"ARWadsworth" wrote in message
...
John Rumm wrote:
On 24/06/2012 16:12, PlugSafe wrote:
On Sunday, June 24, 2012 3:50:35 PM UTC+1,
wrote:
dennis@home wrote:
"Steve Firth" wrote in message
...



And of course no recognition that in this case a socket cover may
have prevented the accident.

So you are saying the parents are at fault for not using socket
covers?

The main point is there are no recorded deaths caused by the use
of socket covers and there recorded deaths where the use of a
socket cover may have saved a life.

So statistically which is the safest option?

-- Adam

fatally flawed should be called factually flawed

Please state what deaths you are referring to. As the Sheriff made
clear, there is no evidence to support the idea that a socket cover
could have saved Liam's life, so whose lives are you talking about?

You might also like to bear in mind that the damage caused to
sockets by the use of incorrectly sized socket covers will only
ever cause problems when the covers have been removed. There is
little likelihood of a death due to a faulty earth connection in a
socket (into which someone had once rammed a clippasafe cover) will
be ascribed to the root cause. Similarly, a socket which has
damaged L&N contacts caused by having been left with a socket cover
with oversized pins for several years, and which (when it is
eventually used to deliver power again) catches fire because of
arcing, will not be blamed on the socket cover.

Dare one slide a word in edgeways for risk of being hit by flying
toys... (coming from multiple sides!)

Each of you have valid points it seems to me, however there is danger
of them being lost in the noise...

The fundamental difficulty with any discussion of this nature is that
the numbers we are dealing with are so low. The numbers of deaths in
this country per year from electrocution are vanishingly small
whichever way you look at it. This makes it exceedingly difficult to
spot significant trends. It has already been mentioned that we
already have the safest electrical wiring standards and accessories
in the world as a starting point.

Are plug covers worthwhile? In my opinion (based on no hard data - so
just that, an opinion) they serve no benefit and probably their risks
are more significant than their benefits. However it is important to
note that even if they halved or for that matter doubled the number of
deaths resulting from toddlers playing with sockets each year, the
nett effect would be near enough zero either way as to make no
difference. As a percentage of causes of infant mortality these
accidents will be well down in fractional percentages. Far greater
numbers will die each year at the hands of the medical profession,
their parents, or even just cot death / SIDS etc. As Adam mentioned,
compared to the things he will see during the normal course of
working on customers existing installations, the presence of plug
covers will be pretty well down the list of primary concerns... lack
of earthing, no RCDs, missing EQ bonding, exposed live metalwork,
dangerously overloaded circuits, and bodged extension work etc, will
certainly figure as more pressing matters.
Hard numbers for serious injury rather than death due to electric
shock would actually be a far more useful metric, and perhaps allow a
more rational assessment of true risks and benefits.

Does the fatally flawed site intend to give the impression that it was
all the mother's fault in this case? No I don't expect it was intended
that way. However the proximity of the various statements could
certainly give that impression, and I have no doubt that in its
current form it will be read by many as implying it was simply a
failure of parental responsibility. I am sure the site could be
better split up into sections that don't attempt to cover these
various things in a way that could conflate them in people's minds.
(it is also worth remembering what any parent will tell you - even
with the best will in the world, you can't be aware of everything
that they do every day all the time with 100% reliability).

I see no need to "spin" the story about Liam. Even mentioning that a
cover may hay helped in this particular case does not detract from the
problems presented by the socket covers. Presented with both bits of
information, parents could be allowed to form their own conclusions.

Highlighting the risks of unshuttered sockets on the end of flying
mains leads is worthwhile in my opinion, but again it does not need
to be done in proximity to the article about the comments about the
flex with unterminated ends. (the risks from lamp holders however are
probably less worth mentioning since gaining contact with a live BC
socket for long enough to cause serious injury is actually quite
difficult in practical terms)


It strikes me that strong promotion of RCD protection for all
accessible sockets in houses with kids would also not go amiss.

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.

And its far from clear how accurate that cause of death actually is.

I cannot remember the report going into details of how they came to that
conclusion.

And it isnt even possible to be sure of that
in most cases, whatever they may have said.

Is is totally impossible to say how many injuries and lives the
introduction of the 30mA RCD has saved.

It is however possible to say if there has been a statistically
significant drop in the number of electrical fatalitys per
head of population since they were required tho.

It is also impossible to say if a socket cover has ever saved a life.

There must have been some cases when the brat cant get it out.

A child that was unable to plug something into a socket that would have
hurt or killed them is not a recorded event.

But it may well have happened even if it had not been recorded.

It's a non event - nothing really happened (other than there was a socket
cover in place).

You don’t know that in all cases that have ever happened.

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.

But you don’t know how many have got like that due to the use of bad socket
covers.

Considering the incompetent DIY I have seen today [1] I really can say
that socket covers are the least of my worries.

That’s a separate matter to whether they can be useful tho.

[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 etc

The 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?