imprisonment. There is no law to prevent the sale of incorrectly sized socket covers, and no one sells correctly sized ones. Is that not cause for concern?
Adam is a qualified electrician. And you are....?
A professional electrical engineer and mother of two small children.
It's a small world Steve. My husband says he remembers you from school. He looks forward to catching up when he returns from Helmand.
It may seem that way to some.
Then your husband is a stranger to reality.
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Oh please someone make her stop, oh my aching sides.
Of all the people on here you could have tried to pull that one on, I'm the one that you really shouldn't have tried it on. Here's a clue. I know that no contemporary of mine from my school is currently in Helmand. There's a very good reason why I know that.
Hang on! Aren't you just speculating that Liam would not simply have removed a socket cover, had there been one there, and inserted the mains plug - that with the bare wire ends at the other end of the cable - into exactly the same socket?
Liam was clearly capable of inserted a plug into a wall socket and it has been clearly demonstrated that children below that age are easily capable of removing a socket cover.
Alongside a fair number of quotes of the word "statistics" in this thread there seems to be a lot speculation from the parties taking both sides of the argument, and perhaps some disservice is being done to statisticians.
Michael
I can't ever remember falling down the stairs due to lack of light.
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Who mentioned "contemporary"?
That is what I would like to see. Although the bigger danger (in the number of lives that gould be saved) is the lack of RCD protection on sockets that adults use. They are the ones that use the hedge trimmer and the lawn mower (most of the time).
It was made clear that an RCD would not have saved Liams life as a Live Neutral touch was the given cause of death. I cannot remember the report going into details of how they came to that conclusion.
Is is totally impossible to say how many injuries and lives the introduction of the 30mA RCD has saved. It is also impossible to say if a socket cover has ever saved a life. A child that was unable to plug something into a socket that would have hurt or killed them is not a recorded event. It's a non event - nothing really happened (other than there was a socket cover in place).
I have often encountered sockets that no longer make proper contact with the pins on a plug. These sockets have never seen a socket cover.
Considering the incompetent DIY I have seen today [1] I really can say that socket covers are the least of my worries.
[1] All the DIY extended circuits had the brown and blue cables connected up the wrong way to the red and black cables. There was no earth on 1/3 of the house sockets due to bad connections. 5 amp strip connector was used to extend the ring etcThe best bit was that when it rains the RCD trips. That was because some of the water in the roof valley ran down the steel conduit into a socket:-) And who the hell screws down tiles?
I'd often wondered - not having kids myself - up to what age are they incapable of removing a dummy plug or whatever? And is it more difficult to remove one than to plug something in? Also, since pretty well all sockets are shuttered, what purpose does a dummy plug really serve?
Yes, you're rather good at that. What a shame that being an engineer has not actually taught you anything about concepts of proof, evidence or even, it seems the basics of testing.
Really? And where would that be? There's emarkably little "test and measurement" on your website. Unless of course you're describing your someonewhat risible "socket cover pin dimensions" sheet.
I really CBA to entr that into a spreadsheet and do a proper analysis on it. However it seems to contradict your statements here on pin dimensions (in that the majority of dimensions are smaller than the standard, not larger). Also you seem to be obsessively quibbling about differences in dimensions of 0.07mm or less without stating your measurement technique or the errors in measurement.
You really are whoppingly ignorant aren't you? Statistics most certainly are facts. Data on the number of deaths attributable to poor design of electrical sockets, plugs or socket covers would give some substance to your site. As it is, it's an evidence free rant by someone who doesn't seem to have understood the need for a sound statistical analysis of data.
I'm not the one claiming that a device degrades safety based on no evidence whatsoever. You need to go, run don't walk, to a library and learn something about testing, statistics and the first concepts of proof including the impossibility of proving a negative.
Facts are very difficult to come by. One Sheriff has said the socket covers would not help. That is not a fact that is one Shefiffs opinion.
And I can remember the pathologist stating that Ian Tomlinson died of natural causes.
I do not trust authority.
Sorry Grimley. I forgot to snip:-)
I don't know, but somewhere on the Fatally Flawed website was a video of a 1yr old removing a socket cover with consummate ease. Much younger than Liam. Ergo, any child of Liam's age with the curiosity to plug in a bare-wired flex and plug will do so if it wishes, socket cover or not. Whether or not Fatally Flawed have presented their arguments intelligently or not is a different question, perhaps.
Also, since only a minority of households probably (?) use socket covers there are fewer incidents of any nature from which to draw a statistically meaningful sample, quite possibly, I speculate. Therefore it may not be truly possible to make comparisons or to suggest that the statistics bear out one particular side of this argument, or not.
Michael
I'm surprised that someone who would goof other things up like that would even bother with steel conduit, which is a bit more trouble to work with. I guess the conduit was put in by someone else & screwed up later?
The alcohol may have softened the blow ;-)
IMHO none really. I have seen enough kids pull them out with ease and to suggest to me that for many their ability to render the socket unusable is limited. As to providing shuttering, they are surplus to requirements on uk sockets.
Of course there is no way of knowing if there have been cases where someone would have done something fatally stupid but were not able to remove the cover...
