Tag Archives: safety

Look both ways before you cross the road

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It’s interesting how product brands become generic terms for all similar products. In New Zealand, for many years, a vacuum cleaner was a “Hoover”. Sticky tape is “Sellotape” to me and always will be.

And so it has happened that “iPod” is perhaps not used to directly refer to another brand of music player, but certainly to the product concept as a whole. Today’s story on Stuff, titled “Pedestrian death rise blamed on iPods“, certainly continues the trend, but that’s only the beginning of where this article misses the mark.

If we are to take the headline literally, then the blame for the rise in numbers has been attributed to music players. Yet the opening paragraph reads

Death by iPod is being blamed as a contributing factor to the 25 per cent rise in the number of pedestrian fatalities in the Australian state of New South Wales.

Note the words “contributing factor”, which describe a concept utterly absent from the headline. But even then, the basic conjecture of the article is stretching credulity

The issue has been highlighted in Sydney by the death of a 46-year-old Glebe woman reportedly wearing headphones when she was knocked down and killed by an ambulance on Saturday night.

There is speculation she might not have heard the ambulance siren when crossing Parramatta Road at Mallett Street at Camperdown.

Agreed. You can technically only speculate whether the woman heard the siren as she is no longer alive to ask. I think it’s fairly safe to assume, however, that she didn’t hear it and still walk in front if of it. So one might assume, at this point, that her failure to hear the siren was a major contributing factor to her death. What I’d like to know is why did she have a blindfold on? Or was it one of those cool 3D-projector glasses things?

When I was taught how to cross the road, the basic instructions were “Look right. Look left. Look right again.” In New Zealand, we drive on the left, so if you’re in a country where you drive on the right, just reverse the directions and you should be good. In more recent years, I’ve seen a different phrase “Stop. Look. Listen.” It seems clear to me that this woman followed neither set of instructions because, surely, an ambulance traveling at speed with flashing lights on its roof must be pretty hard not to see!

If you are now thinking it is quite incredible that someone would walk out into a roadway without first looking for traffic, then you’re probably not a pedestrian in New Zealand. Certainly not Wellington. My home town. The thing is, I see people walking out onto roads without looking very often. Every. Single. Day. Most of them do not have earphones or earbuds on or in their ears. Many are alone. Some are with friends. All of them are idiots.

I don’t know if the average attention level of NSW pedestrians is any higher than in Wellington, but I’d wager it’s probably quite low if the increase in deaths has been 25%. I was once told a figure of how many people get hit (though not necessarily killed) by vehicles in Wellington each year. I think it was something like 437. More than one a day!

The issue then takes a final, harrowing turn into this

‘The government is quite happy to legislate that people can lose two demerit points for having music up too loud in their cars, but is apparently unconcerned that listening devices now appear to have become lethal pieces of entertainment,” he said. ”They should legislate appropriate penalties for people acting so carelessly towards their own welfare and that of others.

”Manufacturers … should be made to [warn] consumers of the risks they run.”

If you’re happy with your government having to legislate to protect you from yourself, then you have nothing to worry about – “Nanny State” is probably a term that gives you warm fuzzies. For myself, I’d take a different stance and suggest that we simply scare people into taking notice. I have a feeling some Japanese game show producers could come up with something applicable.

So, when you first saw the title of this post, I bet you thought I’d be making some witty play on words. Nope. It’s a request. Please do as it says! I’ve seen more near misses than I really want to and I sure as hell do not want to see a direct hit. It would really ruin my day.

Liar, liar, uniform on fire

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Not content with merely misleading the public, NZ Police are now resorting to outright lies.

Before the 3-day Queen’s Birthday weekend kicked off, the Police widely publicised the fact that they would be targeting speeders by reducing the tolerance from 10km/h to 5km/h.

Speeding motorists used to driving 10kmh over the maximum speed limit will not get away with it this weekend, as police trial a zero tolerance policy to cut road deaths.

