Tag: safety

Cord Blind Strangulation is Happening

Infants and young children are dying on a monthly basis due to corded blinds. WHY? That is one child too many every month.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has issued a statement calling for removal of corded blinds from homes and the marketplace due to numerous, unacceptable infant deaths and serious injuries.

Designers, manufacturers, and distributors of corded blinds blame parents and others for the deaths and serious injuries to infants. Those same designers, manufacturers, and distributors should have known of hazards, risks, and dangers of their corded blind products. Instead they turn a blind eye and blame human err instead as they continue to market their deadly products.

Cut out the blaming of parents. The focus should be on hazard and risk analyses of corded blinds. Part of these analyses requires anticipation of how and in what manner a product will be used. Human err, if any, must be accounted for in the design of products. Designers must change the design to the extent reasonably possible to eliminate potential human err with the product.

Informational literature in a box and/or a warning is inadequate if hazards can be reasonably eliminated through design. A warning is not an acceptable solution if a product can reasonably be designed in a safer manner.

Remember, any risk of death or serious injury is unacceptable if reasonable prevention measures could eliminate the death or injury. Reasonable prevention begins with the design, long before a product reaches the hands of consumers.

Veterans Day and System Safety

In remembering those individuals who served our country in the armed forces, did you know that system safety had its origins from the military?

During World War II, it was determined military aircraft was lost more to incidents unrelated to combat than in actual battle. Why did this occur? Analyses were undertaken to determine if systems could be designed better to prevent loss of life and/or serious property damage.

Later, in 1969, MIL-STD-882 was published. It provided guidance and outlined systematic understanding of safety. The concepts of MIL-STD-882 were not limited to military applications, but could be applied to systems impacting the lives of civilians.

In MIL-STD-882, it defined safety as “freedom from those conditions that can cause injury or death to personnel, damage to or loss of equipment or property.” As you remember those brave individuals who fought to preserve our freedom, also remember our military provided freedom for a safer society with development of system safety.

Thank you to all of our active and veteran service personnel for a free and safe society!

Consumer Product Safety Information

Remember safety, a science that analyzes hazards, risks, dangers, and safety engineering alternatives, we were talking about in previous blogs?

Good, we have more information for you. We encourage you to visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s website. This is a great resource for you to read about unsafe products you may have in your home or may be thinking of purchasing. Whether it’s household batteries, children’s clothing, or something in between, you’ll find recall and safety alert information on products here.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission provides updates about products that pose hazards, risks, and dangers to you. It is also an avenue for you to report unsafe products you’ve come across.

By monitoring recalls, tracking alerts, and actively submitting safety reports, you can help push for more thorough hazard and risk analysis on all products.

http://www.cpsc.gov/

What Dangers Are You Facing

Imagine you’re out on the green for a round of golf the last nice day of fall. You’re on hole nine, a 400 yard fairway and there is a sand trap at the end of the hole. A sand trap isn’t what you want to see on this nice day but thankfully for you, the sand trap holds no danger to you while on the tee.

The sand trap is a hazard. A “hazard” is an unsafe physical condition that can result in serious injury, death, and/or property destruction. “Risk” is the probability of an undesired risk occurring. Danger is the unacceptable combination of hazard and risk. Even though the sand trap is a hazard, the sand trap is 400 yards away so the risk of your golf ball coming into contact with the hazard while on the tee is very small. Accordingly, there is no danger for your golf game.

However, after you hit the ball from the tee, and the ball gets closer to the sand trap, the risk of the golf ball coming in contact with the hazard increases. As the risk increases, the danger is becoming greater for you the golfer.

As you come very close to the sand trap, the risk increases greatly; accordingly, your danger increases.

The same principles apply for designing safe products and procedures. It is best to eliminate hazards to the extent reasonably possible. When doing so, it eliminates the risk of serious injury and/or death. Accordingly, it eliminates danger.

Safety is a science that analyzes hazards, risks, dangers, and safety engineering alternatives. Hazard and risk analyses are critical and necessary components to determine if products and systems are safe.

As consumers, we assume that designers of products and systems understand these principles. Unfortunately, more times than not, these principles are not followed to prevent serious injury and/or death.

Stay with us as we explore the dangers being overlooked in products and systems. You may be surprised by what you learn.

What is Safety

Safety As consumers, do we understand what is safety? Senseless safety slogans such as “be careful,” “drive safely,” or “safety is common sense” have become the safety philosophy of the United States.

Why are the slogans senseless? Because safety is a sophisticated science that analyzes hazards (unsafe physical conditions that can cause injury), risk (probability of an undesired result occurring), and safety alternatives to prevent hazards; thus, eliminating or minimizing the risk of serious injury and/or death.

As defined by Military Standard 882 safety is “Freedom from those conditions that can cause death to personnel, damage to or loss of equipment or property.”

Consider what 99.9 percent safety in the United States would mean:

1 hour of unsafe drinking water per day
12 babies given to the wrong parents each day
2 unsafe landings at O’Hare Airport per day
291 incorrect pacemaker operations per year
20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions per year
107 incorrect medical procedures performed daily
268,500 defective tires shipped per year
500 incorrect surgical operations performed each week
19,000 newborn babies dropped at birth by doctors each year

Though only 0.1 percent, seeing the numbers may make you think twice about accepting 99.9 percent safety.

The purpose of this blog is to educate and inform consumers such as yourself about hazards, risks, and safety engineering alternatives that exist and may help eliminate more unsafe instances. Keep connected for topics that may affect or be of interest to you.