RadioBanter - View Single Post

February 22nd 05, 08:17 PM

wrote:

Mike Coslo wrote:

snip

in a country where a business can get successfully sued for a
woman not knowing that here hot coffee was hot, and burning
herself when trying to hold the darn thing between her legs. (sorry
Phil, but what if she simply ruined her dress because the coffee was
wet?-negligent design of the cup?)

I wrote a lot of the stuff you are commenting on, Jim. It's a hazard
of us not trimming threads!

Same points apply

The case centered around the fact that the coffee was *extremely*
and unreasonably hot.

Ask 10 people, and you'll get ten different answers if that was the
question. I assume that anything in a styro cup is Hot, until I can
examine it.

But hot enough to give you 2nd degree burns?

Hot coffee is meant to be hot, and not poured on your skin, but rather
drunk, and the parts of the body that are supposed to be used are much
more tolerant of heat.

snippage

Who are they going to sue?

The manufacturers of equipment, the VEC that administered the test.
Find some deep pockets and sue, sue, sue.

Then we better just give up, because there's no test to use a microwave
oven or a table saw.

No, we simply make sure that people are *exposed* to safety
information. On the power tool or the oven, there are safety
disclaimers. I bought a chain saw that had an entire safety education as
relates to chain saws in the instruction manual. first page of the book
says that you have to read the entire manual before using the saw.

The Manufacturer has to make a good-faith effort to do safety education
for the tool.

Can that prevent lawsuits? No. But it makes it very difficult to win
that lawsuit when safety information has been provided.

One of the most dangerous substances the average person handles is
gasoline, yet there's no test for how to deal with it.

First, there is plenty of safety info about gasoline's flammability and
carcinogenic status on every pump (that is in legal compliance)

Second, gasoline is the sort of substance that people are used to. If
you told people that you had an idea of a sport where people drove at
each other at combined speeds of 140 miles per hour with a liquid that
was so flammable that it was virtually explosive, they'd say you were
nuts, even if you were telling them this in your car, driving down the
interstate at 70.

As a little example of the mindset, you might recall an accident
along I-80 last year, a few miles from my QTH. Huge horrible pileup, many
vehicles, many people killed, and a fiery mess that took a long time
to clean up. The accident was related to a snow squall that blew up
unexpectedly, and the excessive speed that the whole group was traveling
at. While no charges were filed against anyone at the time, the
families of the deceased are filing suit against the truck drivers *and* the
companies they worked for. Hopefully the trucking companies have a
good safety program.

If someone was following too close for conditions, shouldn't they be
liable?

Of course. Was the trucking company following too closely?

And on what grounds, compared to other

electronic devices?

Most of my appliances have warnings on them of electric shock
potential,

or of cutting, burning, whatever dangers also. There is a reason why
they are there.

Same warnings are on modern ham gear, aren't they?

Sure

Nobody can be protected completely from a lawsuit. But if you are
sued, you are well served to have forewarned potential litigation
adversaries of the possible dangers of the devices they may use.

Couple of stickers on the TS-50 and done. No need for a test, right?

I disagree. I would think that as Hams, we should know WHY something is
dangerous, not just a "ohhh, don't doo that!" mentality.

RF Safety should be the FIRST order of the day, and NO one
should be a Ham until they are tested for RF safety to the
ability to handle full legal limit.

The reason for the RF safety questions is to prevent exposing
*others* to a hazard.

And the FCC has determined that the RF safety requirements of the
Tech test are adequate for hams who use up to 1500 W power output
on "meat-cooking frequencies".

They're the *expert agency*, not the VEs or VECs. Heck, NCVEC wants to
*lower* the written exams - too much math and regs, sez they.

Shall we revisit "Amateur Radio in the 21st Century"? I wonder if Len
Anderson and Brian Burke have read that wonderful piece, and what they
think of it.

I recommend it to all. Tells ya what the next step is.

And those who think that limiting the finals voltage, or
some other weird thing is the answer, are advised to think
about things such as Technician Hams operating under supervision.
It only takes a second to drop a paper and reach behind a Rig.
Less time than the control op can react. I want those Technicians
to be exposed to full power safety requirements. Anything else is
criminally negligent.

But they are already tested on full-power requirements.

Yoiks! We're doing major time/subject shifting here, Jim! My

comments

several iterations of the thread ago were in relation to possible
changing of test requirements, ala the W5YI proposal, where the
newcomers are given a much simpler test, and things that I consider
critically important, such as not having your hobby kill ya, would be
dropped from the testing.

Not the W5YI proposal - trhe NCVEC proposal.

Thanks for the correction!

- Mike KB3EIA -