Light weight electric vehicles crash worthiness

With increasingly more attention to global emissions and local pollution, electric vehicles are getting more popular. There are a few way of making electric vehicles. One way is to make a electric car like a gasoline car in size and weight. The other way is to make a lighter type of vehicle. This increasingly is causing concern in crashes between light weight vehicles and regular vehicles.

The IIHS already published there finding on low speed vehicles (or mini trucks) in 2010

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/low-speed-vehicles-and-minitrucks-shouldnt-share-busy-public-roads-with-regular-traffic

Euroncap made a test for what is referred to as  ‘quadricycles’. US and European vehicle classes are not the same so it’s hard to compare them directly, but these vehicles are also light weight and do not have to meet the same regulation as ‘normal’ vehicles on the road.

http://www.euroncap.com/results/quadricycles.aspx

Light weight vehicles generally do not perform well against regular traffic. Something to keep in mind when buying and driving such vehicles. 

Helmet do they work or they they not work; ski / snowboard helmets

There is a lot of discussion about helmets. For proffesional use; contractors, rescue personal, etc they are pretty much mandatory and not much discussion going down there.

However when it comes down to helmets are recreation, this becomes a discussion. Does a helmet save you from a climbing accident? bike crash? a ski/snowboard crash? Ice skate crash?

Well all sports have there discussion, different dangers and different helmet regulations. Here are some interesting information about ski and snowboard helmets:

http://skicanadamag.com/2011/12/05/gear/helmet-science

http://www.ski-injury.com/prevention/helmet

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/sports/on-slopes-rise-in-helmet-use-but-no-decline-in-brain-injuries.html?_r=0

In the end the basic conclusion is that a helmet won't increased your survival rate when you hit a stationary object (rock, tree) with high speeds. It does protect your head from slower impacts, which would be far more harmful if no helmet is worn.

Nice short video from NGC about keys

Nice short video from NGC about keys. I knew you could copy a keys from pictures, but I honestly haven't though of the 3D printer yet. 

Entanglement hazard: the scarf

Some people think i'm weird for tying loose end or having break away lanyards on things attached to me. Even a common item like a scarf can dangerous.

Here is a story from Fox news abaout a womam being killed due to a scarf getting caught on a escalator.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/01/30/canadian-woman-strangled-by-scarf-on-escalator/

Or a famous in the thirties dancer Isadora Duncan, whom died because of her scarf getting caught on the spokes of the open car she was in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isadora_Duncan

Cover your webcam

Cameras  are showing up more and more on different kinds of electronics we are using; smart TVs. computers, tablets, phones, etc. Most of these will be connected to the internet and there for will be venerable for hackers. Although common sense (don’t click on certain things) and antivirus suites help, it’s certainly not a guarantee that nobody will be able to access your webcam. Even LED indicator lights from webcams can be disabled by hackers. So one sure way to stop others from watching you using your camera’s is to tape it off.

Here are some links about this subject: From the Norton website:

http://us.norton.com/yoursecurityresource/detail.jsp?aid=webcam_hacking

The Washington post did a article about this. Which is also a warning for Apple users whom thing they are invaluable to viruses.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/18/research-shows-how-macbook-webcams-can-spy-on-their-users-without-warning/

Emergency lighting at home

Emergency lights can be found on commercial or high occupancy buildings. Different countries have different law regarding to emergency lights. Some country’s require a combination of emergency lighting and lit emergency exit signs, while others only require lit emergency exit sign lights. Some countries want emergency exits light mounted high, while other low. In some cases the emergency exits light are always  turned on and sometimes it’s lit when the power fails.

On private residential structures, there generally are no rules for emergency lighting. The same challenges does exist when the power goes out. You need to be able to see to safely move around and in emergency's to find a way out safely. People should be aware that external lights from neighbors or streetlights will not be on, if the power interruption is not limited to your house. This means the little light from outside that allows you to see in the dark, is not there. So putting flashlights on a fixed location, might not be a great solution without any additional markings. Using commercial emergency lighting can be a bit expensive for regular consumers, there are a two options consumers can take:

- There are rechargeable flashlights  available, which will automatically turn on when the power goes out and when the light is pulled from the holder/socket. Often these lights are also equipped with an indicator/night light, so you can find them for normal use. (For example: Eton ARCBB200W DBL Blackout Buddy (USA), Olympia LED NL300 (German) or Alecto LED ATL-120W (Dutch / Belgium)). The advantage and disadvantage is that they will turn on, when they power goes out. They are usually aimed at the ceiling and the light will reflect of the ceiling and illuminate the room.

