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captmorgan
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey,
I was reading through the discussions on the hot coffee, and amtrek topics, and other than company negligence, or whether the people should have known better then to tresspass, the topic of appropriate safety, warning, danger signs was lightly touched on. I thought this needed to be expaned on a bit.
What should a reasonable "warning sign" consist of? Should there be pictures as well as just words? Now from reading through several topics I`m aware that alot of people would like to pour some chlorine into the gene pool buy removing all warning signs and letting the problem take care of itself
, but from a company`s point of view what would best protect them from lawsuits.
Some examples, being that summer is over several stores have discounted summer merchandice, I just recently purchesed a 3 1\2 foot dia. beach ball. Written on the top in massive letters was "Use only under Competent Supervision" I wondered what must have happened to bring upon such a warning.
Mom "My boy billy died while using your rubber bally thing"
Company "Who was watching your son at the time?"
Mom "The dog and that there tree"
But are words enough to ward off litigation? I ordered a air soft gun from Japan, and they had a book of warnings all illustrated in anime type characters. One picture had a boy shooting the dog with a big cross through it, don`t shoot pets fair enough. The next picture had the dog with gun chasing the boy???? Don`t give firearms to pets I guess?
So the question is what and how detailed should waring signs get? What should be just common sense?
I was reading through the discussions on the hot coffee, and amtrek topics, and other than company negligence, or whether the people should have known better then to tresspass, the topic of appropriate safety, warning, danger signs was lightly touched on. I thought this needed to be expaned on a bit.
What should a reasonable "warning sign" consist of? Should there be pictures as well as just words? Now from reading through several topics I`m aware that alot of people would like to pour some chlorine into the gene pool buy removing all warning signs and letting the problem take care of itself
, but from a company`s point of view what would best protect them from lawsuits.Some examples, being that summer is over several stores have discounted summer merchandice, I just recently purchesed a 3 1\2 foot dia. beach ball. Written on the top in massive letters was "Use only under Competent Supervision" I wondered what must have happened to bring upon such a warning.
Mom "My boy billy died while using your rubber bally thing"
Company "Who was watching your son at the time?"
Mom "The dog and that there tree"
But are words enough to ward off litigation? I ordered a air soft gun from Japan, and they had a book of warnings all illustrated in anime type characters. One picture had a boy shooting the dog with a big cross through it, don`t shoot pets fair enough. The next picture had the dog with gun chasing the boy???? Don`t give firearms to pets I guess?
So the question is what and how detailed should waring signs get? What should be just common sense?
captmorgan on
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This is only half tongue in cheek.
Take them all off, and let Darwin weed them out.
Origin Handle - OminousBulge
XBox Live GT - TheOminousBulge
I was going to come in here and say the exact same thing.
damn you...
Seriously, my family had lawn darts when I was growing up. Now there's a dangerous toy. You know why I didn't die? Because my parents set us aside every summer and told us why they were dangerous. And then they supervised us while we played.
It's not LawnDartCo's responsibility to make sure I don't use their product in an unintended fashion. We need to be seriously looking at the parents that give their kids lawn darts and then ignore them, not just the product manufacturer.
You're hair drying electrocuted me! I didn't want to get my hair wet in the shower so I used a dryer to keep dry while i showered!
I never asked for this!
Hmm, I need to take a shower...
Turn on the water...
Oh no! My hair is wet! Well, that simply won't do! I'll just dry it off while I wash my back...
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Plus, like Underdog said, it's fun to read labels like "Do not use hair dryer when showering" and "Do not iron while sleeping".
How do you figure? Humans survived for generations without warnings on stuff. Hell, you can see the same thing happening now with babyproofind. 25 years ago, babyproofing meant watching your kid and maybe putting up a baby gate. Today it means putting little protectors on the corners of every table, putting protectors on all the outlets, installing child-proof cabinet locks, etc., etc..
To imply that we couldn't survive without all the warnings is foolish. Common sense, not some goofy tag, tells me not to blow dry my hair in the shower. I don't throw my lawn darts at people because they're sharp (and it's rude to throw stuff at people), not because the package says "WARNING: sharp things hurt!"
