4 ms·

Sadly they are slowly disappearing. Mainly because of safety reasons, they are considered dangerous.

Yuioup 11y ago
Just out of curiosity. I have never ridden one of those but what can actually go wrong? From what I can see: * You can jump in too late, thus falling an unexpected height and break your ankles. * You take too long getting in thus getting a garment/arm/leg stuck between the ceiling of the paternoster and the floor. Am I correct? Or am I missing something?
- KuchenKerze 11y ago
  I can't think of much more that could happen. My opinion is: if you are a human equipped with a brain (which functions normally) there is not much risk using an paternoster.
  - thomasz 11y ago
    I can assure you that this is a very dangerous assumption. In theory, almost all workplace safety regulations could be replaced by a "Just put up a 'don't be an idiot'" sign. But then we would have a lot of unnecessary deaths and horrible accidents. The are many reasons for this, but it mostly comes down to people being distracted and simple statistics - given enough time, even a small risk will lead to accidents.
    - KuchenKerze 11y ago
      I agree partially. But labelling a coffee cup with a notice that it is hot should not be necessary.
      - Asbostos 11y ago
        In the same way that labeling a guillotine with a notice that it could cut your fingers off should not be necessary? In both cases they seem safe because the people using them use them every day and are familiar with the risks. Unfortunately, what happens is every now and then an experienced factory worker cuts his fingers off in the same guillotine he's been operating for decades, or an old lady needs skin grafts on her legs after spilling a cup of hot coffee just like she's been drinking for decades.
        slgeorge 11y ago
        I'm not following you. Your examples are of the inherent risk in the activity or device - a person drinks coffee regularly, and then burns herself after drinking safely for years - this is just a risk of a hot drink, it could happen at any time. Having a sign on the item doesn't impact the risk for a regular user: the regular user knows the risks, and will ignore signs they see all the time. Signs might protect a new user - 'this is a guillotine if you hit the button it will cut your hand off'. Is that the point your making?
      - seanp2k2 11y ago
        Or car window stickers which are hard to remove and designed to be permanent stating the risks of driving a car. Also, the warnings printed onto the interior visors about child seats.
  - sirtaj 11y ago
    Any system of any kind is doomed to failure if it is designed around the requirement that humans behave infallibly at all times. Everyone is a distracted idiot some of the time.
    - samatman 11y ago
      True story: I dropped some luggage while getting onto a down escalator. It very nearly kneecapped someone who was old enough to be badly injured. We were lucky, it was a very close thing. :\ Convenience vs. acceptable risk, with a certain amount of 'cool and rare' factor. Moving human bodies around is inherently dangerous.
      - sirtaj 11y ago