Note those words: “zero tolerance”.

Now consider the following words

Not all drivers who exceeded the tolerance were being hit with tickets, and a promise to “take action” included formal warnings, as a matter of police discretion.

What? Doesn’t sound like “zero tolerance” to me. But worse than this attempt to mislead is the title and intent of the article in which it appears.

Speeding blitz cuts road toll by 20pc

Bollocks!

Making that claim on Monday morning (with still a day to go of the three day weekend) is misleading again, but how on earth can they claim that the “speeding blitz” alone has caused this apparent reduction? No statistician or analyst would live down their colleagues if they tried to make such claims from almost no evidence. At this point, it is a lie. In fact, no-one can ever gather any evidence to prove this statement because no-one is in the business of investigating why people are not crashing.

Aside from the large number of other possible factors, how about the weather? This year, most of the country is being swept with really, really shitty weather for two out of the three days. It’s causing flooding in many places and is generally very inhospitable. So perhaps, just perhaps, there are a lot less people on the roads this year? Perhaps, just perhaps, driving in torrential rain makes you slow down well below the speed limit and puts everyone on their guard?

Last year, one of the worst years in recent times apparently, the weather was decidedly more palatable for holidaymakers.

And then there is this.

Counter-claims about safe overtaking and speedometer under-reading were just “distraction arguments”, she said.

Well, I’m sorry, but if the Police think speeding drivers are one-eyed monsters then our National Traffic Manager has just confirmed herself of the same stock. You don’t win respect for authority by dismissing anyone who disagrees with you – that way fascism lies.

Rather than implementing a temporary, ‘discretionary-zero-tolerance’ minor speed limit reduction, how about they tackle the real problem by getting people who cannot drive safely to save themselves (literally) off our roads or train them properly. THAT is the problem.

A stupid manoeuvre at 104km/h is still dangerous!

Bad SA

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Pilots and aviation buffs will likely know the term I have used in the title. In full, it is “bad situational awareness” and it means a pilot has an incomplete or inaccurate appreciation of their place in the sky, both in absolute terms – position, altitude and attitude – and in relative terms – proximity to hazards such as other aircraft, terrain and different classifications of airspace. Bad SA is a safety issue. It can cause things to go wrong or can cause the pilot to react inappropriately to unexpected events.

But I’m not talking about flying. I’m talking about being out in public. For the most part a far more benign environment, but potentially as deadly. Every day I see people crossing roads in ways that entirely fail to take into account their own mortality. Really there is only one rule for crossing a road. Don’t get hit. Sure there are rules, lights, road markings. But these are merely an aid to not getting hit. I’ve made a personal study of ‘how not to get hit’. For many years now I have had the basic model sorted, but I continue to refine it by observing others’ ‘how not to not get hit’ behaviours. For instance, don’t sneak to the traffic island in the centre of the road and then forget about the traffic that is now behind you.

But an experience at lunch time today gave me a very interesting insight into the way people – ordinary people – get their SA. Or don’t.

I was lined up in my favourite Subway shop. The cash register is near the door and the line stretches along the counter and then doubles back along the other side of the long, thin shop toward the door again. I was about half way along this tail when I noticed something of a minor commotion behind me. It was a man and a dog. It took me a few moments to realise what was happening. The dog, a large German Sherpherd, had a handle. The man was hanging on to the handle and a leash. Clearly the man was poor of sight. As is my habit, I had left a gap in front of me while I was adjacent to the staircase that leads to the sit-down eating area. The dog clearly saw this gap and decided it was the end of the line and pushed in in front of me. I didn’t mind at all. Now let’s turn our attention to the woman who had been in front of me.