(the connection to L & N aspect of Liam's death makes the situation even more abnormal than the already rare case of a toddler being exposed to mains voltage in the first place. It really just falls into the category of "shit happens". Dredging it up to promote an agenda no matter how well intentioned really serves little benefit IMHO)
Maybe a little different if the lights suddenly go out as you hear a scream and a thump - it'd be very different running down the stairs in the sudden darkness at top speed, before your eyes have acclimatised. However, you'd probably still get down fine, but then be looking for your wife/partner/children, possibly in pitch blackness, with no idea what's gone on, their condition or where they and furniture/equipment may have been thrown of knocked.
SteveW
He would have to be you dolt, despite the mass pleading from the public, the headmaster decided that he was not going to erect a statue in honour of my attendance at the school.
You might want to get your head out of your butt and realise that the number of people name "Steve Firth" in the UK is > 1. Heck the number of people named "Steve Firth" in my profession is > 1. Always good for a laugh.
Anyway, please don't let me interrupt your game of "my dad^W husband is bigger than you" because it's really, really funny. And it's destroyed the tiny shred of credibility that you may have. You might want to say hello to Adam. No, not Adam the electrician, Adam who you claim as a patron. He actually has met me, unlike your husband for whom I feel a great deal of sympathy.
Here are some excerpts from the Sheriff's determination which have a bearin= g on various of the discussions above:
"... the accident was caused when Liam picked up an un-terminated electrica= l power cable and plug from a settee in the living room of the family home = and thereafter made his way into the toy room where he plugged that un-term= inated power cable into a socket. The socket was either already switched on= or alternatively Liam switched it on. Either way, he received an electric = shock at a touch voltage of 240 volts because he handled the exposed un-ter= minated copper conductors with the live wire in one hand and either the neu= tral or earth wire in the other thereby creating the conditions for a hand = to hand electric shock."
"Mr Rough was commissioned to do that work because he was a general handyma= n. He did electrical, joinery and plumbing work of a general nature for (th= e landlord)and for other letting agencies. He was not a qualified electrici= an. His only formal training in electrical work occurred when he took a cou= rse in electrical safety when at college. That was between thirty five and = forty years before the events that ground this Inquiry. As at February 2009= he had been acting as a handyman for some six years"
"On examination of Liam there were entry and exit wounds on both hands whic= h were consistent with him having sustained an electric shock."
"Liam had burn marks present on both of his hands. The marks were slightly = more severe on his left hand. The appearance of the burn marks on both hand= s exhibited the classic features caused by electrocution. The presence of t= hose marks on both hands was consistent with him having held an electrical = wire in both hands with the result that an electrical current passed throug= h his body. The effect of the electrical current passing through his body h= ad caused a massive shock to his heart. This had caused death within second= s before he realised what had happened to him and before he had the opportu= nity to feel pain."
"I accept the expert evidence of Mr Madden based on his examination of the = new cable and plug that Liam grasped the bare wires of the live conductor i= n one hand and the bare wires of the neutral conductor in the other."
"Liam was aware that a plug inserted into a wall socket could lead to the t= elevision in the living room being activated. A short but unspecified time = before the day in question, he had started the practice of pulling out plug= s from the socket in the living room into which the television was plugged = regularly. This practice amused him, which sounds as if he saw this activit= y as a sort of game, and that even although his mother had told him that it= was bad to do that. I consider his state of knowledge about what a plug co= uld achieve to be significant for what happened. Exhibiting the characteris= tic inquisitiveness of a small boy of his age, he seemed to have developed = an interest in electric plugs presumably because of what that might mean fo= r him and, in particular, 1 instance that it could result in him being able= to watch television."
"Liam would not have died when, where and how he did if he had been denied = access to the new cable and plug once it had been disconnected from the new= oven."
I leave the above statements to speak for themselves, except to point out t= hat Liam could just as easily have pulled out the TV plug to insert the unt= erminated lead. =20
Let us imagine a theoretical socket cover which was the correct size, and b= y some means (yet to be discovered) was genuinely child proof. Such a perf= ect device would only be effective if there were no sockets in the house wi= thout one of these plugged in. That means that there can be no TV, phone c= harger or anything else plugged in. Such a scenario is unlikely to be acce= ptable in any practical situation, and that fact, of itself, negates the id= ea that plug-in socket covers will prevent children plugging in appliances.
In my professional capacity I have long been aware that socket covers were = unnecessary, and that they can give rise to additional dangers which are no= t present when they are not used. As a mother I do all that I can to prote= ct my children. I have had the unsettling experience of taking my children= to the house of a friend who did use socket covers, and discovering that m= y (then) 12 month old daughter was perfectly capable or removing a socket c= over in seconds (having watched my friend insert the cover after she pulled= out a plug!) I was not a happy mummy to find her trying to put it back in= , covered in dribble.
The vast majority of the material on the FatallyFlawed web site, including = the Liam story, was in place before I became involved with the campaign, ho= wever I find myself completely in agreement with both the material and the = motives of the founders. That is why I volunteered to assist them. The id= ea that Liam's misfortune should not be held up as a warning to parents of = what can happen if children are allowed access to "dangerous things attache= d to plugs" is a concept that I find utterly stupid. Liam's death was a po= intless tragedy, but at least his memory can serve to alert others.
At least you have a functioning word wrap/line length.
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