“Kite flying, schoolyard games and sports day sack races have all been hit by an ‘epidemic’ of health and safety excuses, which should be challenged by the public, the Government said.” [Independent] Plus: UK school deems leather balls too dangerous for youngsters, directs use of sponge balls instead [BBC]
Posts Tagged ‘safety’
Ditch the bike helmet
A TED talk idea from Mikael Colville-Andersen [TBD].
EEOC: drinking history no reason to withhold heavy trucking jobs
Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc., an interstate trucking company, doesn’t want to put drivers with a history of drinking problems behind the wheel, and has accordingly been sued by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), under which alcoholism is considered a protected condition. I’ve got details in a new post at Cato at Liberty (& Bader/CEI, Lachlan Markay/Heritage, Fox News).
UK: too dangerous to let townswomen tend flowers around war memorial
The Women’s Institute in Shepperton, Middlesex, England, volunteered to tend the flowers around a war memorial on a traffic roundabout when budget cuts threatened elimination of the landscaping. “They were told by councillors that it would be too dangerous” to cross the road to the roundabout, although pedestrians traverse the same path in getting from one street to another. Telegraph]
July 7 roundup
- Correct result, yet potential for mischief in latest SCOTUS climate ruling [Ilya Shapiro/Cato, my earlier take]
- Wouldn’t even want to guess: how the Howard Stern show handles sexual harassment training [Hyman]
- Philadelphia: $21 million award against emergency room handling noncompliant patient [Kennerly]
- Antitrust assault on Google seems geared to protect competitors more than consumers [Josh Wright]
- “They knew there was a risk!” Curb your indignation please [Coyote]
- Theme issue of Reason magazine on failures of criminal justice system is now online;
- “Why Your New Car Doesn’t Have a Spare Tire” [Sam Kazman, WSJ]
Perilous portals
“There are thousands of door-related accidents each year. The Consumer Product Safety Commission should do its bit by requiring that a professionally trained doorman open and shut all doors for door-users. That would create millions of jobs …” [Iain Murray, CEI]
Children’s sidewalk chalk drawing
Per some in Australia, it may be too dangerous an activity: “‘The mayor said they would like to issue us a permit but can’t because it raises health and safety issues, in case somebody fell over a child on the footpath or into the street,’ [a cafe owner] said.” [Free-Range Kids]
Advice from a physician
Don’t stop taking your medication just because you saw a lawyer referral ad on TV that claimed it was dangerous [Throckmorton, related]
“Not all tragedies are preventable”
That’s something Congress should remember, notes the Economist, before it passes more laws named after victims, such as the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2008, under which the Department of Transportation is in the process of mandating rear cameras on cars so as to reduce back-over accidents in family driveways.
CPSC vs. drop-side cribs
Lenore Skenazy: “As for cribs, one reason the drop-side models seem so ‘dangerous’ is because they are so popular. When you have millions of people using anything, no matter how safe, the odds of an accident go up because the odds go up with the numbers. … These products are not deadly. There’s a difference between a deadly product (cyanide) and a product that sometimes results in death (a grape). We keep obscuring that difference, and congratulating the folks who act as if it is only a lack of vigilance that allows anyone to die of anything other than old age.” More: Nick Farr, Abnormal Use; Rick Woldenberg.