Two years ago, the EU Aviation Safety Agency warned that some Airbus 350s required a hard reboot every 149 hours to be safe to fly; two years later, most of the affected planes are still being rebooted to cope with the bug. Read the rest
Women wearing seatbelts are 73% more likely to be killed or seriously injured in a car crash than men in seatbelts, and while it's not entirely certain why this is, it's a pretty good bet that sampling bias in crash-testing is to blame. Read the rest
When federal prosecutors drag corporations into court for business practices that hurt or even kill people, it's routine for corporate counsel to ask to have the evidence in the case sealed, and for prosecutors to agree, and for judges to rubberstamp the deal, meaning that the public never finds out about the risks around them. Read the rest
Survivors of London's Grenfell fire, where 72 perished in a tower block with no sprinklers but lots of flammable cladding, are projecting messages on similarly-unsafe buildings in the UK.
The BBC reports that one of the towers, Frinstead House, is a "stone's throw" from Grenfell and still has no fire sprinklers.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council, which took over management of the high-rise in March last year, said its staff had met residents to talk about sprinklers and other fire safety measures.
It said there was a fire safety programme under way across its borough and it was "seeking clear guidance and recommendations from central government on fire safety systems".
The inferno highlighted Britain's shoddy safety standards and the dangers of cladding, often installed on older towers to make them appear more modern. In response, the government banned combustible cladding and mandated sprinklers, but only in new construction: "Building owners are ultimately responsible for the safety of the building and it is for them to decide whether to retro-fit sprinklers."
Online travel and restaurant booking site TripAdvisor will introduce new safety filters after people who used the site raised concerns over sexual assaults. TripAdvisor says it found 1,100 reviews that referenced sexual assault in just the last year alone. Read the rest
Hurrah for Norwich, New York schoolbus driver Samantha Call and her astonishing reflexes! From Norwich City School District/Facebook:
Read the restThis is exactly why you should NEVER pass a school bus when the stop arm is out and the red lights are flashing!
..."Samantha did an outstanding job," NCSD Transportation Supervisor William Loomis said. "All of our drivers undergo continuous training so they're prepared to handle situations like this. We hope this video helps everyone to realize the dangers of passing a stopped school bus."
The Austin Public Health Department and the CDC studied the safety of e-scooters and came to the conclusion that if you ride them you should wear a helmet. One in 5,000 e-scooter rides results in an injury and 48% of those are head injuries.
From Ars Technica:
This study actually discovered a higher rate of head injuries compared to the LA study—48 percent in total. But multiple injuries were common; 70 percent also suffered injuries to the upper limbs and 55 percent to the lower limbs. More than a third (35 percent) broke a bone, and 19 percent broke more than one, not counting finger and toe fractures.
Injuries resulted from a wide range of scenarios. Fifty-five percent were injured riding in the street, but 33 percent were injured riding on the sidewalk. Sixteen percent of injuries involved another vehicle, but only 10 percent were from actually colliding with another vehicle. An equal proportion of injuries (10 percent) involved a curb, and 7 percent were the result of hitting an inanimate object, like a lamppost. Injuries were more common on the weekend (39 percent) and between the hours of 6pm and 6am (39 percent). But only 29 percent reported consuming alcohol within the 12 hours leading up to their injury. Thirty-seven percent blamed excessive speed, and 19 percent believed that a scooter malfunction was to blame.
The Boeing 737 Max is out of service around the world, following a fatal crash of an Ethiopian Airlines and an Indonesian Lion Air flight and there is intense investigation and speculation as to the cause of the crash. Read the rest
Ontario, Canada's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board created these splatterpunk workplace safety ads in 2012.
"This is not a feel-good campaign," said WSIB Chair Steven Mahoney. "We’ll feel good when the number of injuries and fatalities go down.” Read the rest
One of my fears is opening my car door just as a cyclist is coming by, causing a dangerous collision. I always look before I open, but I'm going to start opening the door with a "Dutch Reach" as an added precaution. It's simple to do: open the door with your right hand, which forces you to look over your shoulder and look for oncoming bikes.
Lime scooters have been recalled in Switzerland and cleared off the streets of New Zealand following a string of injuries, including multiple broken bones, caused by a software bug that brings the scooters to an abrupt halt, throwing their riders off (the scooters are still available in the USA despite an account of a similar incident in Texas). Read the rest
Last month, London's Gatwick airport (the second busiest airport in the UK) was closed for several days after drones were sighted in its airspace. Read the rest
A man with knife made a bomb threat at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam today, and was 'overpowered' and arrested by Dutch police. Departures and Arrivals in the airport's hall 3 were evacuated, but have since reopened.
Here's what happened. Read the rest
Facebook is a model of offering incredible, nuanced privacy protections to its users, allowing them to configure exactly how much of their data they want to share and how they want it to be used -- Facebook offers these protections, it just doesn't deliver them. Every Facebook privacy setting seems to be an empty checkbox, not hooked up to anything that alters its data-collection. Read the rest
In this video from Cariacica, Brazil, bus drivers sit on stationary bikes as a bus whizzes past. Why? To give the drivers a visceral sense of what it feels like when a 30,000 pound metal behemoth flies by less than two meters from your exposed body. The goal is to educate the drivers on why they should respect the mandatory 1.5 meter gap.