Prior to the entrance of the man and his dog, she had been queued up standing quite close behind another customer. As I arrived in the line she was scanning the menu boards high on the wall behind the counter – facing away from the stairway. I left my customary gap so that other customers could freely get to and from the staircase. Having just cleared the Coke fridge, for some reason she stepped back into the stair landing area effectively blocking the gap I had left, just as two people descended the stairs and had to push past her. I believe she was aware of them on some level, but she did not break her gaze on the menus nor move either foot more than a couple of inches. I moved further back to facilitate their exit.

When the man and the dog entered, she spun around and seemed to take a great interest in the scene. She began to move in ways that made it clear to me she was intent on making life easier for the man and his dog. After she had given her order, she even approached the man, gently hooked his arm and guided him to the counter whilst explaining he could now give his order. Further along the counter the dog started taking an interest in the cookie shelf. I’m not sure what the fuss was about, as it is completely sealed from the customer’s side, but again, she was observant and helpful.

And so to my point. This woman proved she was compassionate and able to assess and deal with the situation very well. She saw someone who was at a disadvantage and went out of her way to help that person. However, if you’re just Joe or Jane Public, then she really doesn’t give a fuck about you. She saw the dog in the shop. She missed the elephant in the room.

Going back to mortality for a moment, I would like to suggest that it’s the elephant that will kill you when you cross the road. Personally, I’m always looking for elephants, though I rarely meet them face to face.

Killing me softly

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I’ve posted this in the Tech category, despite the subject matter being decidedly low-tech, because I think it needs a modicum more technology thrown at the problem.

An acquaintance in the UK told a harrowing story of being woken in the dead of night by a smoke alarm with a low battery warning. His issue was with the fact that a low battery warning was treated the same as the detection of smoke – by an ear-splitting noise designed to wake the dead. Or, at least, wake the living, to ensure they don’t become the dead.

He was understandably miffed at the apparent urgency of the situation being completely unwarranted. My response? Luxury!

Here in New Zealand, there are advertisements on national television on the importance of installing smoke alarms. Whenever people die in a house fire, there is the inevitable fire service commentary that lives could have been saved if smoke alarms were installed. The fire service will even come around, when they have time, and advise on correct numbers and locations of smoke alarms for your house.

I have 7 smoke alarms in my two storey house. One in each of 3 bedrooms, lounge, dining, study and main hallway. Each takes a 9 volt battery which will last for months. Installing them was no great chore, and the cost was not prohibitive. I appreciate the value of these devices. But at the same time I hate them and I think I understand those situations where smoke alarms were fitted to a house, but didn’t activate due to lack of a battery. It is because they are very badly designed.

The standard smoke alarm in New Zealand has only one point of interaction with the user. That is a push-to-test button which, when pushed, will sound the alarm briefly to prove it is working. There are no lights of any kind. The fun begins when the battery begins to run low.

‘Pip’ goes the smoke alarm. It is a substantially-sub-second, very high pitched tone. These two attributes of the sound make it extremely difficult to determine from which direction it came. To begin with, the pips are about 20 minutes apart. Well long enough to be getting on with doing something else and forget about the device. That is, if you are up and about. If this happens in the middle of the night, it is altogether an extremely annoying prospect.

Sometimes, if we’re especially lucky, the pips only come once an hour or more. The instructions say to change the battery when the pips come two minutes apart. Stuff that! I’m not putting up with these annoying sounds any longer than I have to.

Is it any wonder that people get so annoyed with these things that they leave the battery out?

The first thing that could be done is change the design to emit the pips at a frequency of one per minute from the moment it decides it needs to have it’s battery changed. This escalation business helps no-one.

The second thing that could be done is to accompany the sound with a flash of an LED which takes so little to power it should not be an issue for power drain.

If both of these changes were made, it would be a matter of a few minutes to locate the device in need and change the battery.

It is interesting to note that the devices described in the UK have such a light, and yet emit the full-blown klaxon when the battery is in need of replacing. That’s just going to stupid in the other direction.

A little forethought in the design of these life-saving devices could well save more lives! As they say, it’s not rocket science!