Pay Attention to the Sling’s Load Tag
Although roundslings are available in a variety of colors, you can NOT rely on color alone to determine the sling’s working load limit. The only sure way to measure to identify a sling’s capacity is to look at the load tag.
Three reasons you should not rely on color to determine a sling’s load capacity:
- Color blindness – About 8% of men and .5% of women suffer from color blindness, which means a red sling to one person may look orange to someone who is color blind. Likewise, a green sling to one person may look blue to someone else.
- New technologies – Continual development of synthetic sling technologies means different sling designs and manufacturers use unique color schemes to identify their products.
- Import slings – With more import slings coming into the U.S., not all color coding is standard.
The only sure method of determining a sling’s load capacity is to obtain and read the load tag.