Frank Erskine wrote:
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:18:11 GMT, Tony Bryer
wrote:
http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtime...h_campaign.php
According to the above, 110 people die each year from faulty
electrical installations.
However, the Times says that 10 people die of the same causes.
Who are we to believe?
The relevant numbers are (unsurprisingly) much closer to the
Thunderer's, than the local rag's reprinting of a half-digested
inaccurate press release from a clueless MP whose generically half-arsed
approach to thinking is further coloured by involvment in a (more or
less freak) family tragedy relevant to electrical safety.
In RoSPA's own pro-regulatory statement, now at
http://www.rospa.org.uk/productsafet...electrical.htm
we read as follows:
"There was an increase in electrical injuries in the home involving
fixed appliances, particularly portable equipment between 1990 and 1998,
but the ownership of such appliances also rose considerably during the
period."
There's a highly relevant and fundamental confusion here between "fixed
appliances" and "portable equipment". These are mutually exclusive
categories - so how can portable equipment be a "particular" sub-case of
"fixed appliances"? They probably mean "electrical appliances", of which
portable equipment is indeed a sub-case - and which account for the
majority of deaths, as we read in the rest of the paragraph:
"Fixed electrical installations were involved in around 5 fatalities and
576 non-fatal injuries each year in England and Wales between 1990 and
1998. Non-portable and portable equipment were involved in 14 fatalities
and 1,700 non-fatal injuries during the same period."
So far, then, we're talking about less than 20 deaths a year. Only a
quarter of these are relevant to Part P issues - product safety is what
determines the safety-of-construction for appliances, whether fixed or
portable; while what actually causes the deaths and injuries is (however
incorrect it is to say so) idiocy on the part of ordinary people doing
extraordinarily daft things.
Well, 5-deaths-a-year is a bit too low to get a major campaign going. So
what else can RoSPA add to the mix? Ahh - let's reach across to fires
where electrical faults appear to be the cause. Let's not worry too much
about the difference between "appear to be" and "have been established
to be beyond reasonable doubt" - most fire-investigator types are pretty
thorough and don't tend to incant "oh it must've been electrical"
without at least some decent evidence of a major contribution from
something electrical. So we read further:
"around 25 die and 590 are injured as a result of fires caused by faulty
electrical equipment and wiring each year in England and Wales in the
12,500 fires each year reported as having an electrical source of ignition."
That's useful - if we can suggest there are more deaths and
lots-and-lots of fires caused by Electrical Stuff, then the argument for
Doing Something is strengthened.
But what's missing from the figures on fires? Well, there's no breakdown
for fixed-wiring-faults - as addressed by Part P - compared to
use-of-appliance faults. And as far as I understand it, those fires
"reported as having an electrical source of ignition" includes the
common idiocy of covering up electrical heaters with clothes (to dry
them) to the point where the heater ignites the clothes. And they'd
include overloading sockets, using poorly-fitting mains extensions, and
quite possibly kitchen fires (chip pans and the like) where the cooking
appliance is electrical. And lint catching fire in tumble dryers.
So, we have 5 fatalities a year caused by fixed-wiring faults, plus an
unknown proportion of 25 fire-related ones. If it's as much as half of
the latter (quite unlikely IMHO), that's 20 deaths - double the Times
figure. If it's one-in-5, then we get the Times figure of 10 in total.
Even at 20, that's two day's worth of road fatalities. Can you say
"disproportionate"? Can you see there just might be another motive for
this regulatory move, to do with reducing the amount of tax-avoiding
cash-in-hand electrical work, which the giz-a-sub trade bodies are more
than happy to line up behind?
Stefek