        Not surprising, escalators injure more than ten thousand people a year in the US alone, particularly the elderly. Moving people is dangerous, agreed, but if we gave in too quickly to the "just behave sensibly" people, our cars would still be the relative death-traps they were just thirty or so years ago. And that's just one example.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Uneven floor means increased risk of trips and falls. Considerable effort is spent on reducing falls because they're a cause of a lot of avoidable injury. There have been some deaths caused by paternosters. The number (5 between 1970 and 1993) is tiny, but there aren't that many paternosters. A man died in 2012 when he fell into the shaft. We probably shouldn't be installing more paternosters unlesss we come up with safer designs. I don't think we should be closing the existing examples.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    If we're worried about trips and falls, staircases should be banned. Yet it's a recent "healthy living" and "sustainability" trend at workplaces to encourage people to take the stairs (gives you a bit of exercise and also saves electricity). I wonder if these benefits have ever been compared to the increase in worker-compensation injury claims from stairway falls.
- dcminter 11y ago
  The one I used to use at Heathrow had hinged flaps as the flooring at the entrance so that if you caught a foot over the edge it would lift up with your foot ameliorating that second risk. I think the main danger of serious injury (rather than a bruise or sprain) was people carrying overlarge objects into the paternoster. I was in the building when one snapped a ladder and it was pretty noisy. The overall risk is low but probably higher than that of a conventional lift although paternosters should be far more efficient.
- Someone 11y ago
  With a bare bones designe, if you are unlucky, your arm/leg won't get stuck, but get crushed or detached (violently) Step out a tad too late while going down and trip on the unexpected step up you have to make, and a few seconds later, the top of the box may break your ankle. The falling _will_ happen, in particular to elderly with weaker bones, so you will have to come up with a solution that stops the device _fast_ if that happens. At the same time, for reliability, the device shouldn't come to a stop if someone heavy steps or jumps into a box.
VMG 11y ago
are they?
einrealist 11y ago
Security is not the main issue. The main issue is accessibility. A disabled person or a person with a baby carriage cannot use them. It becomes a security issue when they do. 100 years ago, accessibility was not an issue.
- rawTruthHurts 11y ago
  100 years later, security still is an issue.
- KuchenKerze 11y ago
  I often see them beside elevators, so accessibility is not always the problem.
  - einrealist 11y ago
    That is true. But they can be out of order or simply around a corner. We are sometimes suffering from tunnel vision or overestimate our abilities and realize mistakes too late.
- nemo44x 11y ago
  It isn't much different than an escalator. Escalators are fairly unsafe and not very accessible with children and the elderly the most common victims in terms of injury and death. Quite a few people die every year on escalator's from tripping, falling and other things.
  - einrealist 11y ago
    True. Maybe the escalator industry has a bigger lobby. ;)
    - animefan 11y ago
      Accessibility is itself something can can be and is lobbied for. Compared with many smaller interests, like specific kinds of business, this lobby may even be considered powerful.
brillenfux 11y ago
I think you mean safety. Nobody is going to compromise those things any time soon.
- KuchenKerze 11y ago
  Yes, I meant safety :) Thanks
Kurtz79 11y ago
As fun as they seem to be, they definitely sound dangerous, especially with kids around. I wonder if they couldn't be retrofitted with some safety device, like sensors stopping the motion if some object crosses the door when the elevator is above a certain height, respective to the floor.

