"Jerry" wrote

: Just ask any toddler who has tried to poke a screwdriver into
an outlet.

A toddler in the UK "Yeah! This game of sticking things in to
these plastic shapes in the wall is fun, lets do it again!"

A toddler in the USA (120v) "That tingles, not sure that I like
that..."

A toddler in the EU (240v) *flash, bang, wallop* "That hurt
daddy, why is my finger throbbing, why has the TV (or what ever
else is on the circuit) stopped working?"

UK mains sockets have shutters, have you not noticed?
:
: What's your problem with it? And how many of your American
plugs are
: hanging out of the socket with exposed pins and intermittent
connections?
:

Indeed, the North America attitude to electrical hardware is a
farce

Agreed.

(only of the reasons why they are still plagued by high
numbers of electrical fires), but then so is the UK's BS* 1363
standard for plug/sockets, only in the UK -and those countries
that have copied the UK- is the final circuit protection so
designed that it is easy (for the end user) to defeat it either
through ignorance or wilful tampering, thus a device requiring
protection at 3 or 5 amps co so easily end up being actually
protected at 13 amps - or 30 amps in the case of wilful
tampering...
--

Have you any data to suggest that deaths or injuries are any worse here than
in countries that don't use BS1363 outlets? I was amazed to find in a modern
house in Italy that I stayed in this summer that all the sockets
(unshuttered and each rated at 10A with fuseless plugs) on each floor were
supplied from a single 25A MCB. How is that safer than the situation here?

David.