On Sunday, 28 June 2015 06:50:57 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
On 26/06/2015 19:54, nt wrote:
On Friday, 26 June 2015 16:23:39 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:

Not only that, as had been pointed out at various times, one
insures against losses that one can't otherwise replace. I
would include wife and children in that category, so a one off
premium of a couple of hundred for smoke alarms and RCDs sounds
like a very worthwhile investment.

2 different issues lumped together,

Smoke alarms and RCDs are different - however the risks associated
with not having either are comparable (although injury from fires
per years are far fewer than from electric shock).

200 something deaths a year in fires now, 20 something from shock

I said injury, not deaths.

We know

So we appear to be in agreement that deaths from either cause are very
low. Yet I don't hear you claiming fire protection systems including
smoke alarms are also a waste of money?

A few pounds per family to save most of 1000 deaths a year is a good deal.
£3 x 20m houses = £60m
Lives saved if the alarms survive 10-20 yrs ave = 15yrs x 1000pa (number before smoke alarms were common) = 15,000 lives
= £4,000 per life saved.
Batteries increase that, but still a fine deal.


I seem to recall someone round here was very fond of plastering
domestic fire safety stats into every wiki article given the
chance. Why the double standards?

why the claim of double standards? how would stating the known facts
possibly be that? Its not even worth answering.

I feel like I am talking to a truculent five year old, with his fingers
in his ears, going ner ner, can't hear you.

ah, ad hominem. I think what you mean is that the point(s) we see as key are different.

You keep bleating on about death rates as justification for your
(absurd) position. And yet everyone acknowledges that the death rate
alone would not be a justification for wide spread use of RCDs

we agree on that then

(or smoke
alarms for that matter).

the figures do not support that position.

snip

I am however suggesting that everyone who lives in a property without
RCD protection *should* update to include them as a resonable priority.
This is because *millions* of people receive electric shocks each year.
Hundreds of thousands of them require hospital treatment. Tens of
thousands of those receive a significant injury, many have ongoing and
debilitating effects.

Your injury data is wrong due to you not undersanding the situation.


RCDs represent a very cheap way of reducing a cause of injury that
affects a significant number of people in the country every year. There
are few widespread risks that are so easy to deal with in such a low
cost "fit and forget" way.

and a non sequitur.

Explain

I already have. I've shown how I assessed whether RCDs were worth
fitting.

Even if your logic were sound, that does not explain the "non sequiter"
claim.

feel free to listen to the reply first

You have carried out an assessment ignoring the most relevant parts of
the data, and focussed your attention on a very small subset.

in your opinion. Many don't see risk assessment that way. Your faulty injury assessment is a good example of why.

You simply did not address the necessary points in order to
reach a reason based case on the question of whether its a good
things to install your RCDs.

Maybe some of us just aren't into risk assessment.

You think... I wonder who?

I've offered a clear risk & cost asessment,

Which only demonstrated you have failed to asses the facts.

rather it confirms that we differ on what's most important, and what actually are the facts. Your injury stats are, I'm sorry to say, bunk.


snip
It results
in people spending on tiny risks and consequently neglecting the big
ones. No-one has the resources to address all risks, so the sensible
approach is to prioritise the ones we can reduce the most.

I would agree with that.

That is
evidently not RCDs, unless you've effectively tackled a fairly long
list of others already.

Much depends on what is on your list. Fix the loose stair carpet at the
top of the stairs, do something about the ancient boiler that makes you
feel all drowsy every time its fired up. If there is water running down
the walls, and mould everywhere you may have more urgent fish to fry.

the top 10 killers or death risks aren't those things, at least for over 99% of us. Most people have not even dealt with the top few.

I say put the time & money towards doing something about one of those instead, you'll get over 1000x the risk reduction benefit.


NT