If you do a lot of riding at night, around sunset, or during overcast, dreary days, you need to have a way to be seen by other motorists. The old way of doing this was to wear one of those ugly bright orange vests, but those look pretty dorky. Instead, one solution bikers have come up with is to add reflective patches to the jacket or vest they wear for night riding. These large reflective patches catch the lights of the vehicle behind the biker and reflect it, making them very easy to see.
These aren't just large rectangles of reflective material, either. These reflective patches are very decorative and look really awesome. Not all of the patch is reflective, only the parts that naturally make sense are made from the reflective material. For example, there's a large bald eagle patch that has reflective white stars around the bird. Others feature reflective words or make the background behind the words reflective. Other patches are almost completely reflective, such as some of the reflective skull patches.
While it's true not every patch comes in a reflective version, many do. You'll find patriotic U.S. flags, decorative skulls, funny sayings, and more. Some of these patches are fairly large since, after all, the idea is to wear them on your back and for them to make you visible to others. However, there are some smaller reflective patches that you can put on the front of your jacket or even on the sleeve.
You don't even necessarily have to wear the jacket you put these reflective patches on only at night. They're all very cool looking patches, so why not show them off all the time? Plus, that way you don't have to worry about always changing jackets to ride at night.