Just out of curiosity. I have never ridden one of those but what can actually go wrong? From what I can see: * You can jump in too late, thus falling an unexpected height and break your ankles. * You take too long getting in thus getting a garment/arm/leg stuck between the ceiling of the paternoster and the floor. Am I correct? Or am I missing something?

KuchenKerze 11y ago
I can't think of much more that could happen. My opinion is: if you are a human equipped with a brain (which functions normally) there is not much risk using an paternoster.
- thomasz 11y ago
  I can assure you that this is a very dangerous assumption. In theory, almost all workplace safety regulations could be replaced by a "Just put up a 'don't be an idiot'" sign. But then we would have a lot of unnecessary deaths and horrible accidents. The are many reasons for this, but it mostly comes down to people being distracted and simple statistics - given enough time, even a small risk will lead to accidents.
  - KuchenKerze 11y ago
    I agree partially. But labelling a coffee cup with a notice that it is hot should not be necessary.
    - Asbostos 11y ago
      In the same way that labeling a guillotine with a notice that it could cut your fingers off should not be necessary? In both cases they seem safe because the people using them use them every day and are familiar with the risks. Unfortunately, what happens is every now and then an experienced factory worker cuts his fingers off in the same guillotine he's been operating for decades, or an old lady needs skin grafts on her legs after spilling a cup of hot coffee just like she's been drinking for decades.
      - slgeorge 11y ago
        I'm not following you. Your examples are of the inherent risk in the activity or device - a person drinks coffee regularly, and then burns herself after drinking safely for years - this is just a risk of a hot drink, it could happen at any time. Having a sign on the item doesn't impact the risk for a regular user: the regular user knows the risks, and will ignore signs they see all the time. Signs might protect a new user - 'this is a guillotine if you hit the button it will cut your hand off'. Is that the point your making?
    - seanp2k2 11y ago
      Or car window stickers which are hard to remove and designed to be permanent stating the risks of driving a car. Also, the warnings printed onto the interior visors about child seats.
- sirtaj 11y ago
  Any system of any kind is doomed to failure if it is designed around the requirement that humans behave infallibly at all times. Everyone is a distracted idiot some of the time.
  - samatman 11y ago
    True story: I dropped some luggage while getting onto a down escalator. It very nearly kneecapped someone who was old enough to be badly injured. We were lucky, it was a very close thing. :\ Convenience vs. acceptable risk, with a certain amount of 'cool and rare' factor. Moving human bodies around is inherently dangerous.
    - sirtaj 11y ago
      Not surprising, escalators injure more than ten thousand people a year in the US alone, particularly the elderly. Moving people is dangerous, agreed, but if we gave in too quickly to the "just behave sensibly" people, our cars would still be the relative death-traps they were just thirty or so years ago. And that's just one example.
DanBC 11y ago
Uneven floor means increased risk of trips and falls. Considerable effort is spent on reducing falls because they're a cause of a lot of avoidable injury. There have been some deaths caused by paternosters. The number (5 between 1970 and 1993) is tiny, but there aren't that many paternosters. A man died in 2012 when he fell into the shaft. We probably shouldn't be installing more paternosters unlesss we come up with safer designs. I don't think we should be closing the existing examples.
- ams6110 11y ago
  If we're worried about trips and falls, staircases should be banned. Yet it's a recent "healthy living" and "sustainability" trend at workplaces to encourage people to take the stairs (gives you a bit of exercise and also saves electricity). I wonder if these benefits have ever been compared to the increase in worker-compensation injury claims from stairway falls.
dcminter 11y ago
The one I used to use at Heathrow had hinged flaps as the flooring at the entrance so that if you caught a foot over the edge it would lift up with your foot ameliorating that second risk. I think the main danger of serious injury (rather than a bruise or sprain) was people carrying overlarge objects into the paternoster. I was in the building when one snapped a ladder and it was pretty noisy. The overall risk is low but probably higher than that of a conventional lift although paternosters should be far more efficient.
Someone 11y ago
With a bare bones designe, if you are unlucky, your arm/leg won't get stuck, but get crushed or detached (violently) Step out a tad too late while going down and trip on the unexpected step up you have to make, and a few seconds later, the top of the box may break your ankle. The falling _will_ happen, in particular to elderly with weaker bones, so you will have to come up with a solution that stops the device _fast_ if that happens. At the same time, for reliability, the device shouldn't come to a stop if someone heavy steps or jumps into a box.

VMG 11y ago

are they?

einrealist 11y ago

Security is not the main issue. The main issue is accessibility. A disabled person or a person with a baby carriage cannot use them. It becomes a security issue when they do. 100 years ago, accessibility was not an issue.

rawTruthHurts 11y ago
100 years later, security still is an issue.
KuchenKerze 11y ago
I often see them beside elevators, so accessibility is not always the problem.
- einrealist 11y ago
  That is true. But they can be out of order or simply around a corner. We are sometimes suffering from tunnel vision or overestimate our abilities and realize mistakes too late.
nemo44x 11y ago
It isn't much different than an escalator. Escalators are fairly unsafe and not very accessible with children and the elderly the most common victims in terms of injury and death. Quite a few people die every year on escalator's from tripping, falling and other things.
- einrealist 11y ago
  True. Maybe the escalator industry has a bigger lobby. ;)
  - animefan 11y ago
    Accessibility is itself something can can be and is lobbied for. Compared with many smaller interests, like specific kinds of business, this lobby may even be considered powerful.

brillenfux 11y ago

I think you mean safety. Nobody is going to compromise those things any time soon.

KuchenKerze 11y ago
Yes, I meant safety :) Thanks

Kurtz79 11y ago

As fun as they seem to be, they definitely sound dangerous, especially with kids around. I wonder if they couldn't be retrofitted with some safety device, like sensors stopping the motion if some object crosses the door when the elevator is above a certain height, respective to the floor.