Why do you have such disdain for safety
A lot of those protective devices aren't meant to prevent outright death, just injury - often horrific injuries, like good old loss-of-eye, or burns from heat sources like a pan of hot food or water. Being maimed for life doesn't affect your genetic viability in most cases, it just makes your life miserable and painful when it didn't need to be. Safety isn't just about survival, and I find the callous attitude in here fairly fucking disturbing.
Consumer Reporter: Alright. Fine. Fine. Well, we'd like to show you another one of Mr. Mainway's products. It retails for $1.98, and it's called Bag O' Glass. [ holds up bag of glass ] Mr. Mainway, this is simply a bag of jagged, dangerous, glass bits.
Irwin Mainway: Yeah, right, it's you know, it's glass, it's broken glass, you know? It sells very well, as a matter of fact, you know? It's just broken glass, you know?
Consumer Reporter: [ laughs ] I don't understand. I mean, children could seriously cut themselves on any one of these pieces!
Irwin Mainway: Yeah, well, look - you know, the average kid, he picks up, you know, broken glass anywhere, you know? The beach, the street, garbage cans, parking lots, all over the place in any big city. We're just packaging what the kids want! I mean, it's a creative toy, you know? If you hold this up, you know, you see colors, every color of the rainbow! I mean, it teaches him about light refraction, you know? Prisms, and that stuff! You know what I mean?
Consumer Reporter: So, you don't feel that this product is dangerous?
Irwin Mainway: No! Look, we put a label on every bag that says, "Kid! Be careful - broken glass!"
I'm inclined to agree with The Cat. Keep in mind that these labels aren't just there necessarily for the safety of the consumer, but also for the safety of the seller: They don't feel like getting sued everytime some rube gets in a freak-accident with their product.
Furthermore, isn't making fun of warning labels on stuff rather passé? It smacks of making fun of airline food and other pedantic observations, like asking "why don't the airlines just make the whole plane out of the same stuff they make the black box?" [spoiler:609dada983](Because then the plane would be too heavy to fucking fly.[/spoiler:609dada983]
What kind of scary-ass lawn darts did you have? Mine were blunt as hell, and wouldn't pierce anything harder than soft dirt. I would have needed some sort of gasoline-powered lawn dart cannon in order to hurt somebody with those things.
Although I've got to disagree with jclast here. The kind of lawn darts we're talking about had no business ever existing. The concept was fundamentally flawed, no amount of supervision can compensate for that.
If requiring warning labels prevents serious accidents at negligible cost then I think they're pretty much a good thing: I'm not so much into "well, he deserved [x horrible injury] because he should have known better." It's not like life's an episode of Leave it to Beaver, where everyone learns a cute lesson from their burns and consequent skin grafts which makes it all worthwhile.
Basically, the Cat for the win.
Edit: for example, once I was planning on cooking some eggs, so I left a pan heating with some olive oil. I forgot about it, and by the time I came back the oil was smoking hot. It was way too hot to cook eggs, and I figured I'd have to wait forever for it to just cool down on its own, so I decided to cool it down myself. So I poured a cup full of water in.
Searing hot grease explosion everywhere. Should I have known better? Probably. I'm not much of a chef, but if I had really thought about it I might have been able to predict it. Does the fact that my thoughtlessness lead to the searing hot grease explosion mean it would have been somehow awesome or fitting if I had scalded or scarred myself? I don't really think so.
But you understand that it was your fault. The issue I have with all these warning signs isn't that they inform people, but that they absolutely have to be there in order to avoid some dumb shit suing the hell out of GE saying "but it didn't say I couldn't use it in the shower! How was I supposed to know?"
That being sid, I'm also all for babyproofing. Safety is good. What I was trying to do was present a reason why there would be more than a handful of us left if all warning labels were removed from everything. There were considerably less warning labels 50 years ago, and we didn't die out as a species. Those of us that think warning labels are all that keep us from killing ourselves in idotic ways sell the majority of humanity far too short. Most of us don't need to be told "electricity plus water = bad," but companies have to put that on every hairdryer. It'd be great if they just did it anyway, but they're doing it specifically to avoid lawsuits.
And that's what I have issue with, the lawsuits and the fact that anybody could think it was the manufacturer's fault that some dummy decided to blow dry his hair in the shower.
