You just can't do it can you. Why write a word when a sentence will suffice 
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Fatally Flawed - an E-Petition
- Thread starter TonyS
- Start date
That's dead right - except when I believe that a single word tells the whole story ... and I'm certainly not ashamed of wanting to give a 'full answer'.You just can't do it can you. Why write a word when a sentence will suffice
[you can imagine how seriously frustrated I can get with MCQs - although, fortunately, they only started appearing in exams towards the end of my exam-taking career!]
Kind Regards, John.
Decrease (slightly)
My boys find a way of "posting" anything into anything. On holiday the way they interact with the European sockets really scares me. But we had them and they were never an issue. The figure 8 leads scare me much more! My wife has a stereo that goes room to room with her and I always worried much more about the lead on that, getting removed from it, and put in to a mouth, than the sockets (whether with dummy plugs or not).
So I think it is very very marginal as to whether they increase or decrease safety.
I think they should be not banned; but people should be educated to the complete waste of space and money that they represent.
Has any child ever opened a socket with one of these; really?
I remember an episode of Z-CARs in which the villain threw the police station lights and escaped using a bic top and a paper clip into a socket. An act which at the age of eight I emulated (in a way) - I understood that my Hornby train-set had a step down transformer that took the voltage down to 12V, and at the time I figured it would go really fast if I simply by-passed the transformer and put 240 on to the wires to the rails. Using the "bic top trick" I stuck the wires into the socket (even then I had the sense to have it in the OFF position while I did this) When I switch on there was an almighty bang and I took out the whole house power. I was not greatly appreciated for my experiment at all.
My boys find a way of "posting" anything into anything. On holiday the way they interact with the European sockets really scares me. But we had them and they were never an issue. The figure 8 leads scare me much more! My wife has a stereo that goes room to room with her and I always worried much more about the lead on that, getting removed from it, and put in to a mouth, than the sockets (whether with dummy plugs or not).
So I think it is very very marginal as to whether they increase or decrease safety.
I think they should be not banned; but people should be educated to the complete waste of space and money that they represent.
Has any child ever opened a socket with one of these; really?
I remember an episode of Z-CARs in which the villain threw the police station lights and escaped using a bic top and a paper clip into a socket. An act which at the age of eight I emulated (in a way) - I understood that my Hornby train-set had a step down transformer that took the voltage down to 12V, and at the time I figured it would go really fast if I simply by-passed the transformer and put 240 on to the wires to the rails. Using the "bic top trick" I stuck the wires into the socket (even then I had the sense to have it in the OFF position while I did this) When I switch on there was an almighty bang and I took out the whole house power. I was not greatly appreciated for my experiment at all.
...but then go on to say...
... which is exactly my positoion.
Indeed so. A young relative of mine was very adept at (an passionately interested in!) unscrewing things, with real or improvised screwdrivers, from an extremely early age - and on one occasion was found three-quarters of the way through removing both attachment screws from a double socket. I guess that might have caused some people to call for a ban of accessories with slotted-head faceplate screws.
...and, more important, educate about the need, tedious though it is, to 'oversee' what small/medium-sized children are doing at all times. No matter how much 'banning' (or advising people what not to buy) we do, there will still be countless ways (many of which we might not even have thought of!) in which these little people will find to do harm to themselves 'in the blink of an eyelid'!
A good question, which I keep asking - or, more precisely, whether is any (just one?) well-documented case of a child ever actually coming to harm as the result of use of a socket cover. If the lack of responses is anything to go by, I suspect that may never have been such a case.
Kind Regards, John
I'm sure I read once (in something authoritative), that if it hadn't already been in use for millennia and a scientist discovered that sodium chloride had good flavour enhancing and food preserving properties, no way would it pass any safety tests for use as a food additive.
Very probably. In terms of drugs, things like aspirin and paracetamol probably wouldn't stand a chance in hell of being 'allowed' if they had first appeared in 21st century. However, that's because standards and attitudes have changed such that, in general, we now demand a very high benefit-risk ratio for such things (unless there is no alternative treatment, in which case any benefit:risk ratio >1 is worth having).
Socket covers are, at least at present, in the 'no alternative treatment' category. Hence, if it were the case that they resulted in the death of one child every year but prevented the deaths of two per year, that would, at least in objective terms, be an adequate argument for encouraging their use, not banning them.
However, it's not all objective, since "people is funny" and often ruled more by emotions than objectivity. Without logic, the parent of a child who died because of the use of a socket cover would probably feel 'more guilty' than the parent of a child who had died because of non-use of a socket cover. We see that same emotional problem all the time with immunisation programmes for children, and maybe that becomes a factor with issues like that of socket covers, even if their true net effect on risk is neutral or beneficial.
Kind Regards, John
Alcohol and tobacco are no-brainers. If either had appeared in recent times, they would undoubtedly have been banned, and quite probably classified as "Class A" drugs.
To bring this slightly back onto ‘matters electric’, what if no-one had previously thought of a ring final circuit (per current practices). Do you think that there would have been any chance of persuading the IET to introduce (for the first time) permission for a 32A/2.5mm ² RFC into the 18th edition of the Wiring Regs?
Kind Regards, John.
Yes they have, without doubt. See http://www.fatallyflawed.org.uk/html/user_comments.html
Can I remind everyone that the petition does not call for them to be banned, but to be the correct size for safe use.
As there are no detailed statistics collected on electrocutions in the home, it is unlikely that it can be statistically proven that socket covers increase or decrease safety. there are some things where statistics are not the best indicator. This needs to be judged from a standpoint of good engineering practice.
