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. 

Tape over 9V batteries

A good tip about fire safety and batteries. Tape over or cap the terminals of batteries when they are loose!

Starting a fire with a 9 Volt battery and steel wool is a quite know trick. 9 Volt batteries are easy to short, both terminals are right next to each other. So any piece of metal can touch them and short them out.  Even if the materials shorting the terminals might not catch fire, the batteries does get extremely hot and can cause combustibles nearby to burn. So remember when tossing 9 Volt batteries in a bag of other batteries or in your junk draw, tape or cap them!

A far more detailed rapport about 9V battery issues can be found here at Richard Friedrich lab journal: http://friedrichengineering.com/web_documents/9volt%20Battery.pdf

Unintended side effects: Attachment strings and lanyards.

There are plenty of situations when you do not want to lose/drop something: In the water, working with heights or just critical equipment you need and simple can't afford to loose. One method to prevent lose, is to tie it  to something.  This can be a simple string, lanyard or something like a ‘gear keeper’ (retractable cable).

This method does have some problems:

- When the string/lanyard is long, this can cause a entanglement or strangle hazard. A brake away system which fails before this happens can prevent this danger.

- If the string connects two pieces of equipment, which need to be connected to each other be used. The string can cause the pieces of equipment to act like there are connected properly. For example: a belay/ rope backup device which need to be connected to the users using a carabiner. I have seen people attaching a rope backup device (a Petzl ASAP, warning about this on the petzl website) to the rope, but failed to connect it to the harness using the carabiner. He did not notice this, because the string cause the ASAP to follow him as it is suppose too. The string is not strong enough to replace the carabiner making the backup setup useless.

- A sting can get stuck inside various devices and defeat the working parts or cause a device to be left open (example, getting stuck at the gate of a carabiner) or a tangled up lanyard just gets in the way of a button (a swivel helps against this issue). The petzl link already methode above, also shows this danger when using the ASAP.

Note; I have no connection with Petzl, I have worked with Petzl equipment and that is why I knew these instruction of Petzl.

Unsafe: Unsafe powerstrips

A very good example of very usafe powerstrips

The connection between the cable and sockets is fully exposed. High shock risk if you touch the bottom part.

On the other side of the cable...

Do you know what is worst? Found this at a firestation. 

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.

Texting and driving

Everybody knows texting and driving is dangerous, increasing the chance of a accident up to 23 times (depending on the size of vehicle), but still people text while driving.

How do we educate people to change there behavior?

Do we make a website: http://www.distraction.gov/ ? (USA)

Do we show (not to graphic) footage? (South Africa)

Do we make TV commercials? (Australia)

Do we add this in to popular TV series (USA)?

Do we make a documentary? (USA)

Do we make a graphic drama's about it? (this is a trailer) (UK)

So what works best? Well it depends on the local culture and your target audience. It's very hard to determine how much effect a campaign actually has. But after seeing these video, maybe you won't be texting  while driving.

Unsafe work situations: Welding cable connections

Sometimes you get surprised by what you see. These are pictures I made on a work site.