- Other options would be a flashlight with glow in the dark markings (make sure these are exposed during the daylights) or a Beta-Marker. This option does not require a power socket and does not continuously consume power (although a trickle charger does not use that much).

The flashlight with automatic turn on switch are probably the best option as a home emergency lighting. However sometimes you don't need a light when the power goes down. If you are sleeping, there is not much you can do if the powerline goes down and in most cases (in my country) the power is restored pretty quickly. So you might as well continue to sleep (a backup battery in your alarm clock is always nice) and find a light when you do need light. So choose the appropriate option for different rooms.

Insulation, what to use for a emergency kit.

One of most impotent things to keep you alive are clothing and other form of insulation like a blanket of sleeping bag. Proper closing can in extreme conditions mean the difference between life and dead. In our modern world the primary role of clothing; protecting you from the environment, is of less important. There are heated cars and buildings everywhere. A lot of people cloth them self's fashionable, but not necessarily practical.

There are many article on the internet about outdoor clothing. This is a very good place to start when you are setting up clothing for your emergency preparedness. The basics are a three layer system:
- Under layer to wick away moisture from the skin
- Insulation to keep warm
- Wind proof and water proof/resistant layer to keep the weather out

There is however a important difference with the outdoors. For emergency kits, you need clothing that can be stored compacted for long periods of time and preferable durable enough to be used in less than optimal conditions.

There isn't much difference between outdoor under layers and emergency clothing. Insulation layer is a different story. With a move to ever lighter and smaller equipment, synthetic fiber or down filled jackets have been appearing as a insulating layer, replacing the traditional wool or fleece. In a preparedness point of view this lighter and smaller alternative to wool and fleece is not a solution. Emergency equipment is generally stored in kits or containers for years. This means equipment is compressed for longer periods of time. Synthetic or down require the fibers to loft to create insulation. Compressing them for long periods of time will reduce there lofting ability and making them less insulating (we are talking years on end here). Compressing fiber insulation for the first time, will cause the most reduction in loft. The compression after that are still harmful in the long term, but not as bad as the first time. If you are planning to replace them every few years, than you could use fiber based insulation. Not compressing them is also a option when space is not a issue. Wool and fleece do not compress well, but they do retain there insulating value in long term storage. They are also generally a lot more hard wearing than the insulating or down filled jackets (these generally have super thin and light outer shells).

I would also recommend fleece over wool. Fleece is much cheaper, lighter and dries out far quicker. Wool itches, stays wet for long periods of time and make you smell like a wet dog. Wool does however protects against spark, while fleece doesn't.

For the outer layer, the ultralight exteriors (Pac-lites, etc) are to vulnerable. Choose a stronger version, preferable with reinforcements on hard wearing locations. Thicker, more durable outer layers generally don't breath as well, so choose one with ventilation zips to get moisture out.

The problem with the insulating jackets not only apply to clothing, but also to sleeping bags and blankets. Synthetic and down sleeping bags are also not suitable for long term compressed storage. So use fleece or wool blankets, unless you want to replace the bag every few years. One other note, if sleeping bags are store in a reasonable accessible location (compressed or not), they will probably be abused and used a moving blankets. Things need to be moved in warehouses and moving blankets can be hard to find...

Cheap handcrank lights

I see a lot of people raving about hand crank lights. ‘Crank a few times and when I turn the light on, it will burn of hours’. That is simply not true. A good hand crank light, should have a build in capacitor or battery which will store the energy which has been generated. But this will generally not last more than 15 – 30 minutes, not hours. There is only so much power your arms can produce in a short period of time. Let have  a look at internals of this light and see what we find.

When you take this light apart, you will actually find working sprockets, a free wheelie and a little dynamo connected to the LED. These are connected directly to the LED and are not actually charging anything. So all the light being produced while cranking this light, is the only light you are creating when cranking. 

The switch on top of the light is the switch for the battery part of the light. There are two CR2032 (non-rechargeable) batteries, wired to the LED and the little switch. This makes up for a separate power circuit in the light to battery drive the light. 

The crank part of this light is not really impressive and will drive you nuts when the batteries have gone flat. But at least it does have a working crank system. There are even fake crank (or shake) lights, which doesn’t have a working system at all and only contain a little battery. Which means they are very large and heavy button cell lights. Just like anything else, there are no cheap ways to deal with this. Either buy a proper (expensive) one and crank/shake a lot or just get a proper battery powered one and store plenty of batteries. 

