It may have been more about child-proofing than air quality. Hosing down the lawnmower while struggling to pour gas doesn't help. The gas can manufacturers certainly came up with the worst possible design to implement the regulations.
I haven't bought a new can recently but there is a new regulation about a flame retarder that came about when some retard tried to pour gasoline on a campfire. The attempts to circumvent Darwinian selection aren't going to end well.
Didn't find your answer? Ask the community — no account required.
R
Ralph Mowery
Thinking of mowers look at all the government safety regulations on the walking and riding mowers.
T
The Natural Philosopher
Strangely I hadn't noticed many here in the UK. Gas guzzling un catalysed un fuel injected single cylinder mower with only the most rudimentary safety features, like switching off if there is no weight on the seat - trivial to bypass if you acre, which I don't
R
rbowman
My push mower has a bar that has to be held down. All in all that isn't a bad idea and it isn't all that inconvenient.
Some of the safety measures in the early days of OSHA were counterproductive. Most people had a pretty good idea that you shouldn't stick your head in a hydraulic press. Poorly designed safety guards meant you had more pinch points than before that weren't so obvious.
I don't know the correct term but punch presses were equipped with 'possum harnesses' to make sure your hands weren't in the way. If your timing was off it snatched your hands back none too gently.
I did know a machinist that was messing a few fingers. He had been working on a die and knew the ram was slowly drifting down. He was so focused on what he was doing he ignored the impending doom.
B
Bob F
How many feet and other injuries have been avoided because of safety regulations?
"OSHA is Making a Difference
In roughly half a century, OSHA and our state partners, coupled with the efforts of employers, safety and health professionals, unions and advocates, have had a dramatic effect on workplace safety. Worker deaths in America are down—on average, from about 38 worker deaths a day in 1970 to 13 a day in 2020. Worker injuries and illnesses are down—from 10.9 incidents per 100 workers in 1972 to 2.7 per 100 in 2020. "
T
The Natural Philosopher
Elfin safety that gets to the point where people take the trouble to circumvent or sabotage it routinely is simply pointless.
C
Cindy Hamilton
Yep. A velcro strap took care of that one.
I can't recall what my husband did to defeat "stop mowing while the lawn tractor is backing up". Maybe a jumper; maybe he had to solder some wires together.
T
The Natural Philosopher
Oh. On mine its a button you push. So he probably just wired it permanently shorted
R
Ralph Mowery
I liked the way one riding mower did. There is a psition on the stsrting switch that allows backing up with the blades moving. I defeated three others by putting a jumper around a switch. Some of the mowers were not mine.
R
rbowman
I never bothered. If I have to stop to move furniture or hoses it's only one pull to get it running again. It's like one of those stupid cars where the engine turns off at stoplights. It has never happened but there's a drop off in the lawn that is quite steep. If I lost control and the mower rolled down it I'd rather it was running.
Not a problem with my Troy-Bilt.
formatting link
The mulcher works great. No raking or emptying bags and in the fall it turns leaves into confetti. A rider would be more trouble than it's worth. Besides, according to the GPS I get to walk a mile and a quarter. Gotta keep the step count up.
C
Cindy Hamilton
I think mine would be 11 miles with a walk-behind. One of my nerdier colleagues calculated it.
The tractor is also useful for pulling a trailer around the property. It can go places my SUV can't.
S
Scott Lurndal
Takes me almost three hours with a 48" riding mower. It would probably take 12 hours to use my old 21" self-propelled walk-behind Toro.
Yes, although I find the loader on my 27hp Kubota to make a fine wheelbarrow :-).
C
Commander Kinsey
High time we grew out of governmental control. We just don't need a set of morons in charge.
C
Commander Kinsey
What is a clot shot?
C
Commander Kinsey
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I think. They had an A ship and a B ship. One of them contained all the useless bureaucrats and was programmed to never turn up at the new planet.
Not here in the UK. You get told to fix them within 2 weeks. I once had a faulty handbrake, 3 faulty tyres, and a missing exhaust. I got told I had to get them all done within two weeks. When I told him he should have checked the records to see I had an annual test in 1 week, he was not amused, but he forgot about the 95 in a 70 zone.
Does that mean twice a year? That would be absurd, they must have a lot of mechanics.
I don't believe cars become unsafe when things don't work. They just fail to move.
Mine decided recently I had to park it level or downhill, or there'd be no petrol to run it the next day. Now it's started doing it any way up. A 1 week queue at the only decent garage near me.
No insurace, that would be cool.
Why on earth would you get insurance if you didn't have to?
Or one in a thousand. They'd still put it in there.
Over here it's a rip off. Say we collide, and it was my fault. Everybody agreed it was my fault. Your premium goes up and average of £110 a year and mine goes up an average of £130 a year. Why is that fair? Why does yours go up at all? Of course you can fiddle it by changing insurer and not telling them about the accident. Or if it's a minor bump, it's best coming to a private agreement and I hand you money to fix your car, then never tell the insurance.
S
Slevin
An injection that causes blood to clot.
formatting link
formatting link
R
rbowman
They are usually a 'fix-it' ticket with no fine if you correct the problem. I got one for not having a working emergency brake. I'd replaced an automatic transmission with a manual. The AT had a brake drum on the tail which was the emergency brake; the MT didn't. That meant replacing the rear axle with one that had the emergency brake actuator and fabricating linkage. Pain in the ass.
However the cop only confiscated my Italian switchblade rather than making a big deal of it. He seemed to want a new toy.
A
alan_m
The penalties for driving with illegal tyres can be severe. If you are stopped by the police and your tyres are found to be below the legal tyre tread depth limit, you can receive 3 penalty points on your driving license and be fined up to £2,500 per illegal tyre.
N
NY
Brakes that fail to apply (car doesn't stop and hits the car/person in front), or apply on one side only (car veers to one side and hits people on pavement or oncoming cars).
Defective steering - car fails to turn when the driver turns the wheel, or goes completely out of control if front wheels fail to remain "parallel" (*).
Throttle cable jams wide open - car goes out of control if driver doesn't turn the engine off immediately. (**)
I'm sure people and think of other ways in which a car can fail dangerously, as opposed to failing safe and simply not moving.
The biggest dangers are those which are not noticed. My car failed MOT with a broken coil spring, but there was no sign prior to that - car did not lean to one side or try to veer to one side. No idea how long it had been like that, other than that it was less than a year otherwise it would have been picked up at the previous MOT. Interestingly, to the best of my knowledge, the car is still on its original shock absorbers after 190,000 miles: and I've asked the garage to check them at each service on the grounds that "surely after all this time they are starting to fail". Likewise for clutch - still original.
(*) I know that normal steering requires a small amount of toe-in or toe-out.
(**) This happened to me when I was learning to drive. I was going up a steep hill so was in low gear with fast engine. Changed up into third - engine raced a bit and car surged a bit, but I thought I'd cocked up clutch/throttle coordination. Changed into fourth on the level - car surged forwards and accelerator pedal felt spongy. Turned off ignition very quickly and pressed hard on footbrake, having worked out that pressing clutch would remove all mechanical load and would let engine overspeed (no rev-limiter on that car - it was too old). Cable had frayed and jammed in outer sheath, having behaved perfectly until then, no no warning sign.
T
The Natural Philosopher
Commander Kinsey is stupid ignorant and aggresssive.
KF him
Join the Discussion
Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
Didn't find your answer?
Ask the community — no account required
Report Content
You are reporting this content to the moderators. They will look at it
ASAP.