending on whether you’re swimming in Biarritz or Dunkirk. “continues Florent Giraud.
The document therefore proposes harmonized signage for swimmers and other aquatic and nautical practices, opening the door to changes in regulations while retaining the three-color principle. Expected in 2021 to update the 1962 decree, a new decree could take elements fromAFNOR Spec X50-001 to redefine the bathing zone and codify out-of-zone signage to simplify information, by listing the activities covered.
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