First aid kit expiration date

In the past first aid kits did not had any expiration dates on them. Then with government regulations, liability issues and commercial reasons first aid items started to receive expiration dates. These dates have important functions, but can also be misunderstood. 

Medication

Some medication can be highly sensitive to age or storage conditions, but many are not. Interesting tests are done by the US military: http://www.defense.gov/news/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=44979

One important note, a quote from Army Maj. Marc Caouette, a pharmacy consultant assigned at the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency at Fort Detrick, Md. said. “The worst possible place you can keep any medications is in a wet, hot environment. It’s the worst area to maintain stability. A cool, dry place is best to store drugs.”

Bandages and other first aid items
Does gauze, dressings, tape, space blankets and other first aid items expire? if the packaging is still intact the items inside the package should be still sterile. However the items inside can degrade over time. The glue on tape can degrade and loose there stickiness or turn in to a goo. Elastic bandages can lose their elastic properties. Space blankets can start to stick and you will rip it in to piece when you try to fold the blanket out. These are also effected by the storage conditions. First aid equipment stored at a dry cool dark place at home or in a car exposed to extreme temperature swings have effects on your equipment.

Tools
While shears, tweezers and other tools generally stay useful for a long time. They are cheap and when they are dirty, especially when contaminated with blood or other body fluids are best considered to be disposable. I personally don't believe in really expensive shears, since they get dirty or get lost all the time.

Emergency aid; Donations and logistics

After an disaster emergency aid will start to flow to the affected area. Some are from local organization, some larger (inter)national organizations and some from private persons. One important thing is not just to send 'stuff', make sure you send the right stuff. A lot of people will basically donate things they don't use anymore. Paying off the guilty of buying things they didn’t need. Make sure whatever you are donating is actually useful. I mean things like sending winter coats to a tropical place or high heels to any disaster area is absolutely useless and actually harmful (it clogs up the logistics).

If a lot of (appropriate) items are donated don't just send items and dump it at the local emergency center and expect it to be useful. Things are useless without the required logistics and resources to use it. With logistics and resources, I mean everything between needed to get things off trucks and all the way in to the hands of those whom need it in a useful form. Buying things locally and using existing logistical systems are the quickest and most cost effective methods. Buying things means full control over the type of product, limited sorting required and pretty much ready to use. So in most cases cash donations are the best. However a lot people won’t donate money, because of all kinds of reasons.

Another thing to know is, when something is needed. Sent the right things at the right time. Having the items at the wrong time, means you are clogging the limited logistic system with things that are not needed yet. Don't be surprised to see pallet loads of items being pushed away in to any available space, including grass patches or even ditches to make space for priority items. These pallets will sit exposed for days and depending on what the contents are turn useless.

Some things about the various types of donations:

Textiles (clothing's and blankets): After a disaster a lot of textiles gets donated. This process is not just sending the bags full of clothing to a disaster area. To make textile donations effective, the clothing need to be sorted between useful and useless, cleaned and sorted to type and size. Than they need to be shipped and distributed. All these steps take a lot of man power and time. This takes too much time (=money) and old donated textiles are often sold as rages and the money is used by NGO's for the recovery effort or other emergency's.

Food: You can't just send food. For example sending just trucks loads of potatoes is useless. You can't eat them raw, so you need lots of cookware, stoves and people to turn potatoes in to something you can eat. A healthy diet is needed to keep people's immune system up, so you can't just send just a few food items. Nor does everybody eat the same due to religion, moral issues or allergies. So the challenge is to send food and required tools to feed people. What this should be depends on the situation, on the available resource, logistics and manpower. Generally food is sourced locally, because of the availability and they are familiar for the locals. But MRE type of foods can be very useful if there are limited cooking methods available.

Water: Bottled water have its place, but water purification units can be better. Bottled water needs to shipped in and leave a lot of waste. However they do provide ready to use water in a easy to distribute package. A purification unit might be bigger than a shipment of bottled water, but will produce far more water. This means a lot less distribution is needed. Freeing people and resource for other important tasks. Again what is right depends on the situation.

Good read on this subject:
http://www.emergencymgmt.com/emergency-blogs/disaster-zone/the-ugly-truth-about-disaster-donations-011113.html

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/09/168946170/thanks-but-no-thanks-when-post-disaster-donations-overwhelm

The normalization of deviance

Safety rules are usually set for a good reason. Some might not be that good and need to be adjusted after careful evaluation. However if a safety margin in set there for a reason, don't bend the rules! Sometimes safety margins are crossed and nothing went wrong. Enforce safety rules and safety margin. If you don't, the fine line between safe and unsafe become blurry and shifts. If you move the safety margin instead you might end up using all the safety margin and have a accident.