Let them warn us about every little thing, but don't sue them as soon as you find the one thing they missed. Use the product as it's intended and you won't get hurt. If you're just standing in the bathroom, using your hairdryer, and it explodes for no apparent reason, then you've got a reason to sue.
I don't, actually. What I have a disdain for is the reason why we have most of those warnings on things: comapnies are afraid of being sued by stupid people that used their product in completely retarded ways.
I did something that most people would know you shouldn't do, and could have seriously hurt myself. In that particular case I don't see a way in which a warning label could have helped--maybe on the cooking oil, but regardless, my point is simply:
If requiring warning labels prevents accidents at little or no cost, then we should require warning labels. Whether it's stupid to try to stop the chain on a chainsaw with your hands or not, if a warning label stops ten people a year from absentmindedly grabbing down on their chainsaw, then that's an important and useful warning label.
But when I see a Halloween costume with "WARNING, costume does NOT enable user to fly" on it I know the concern is not the safety of the consumer but lawsuit prevention. Every hammer I have seen in the store has a warning label that states you should be wearing goggles when using the hammer. Now, I have yet to see a single construction site, shop, or even a homeowner doing DIY stop to don goggles before driving a nail.
These type of warnings exist because against all common sense the legal system now allows you to sue a company for your own colossal stupidity, even if the product in question was only peripherally involved. Sticking a screwdriver in your eye should not be equated with a lottery sized payout from the tools manufacturer.
The implication of this is not only that I cannot take care of myself without supervision, but that I am not responsible when my own actions cause injury, it's always someone elses fault. From this thinking we get cases like where a burgler injures himself breaking into someones home and subsequently sues the owner. In the broad light of day that situation sounds ludicrous, and yet it happens anyway.
I see the more ridiculous warning labels more as a symptom of a sue-happy culture than anything else.
Having taught 8th grade science, I'd be inclined to disagree.
And I agree with that. As I said, the thing I'm not a fan of is that companies are affixing these labels, not to pretect their consumers, but to protect themselves from lawsuits.
I suppose, in the end, it doesn't really matter because the label is there, but regardless of whether there is a label on the chainsaw, you shouldn't be able to sue ChainSaws, Inc. because you tried to stop the chain with your hand.
Like I said, warnings are great, I just wish that the warnings placed there for the sake of protecting the consumer from dangerous misuse of the product, not protecting the manufacturer from the consumer's idiocy.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
CAUTION
DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR/LID DURING OPERATION
Personal burn may result
CAUTION
BE CAREFUL to avoid finger pinch
NOTICE
USE DUST MASK when cleaning
WARNING
KEEP AWAY FROM THE MACHINE DURING OPERATION
Serious personal injury may result
CAUTION
DO NOT STEP ASIDE to avoid falling down
WARNING
HAZARDOUS VOLTAGE
DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR DURING OPERATION
NOTICE
DO NOT OBSERVE INSIDE to avoid falling down
Are you sure it wasn't "Warning! May contain nuts."? Most people who are allergic to nuts can eat peanuts and vice versa, but the fact that peanuts and nuts are generally packaged in the same factories means that companies slap those labels on to warn the seriously allergic of the potential for cross-contamination.
My only problem with ridiculous warning labels is when it results in so many warnings that the legitimate ones are easier to miss.
so you are just supposed to fall down? Just take it like a man? don't avoid it?
I didn't know OSHA was so hardcore.
<WARNING> ENERGY: 0.4J
DONT POINT AT THE CREATURE
[spoiler:4a59d2dd3f]If The Creature comes into my house, I'm fucked.[/spoiler:4a59d2dd3f]
For other things such as hammers that's just plain stupid.
For example, a warning label on a box of fish-hooks warning "do not cast wildly, may get in eye" is a good idea.
Putting on that same box of hooks "do no swallow, sharp" is redundant. Anyone who is dumb enough to swallow anything metal wth a barb on it is asking for Darwin to whoop their ass.
The court system isn't suppose to be the lottery for the morons of the world.
Of course, like me and my freinds, they'd just keep trying it again.
I find that immensely humorous, my friend has the exact same airsoft gun, and we noticed that label, too.
Warning: Referencing Darwin will result in castration
*blink*
So, I should call the doctor?
My tongue does feel a bit cold. Here in my hand.