Oakley Safety Glasses

Oakley was founded in 1975 and is based in southern California. The brand focused originally on sunglasses for athletes, but there are now Oakley safety glasses for every use including industrial. Oakley safety glasses were first designed for athletes, but then other groups became interested in them.

Oakley Safety Glasses

Now there are specialized Oakley safety glasses and safety goggles and prescription safety glasses used by soldiers and SWAT teams. One of the safety tests applied to Oakley safety glasses is the firing of a steel shot at 102 mph at it. If it breaks, it fails!

Oakley safety glasses are primarily made for the eye protection of athletes, but they have another division called Eye Safety Systems which develops and markets Oakley safety glasses for the armed forces, the law enforcement agencies and the fire fighting units throughout the country.

Oakley acquired Eye Safety Systems in November 2006 and it was a marriage made in heaven. ESS had a huge existing market in safety glasses with the world's military and law enforcement agencies and Oakley had the capital and design capabilities to allow ESS to expand its operations.

In fact, Oakley safety glasses (or Eye Safety Systems safety glasses) are sold to professional fighting units in more than eighty countries because it is internationally recognized that the quality of Oakley safety lenses is right at the top of the tree.

Many of the Oakley safety glasses and safety goggles have specialized uses - in other words they were designed to perform in a particular set of exceptional circumstances. Here are a few of the glasses and goggles and who they were meant for:

Military: Crossbow, Advancer V-12, Flight Deck, Tactical XT, ICE-2X, ICE-ONE, Flyby, Recon and Turbofan.

Fire and Rescue: Crossbow, Advancer V-12, Innerzone, Striketeam and FirePro.

Those engaged in active sports and hobbies also often choose to wear these Oakley safety glasses and safety goggles. Hunters and marksmen are frequently seen wearing them as was that fearless Alaskan huntress, Sarah Palin, recently.

A photo of Sarah Palin wearing Oakley safety glasses (ICE NARO) appeared on the cover of USA Today ICE Naro are military grade, high impact eye shields. ICE are the standard issue safety glasses issued by the US Marine Corps and the UK's Ministry of Defence.

The US Army and USAF used to issue ICE as well, but they have recently switched to the latest Oakley - ESS flagship safety glasses, the Crossbow.

All ESS and Oakley safety glasses can now be fitted with custom prescription RX lenses made from highly impact-resistant polycarbonate, which offers undistorted images and the capability of stopping speeding metal fragments at up to 102 mph.

It was this ability to manufacture and fit RX prescription lenses into their Oakley safety frames that was a major part of the reason why the British Ministry of Defence placed a four-year contract for the supply of military grade safety glasses and safety goggles for the British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The lenses in the supplied Oakley safety glasses and goggles are interchangeable depending on the prevailing conditions. There are three types of RX lenses to be used: a clear lens, polarized for sunny daylight, one for foggy and one for smoky conditions.