There is a term for this 'The normalization of deviance" and is defined as: “The gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable. As the deviant behavior is repeated without catastrophic results, it becomes the social norm for the organization.”

This caused the NASA space shuttle Challenger explosion, because they moved the safety rule on there minimum temperature of o-rings, instead of enforcing a safety rule. In aerospace also know as go-fever; getting things done in a hurry despite high risks.

This does not only apply to NASA or other big origination, but also to you. Not wearing proper PPE(Personal protective equipment), driving through red lights, etc. Do it once and you will do it again and probably worse. Know what you are doing, be aware of the normalization of deviance and try to prevent this from causing problems.

Some interesting reads:
http://theemtspot.com/2009/10/03/the-normalization-of-deviance/

http://lmcontheline.blogspot.nl/2013/01/the-normalization-of-deviance-if-it-can.html

Getting prepared for the autumn

The seasons are changing and we are getting to the darker and colder end of the year. (unless you are on the southern hemisphere) A few things to prepare for again:

Car:

• Sunglasses in the car, to cope with the low sun.
• Use up the summer wiper fluid and top off with winter fluid (If the rest of the fluids are not freeze proof, replace them too).
• Check the windscreen wipers and replace if needed.
• Check if the winter tires are in good condition and change them when the temperature is getting low enough.
• Throw in the deicer sprays and scrapers.
• Spray/lube the doors seals to prevent freezing.
• Check if your emergency signaling (flares, LED flares, lights) are working.
• Throw in a blanket or warm clothing.
• Candles and lighters to keep the car warm if your stranded.
• Add/check you flashlights in the car.
• Add gear to free you stuck car (shovel, kitty litter, traction plates, etc)
• Keep your fuel tank reasonable full to prevent condensation .

Home:

• Check if the heater and ventilation is in good shape and maintained.
• Check CO and smoke detectors (should be done every month)
• Make sure you can get by if there is no heat available.
• Make sure you have a form of emergency lighting.
• Make sure you have emergency water on hand.
• Anti-slip door mats so you won’t slip when entering your house with wet/snow filled shoes.

Continually check the state of your equipment

Safety equipment wears and become unsafe. An example is the wire gate carabiner (Kong Argon wire) in this photo.

The wire gate should close it self completely, but in this case it sometimes stays open. The open gate rating of a carabiner is much lower than a closed one (usually about 1/3 of the closed strength) and obviously rope or slings can slip out more easily from an open gate.  

This carabiner comes from a quickdraw. A set up two carabiners with a sling used for lead climbing in sport/alpine climbing. A failure of the carabiner or the unclipping of this carabiner could end up in very painful experience if not death.

This carabiner is actually fairly new and has little wear on it. This highlights why it’s important to continually check the state of your equipment. The exterior look might give a good indication, but it does not have to be.

Lockable straps

Securing loads on a vehicle is an essential part of  driving safely. Both for the occupants of the vehicle and everything thing and everybody nearby. However straps are only good in keeping items in/on a vehicle when driving. They do not keep the load safe from theft. Straps can easily be opened and removed and/or cut with a knife.  Locking a load to a car with chains or cables are problematic. They can cause damage to the car or the load.

A very good solution are lockable straps. These are straps with lockable buckles and equipped with nylon straps with steel cables reinforcement. They work just like regular tie down straps, but with a lock. three main brands of these are:

Thule
Kanulock
Yakima

All three brands sell them in pairs and are available in various lengths. The Thule and Yakima uses one steel cable in the middle of the straps, The Kanulocks uses two steel cables, one on each side. Steel cables are generally relatively easy to cut with the right tools. The combination of nylon and cables does make it harder to cut for tools made to only cut steel. So they will not stop the determined thief, but will deter the opportunity thieves. 

Expensive is not always beter

Expensive (luxury) cars are not always beter then others. 

Check the small overlap ratings on the website of the IIHS: http://www.iihs.org/ratings/default.aspx

Which lock to choose to secure something outside.

The primary goal of a lock is to prevent things from being stolen. Sometimes you can't store something inside and you have to lock it in place outside. This can be a bicycle, generator, pump, etc.