I challenge anyone to make the case that incorrectly sized socket covers are more likely to increase safety than correctly sized socket covers. Only if you can make that case can you reasonably object to the petition.
Can I also remind everyone that there is a second risk introduced by the use of incorrectly sized socket covers. They can damage sockets, both by damaging the contacts (either by stretching them in the case of fat pins, or distorting them as shown at http://tinyurl.com/FatISOD ) and causing shutter damage. Electricians know this, there have been plenty of reports of having to replace overheated sockets in homes and nurseries where socket covers had been used, and of shutter mechanisms damaged or jammed by socket covers.
I challenge anyone to make the case that incorrectly sized socket covers which damage contacts or shutters are a good thing.
You'll die without enough calorie intake per day.
Unless you're a road racing cyclist or a polar explorer, if you take in 6000 a day you'll die prematurely from too much calorie intake.
AFAIK, if tested for safety as a food additive, salt would be banned.
Could we add caffeine to the list of alcohol and tobacco?
Sorry, going off topic but :
Most "recreational" drugs had been "discovered" for centuries before they were banned i.e cocaine, opium, cannabis et al. and were in general use. Opium was taken quite openly in London before being banned. Cannabis was commonly brought from local shops etc.
Most "recreational" drugs had been "discovered" for centuries before they were banned i.e cocaine, opium, cannabis et al. and were in general use. Opium was taken quite openly in London before being banned. Cannabis was commonly brought from local shops etc.
Very true, but this recent part of the discussion spawned from RF's question as to whether socket covers currently available in the UK increased or decreased danger. Since my understanding is that most of the currently available products would not comply with the proposed requirements, I presume that the effect of the proposal, if implemented, would be to 'ban' them.
My very point.
'Good engineering practice' would not necessarily guarantee an increase in safety (in relation to shock hazard).
You may not have intended to type what you did, since that would be a daft thing for anyone to believe, let alone be able to 'make a case for'.
I don't think that (m)any people (certainly not me) have 'objected' to the petition.
Indeed - which is why, as I've said, I would fully support the introduction of Standards, subsequently backed by legislation, to require that all devices intended to be plugged/pushed into BS 1363 sockets met the same (relevant parts of) the specification as required of plugs.
I obviously can't "make a case" because, as I've said, and as you've agreed, adequate statistics on which to base such a case don't exist. However, even though I'm certainly not happy with 'incorrectly sized anything' being plugged into a socket, it's certainly not impossible that "incorrectly sized socket covers which damage contacts or shutters" have resulted in a net decrease in injuries/deaths (compared with the situation with no covers) ....
... one of the difficulties is our not knowing what effect the proposed regulation would have on the availability of socket covers. If the effect were that all the currently available 'unsatisfactory' ones were to disappear and be replaced by 'satisfactory' ones, that could only do good. However, if the unsatisfactory ones simply disappeared, without any 'satisfactory' replacements appearing (so that socket covers would not be available at all), then the question would arise as to whether that would result in a net increase or decrease in injuries/deaths. We simply don't know.
Kind Regards, John.
True, but that's not quite what we were discussing. Yes, there are plenty of examples of things that were well-established, and not illegal, for very long periods of time before they were banned (primarily because those were times when nothing was banned) - but that doesn't alter the fact that, as we were discussing, if any of them (or many other things, like alcohol and tobacco) were to appear for the first time in 2012, they would be 'instantly banned', without waiting for them to be used for a few centuries first!
Prior to the 20th Century, almost nothing was 'banned', apart from some attempts to keep 'poisons' out of the hands of murderers. Things changed rapidly in the early C20, such that by 1928, all of the main 'recreational substances' you mention (opioids, cocaine and cannabis) were effectively 'banned' (at least, were the subject of legislation).
Kind Regards, John.
Very probably, unless they adapted the tests. Such testing usually seeks to detect very small hazards and hence involves dosing animals with amounts vastly in excess of those intended for human consumption. If that was done with salt, no mammal would survive.
Probably, and undoubtedly countless other things. Nor is it only food additives - things like chillies and suchlike could be high on the hit list, since they are a very significant risk factor for the development of mouth/thoat (and probably some other) cancers.
Kind Regards, John.
That statement is wrong. Good engineering practice would dictate that socket covers (if they are to be used) be made to the size which has been determined as safe for a plug. A socket cover should fully cover the pin apertures of the socket, in accordance with the dimensions specified in BS 1363-1, rather than leave the aperture partially exposed. (After all, preventing access to live parts is what the socket covers claim to do.) A socket cover should also meet the dimensional specifications for the size and disposition of pins, this ensures that it does not cause any damage to contacts and/or shutters, or (in the case of overly long pins) burst through the back of the socket. Correct pin dimensions also ensure that a socket cover will be held as securely as safely possible in the socket, and not be partially ejected by the socket contacts operating to squeeze out pins which do not maintain the correct profile for a sufficient length. Having pins of the correct length also reduces the ease with which the socket cover can be inserted upside down.
I would like to make it absolutely plain that what I typed is exactly what I intended to type.
I completely agree that it would be a daft thing for anyone to believe, but judging by the defence of incorrectly sized socket covers which is often made there are some people who do believe that. And I will say it again; it is the only valid reason for objecting to the petition. Wittering on about whether there should first be a standard for socket covers in place, or whether the minister and/or officials are competent to make a regulation serves no honourable purpose.
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