My car has a safety feature that automatically locks the back doors and they cannot be opened from the inside by the door handle - you have to press the ‘unlock’ button in the front seat. This always results in me driving my adult friends around, parking, hopping out of the car and the backseat occupants squealing about being locked in.
Check at your local Shoppers Drug Mart (you’re in Canada, right?). I got a big bottle of Tylenol Rapid Release there with the “arthritis friendly” top that just screws off - no annoying child safety features.
I know that this is going to be too rational a reply for a Pit thread, but, here goes:
When I was in college, i had a Physics professor who had a stubby index finger on his right hand. He used to tap on the blackboard with it to emphasize a particular point, much to the class’s general consternation. On one of the last days of class, before graduation, we had finished all of the material, and he asked if there was anything anyone wanted to go over. Me, being a curious fellow, and also a bit of a wise ass, raised my hand, and asked him how he lost the finger. He paused for a second, and said that it was a reasonable request, and so he told this (paraphrased) story:
“I was a graduate student during WWII. The war effort took every one who had any scientific ability and put them to work. My job was to do testing and statistical analysis of explosives detonators. We had a box that the detonators were placed into, and then they were tested, and the voltage and current required to detonate them where recorded, along with the failure rate. Naturally, there were multiple interlocks to prevent attaching a detonator with the circuit “live.” Of course, we were always behind in the testing, and the bosses were always trying to get more tests done in a given time. So, we disabled the interlocks, since they were slowing us down. One late evening, after working all day, I was tired and punchy, and not thinking very well, and I attached a detonator without remembering to turn off the current.
BOOM!
So, the lesson to be learned is: Interlocks are not there for the times you are thinking straight - they are there for the times that you are tired, or drunk, or otherwise impaired.”
That was almost 30 years ago, and I haven’t forgotten his final lesson.
RIP, Dr. Sutton.
Yep. Buckle the stupid belt over the empty driver seat and just sit on top of it.
I wear my belt 99.9% of the time, but that’s what I think about doing every single time I hear it chime.
When I think of annoying safety features, the first thing that comes to mind is the standard safety guard that comes with any table saw.
Perhaps they have improved them over the years, but as far as I know, the first thing most folks do with their table saw is remove the guards.
Sometimes I put it back on when doing long rip cuts since the guard contains little metal anti-kickback doodads, but I usually use feather boards and a push stick instead.
I don’t like all this talk about lost fingers in this thread :eek:
This was the first thing I thought of when I read the title of the thread.
I pine for the days when mowers actually had throttle controls- you could throttle back for most grass, and fire it up BEFORE you hit the thick part.
Now, with the deadman switches, they slap some sort of governor on them, and they don’t throttle up nearly fast enough to go through the thick stuff sometimes.
This is also the first step on the Ruger Mark III (though I haven’t done it to mine yet). Those weapons are already the devil to get apart for cleaning, so much so that there are people that have never cleaned them. With the magazine safety it adds a few more steps to an already ridiculously difficult chore. My advice: get a used Mark II and don’t worry about it, or put Mark II parts in it and forget about it.
Yes, but every push mower I’ve ever used also has the option to set the damn thing into neutral. So, you know, it doesn’t move forward.
I also–back when I had a lawn to mow–used to use a strap to keep it running. I’ve never had an electric starter, and my right shoulder is shit. Starting a mower with a pull-cord is something I’ve never gotten the hang of. Doing so usually means a couple of days of pain. Doing so repeatedly increases the intensity.
That being said, I understand why it’s there.
After 20 years of not mowing, I just got an electric mower. The last mower I used was fairly high end, so the dead man switch disengaged the blade, but left the engine running, so it wasn’t a big deal to step away for a minute. The electric has a dead man switch which turns it off. At first I was annoyed, because stepping away turned it off. Then I realized it was electric, so who cares? Now I let it turn on and off as I need, to wrangle the cord, move sticks, whatever. I’m sure I’d feel different with a cheaper gas one, where the switch turned it off, and I had to restart constantly.
Motorcycles typically have an interlock which kills the engine if the kick stand is down and the bike is put in gear. In general I think this is a good idea, as otherwise you’ll dig the kick stand into the ground on the first left turn. Of course, that switch and the associated wiring is a fairly frequent failure, and one of the first things to check if everything seems fine, but the engine won’t start or stalls when put in gear.
My old Kawasaki had an additional switch on the clutch so the kickstand could be down with the bike in gear, as long as the clutch was pulled in. That was always embarrassing, because it mimicked a stalling from a stop—a bit of throttle, gently let the clutch out, and… stall. Restart, a bit more gas and stall…
Many famous disasters can be found to have as one big factor people or operators that thought that skipping or removing the safety features would help finish the job faster.
Well, it did help for awhile, but eventually Murphy’s law comes calling. Like in the BP refinery explosion in Texas or the train that crashed at the Gare de Lyon railway station in Paris, France.
I think that’s more of an anti-hijack feature than a kid safety feature.
There’s a switch or a button on the doors you can switch to disable it. It’s in the door frame near where the latch mechanism is.
people lose toes to old lawn mowers, lots and lots of toes.
bypassing safety devices is the #1 cause of industrial accidents. (well that or not following the safety rules and regs)
for firearms, aside from the mag safety on the p-35, i hate automatic safeties on trap shotguns.
Is anyone else frustrated by new vehicle headrests? They’ve passed the point of functionality into pure misery, by trying to contort the driver into a position that (I assume) protects from whiplash. Personally, driving in a position with my neck bent forward is too tiring to be safe. I checked with a few upholstery shops about reshaping the headrests in my truck, but they were too leery of lawsuits. So I just removed them until I can get a good pipe-bender to change the angle.
If I wanted that much safety, I’d stay at home.
I haven’t noticed my neck too far forward, but I did just recently put up my headrest to a height that would protect me from whiplash. I now found that apparently I am used to having my head a couple inches to the left of center, since whenever I lean back, my head hits the left bump in the headrest.
Why should functionality trump safety?
Because I opened with 1 functionality, east then called 2 safety, but south went for game with 4 functionality. You’ve got to pay attention during the bidding stage of these threads.
I have a Russian-made double barrel shotgun that has exposed hammers and an automatic safety. It is the least convenient to use of all my firearms. There’s way more fiddling about than two shots should warrant. To the best of my knowledge, the automatic safety was added only to meet US regulations.
Because if your safety features impede functionality, people disable them.
This thread is my cite.
That’s not to say things shouldn’t be made as safe as possible, just that there’s a line of…diminishing returns isn’t quite the word I’m looking for here. If we imagine safety as a range from 1-10, and functionality is inversely correlated, then most people would be okay with something that’s a 2 on safety and an 8 on functionality. Many people would be okay with something that’s a 4 on safety and a 6 on functionality. There’s a point, though, where people get so frustrated with the diminished functionality that they intentionally subvert the safety. So your 8-safe, 2-functional piece of equipment will suddenly be converted into a 0-safe piece of equipment. If you had made it a 4-safe, it would have remained a 4-safe.
It’s a point lawyers and engineers wrangle over constantly. If you make it too safe, your customers will make it far less safe, but at least if they sue you, you can point out that they voided your warranty and made unauthorized, unsafe modifications to the item.