A short list of the most commonly used locks and failure points:

Cable locks
Steel cable is made by twisting lots of steel wire in to a cable. This construction makes is vulnerable:
1: To cut a cable, you do not have to cut the full thickness of the cable. But it is possible to cut the individual wire separately. This allows cables to be defeated by fairly small pliers.
2:  To make cable you need a flexible kind of wire. To make a wire harder to cut you need a hard wire. Flexible and hard are contradictory. So cables are easy to cut with a bolt cutter.

Armored cable locks
Armored cable locks are cable locks with thick steel bushings protecting the cable. This makes it very hard for bolt cutters to cut it. However this design also has weaknesses:
1: There is a certain amount of play in the bushings, to allow the lock to be flexible. However this play is limited. If a long lever is used to twist the lock, the effective length of the bushings and cable will differ, causing the cable to be pulled out of the crimping and the end of the lock.
2: If twisting does not defeat the lock, twisting will expose small gaps between the bushing, allowing the cable to be saw through with a small hacksaw.

U-locks
U-locks are made made of relatively thick steel, making them hard to cut. The stiffness of the U-shape causes problems:
1: These locks do not stand well against torsion forces. If a bicycle is locked to a lantern pole, the entire bike can be used as a lever (by flipping the entire bike) to twist the lock open.

Segment locks
Segment locks are made of pieces of steel plate of tubing riveted together. This has the same problem as the U-locks:
1: These locks can be opened by twisting the lock, with a larger lever.

Chain locks
Chains combine stiffness and flexibility. This makes it hard to be cut by small pliers or to be twisted open. Since there are many kinds of chain locks, so here a list of things to look out for:
1. Chains can be made from regular steel or harden steel. Obviously harden steel is harder to cut.
2. A bolt cutter provide the most cutting power when it's almost closed. So it's best to make the beginning of the cut the hardest. A round shaped chain shackle has a relatively small surface area when a cut is started. A square shaped chain shackle forces a bolt cutter to cut a much bigger surface area a the beginning, making it harder to cut. A minimum thickness of 6 mm would be recommend.
3. If you need a small lock, get a lock with the closing pin covered by the last chain shackle when locked. This way the closing pin it self can not be cut directly.

A good video about the latest technology and measure to prevent accidents

Unintended side effects: Burgular safety vs. fire safety

Making your house safe from burglars/intruders means making it harder for unauthorized people to enter your house. However if your burglar protection is too good, this can create a hazard when you need to escape from your house.

Metal bars in front of the windows and reinforced doors with multiple locks can be a good way to keep people out, but they also keep out firefighters or other rescue units. Although rotary saws, chainsaws and halligan tools can clear most burglar protection, it takes time. Can you exit you house during a fire when you have placed bars in front of your windows? Can you exit the front door when you have locked them and you keys are on a table somewhere else?

Some houses even have concealed rooms or very unexpected layouts due to all kinds of modifications of the building. If your house has collapsed and you are in a well hidden safe room, can others find you and get you out? Can firefighters find you during a fire when you are in a hidden space?

Great examples seen from a firefighter perspective can be found on: http://www.vententersearch.com/?cat=29

When looking at safety, it's important to look at it in different angles. If one safety measure decreases your safety on a kind of safety, you might need to take measures to compensate this.

Secure your load in the car

The end of the summer is approaching. With all the vacation traffic in the highways. You can see how people have packed there cars for vacation. With European cars and gasoline being expensive, people buy small cars. However on holidays they still want to pack a lot of things in there cars. If this is not done properly, they can turn in to dangerous projectiles.

The ADAC (German) has done some interesting tests with badly loaded cars. Even if you can't understand German, the video's are quite clear:

And two more links (I can't seem to add windowed on the page):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WA0JnHMVNQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip497C6UZhk

Dogfooding: Don't just think of safety/security measures

Ever had have safety and/or security measure not working properly, being a source of irritation or even counter productive?

Thinking and making new safety and/or security measure can be easy, but making it work in practice with actual people not. There is a fundamental difference between what works on paper and what actually works. Safety and security measures generally have a influence on the job. The tighter the security/safety, the more it will interfere with your job. To an extend this is not a big problem. If you are working with dangerous goods of sensitive information, this will generally be accepted and it won't be a big problem. However if you over do it, it will become a problem. If employees think it's grossly overdone, rules might be crossed.

To check this, you might use a trick what programmers in the software uses: dogfooding. Getting to work with your own procedure day in, day out. Getting annoyed? Using loopholes? Bypassing it all together? Time to fix the problems which causes these behavior! You are not working with machines, but with people and by testing your own procedures this way, you might find out what works and what does not.