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You can look at it from another point of view: elevators have so many safety mechanisms nowadays that they can fall 84 floors and still not cause any injuries t

You can look at it from another point of view: elevators have so many safety mechanisms nowadays that they can fall 84 floors and still not cause any injuries to their passengers.

icebraining 8y ago
Plus even such a "non-event" is news, because it happens to rarely.
starpilot 8y ago
Yeah, I'd be way more interested in the safety mechanism behind how these people got out unscathed vs the rescue effort. This is really impressive engineering.
snuxoll 8y ago
Per mile travelled, (modern) elevators are literally the safest form of transit ever developed by our species. They are rather impressive devices from a safety perspective, somebody else linked the video in the thread so I'll chime in and say I highly recommend the defcon video "From the Pit to the Penthouse".
- OscarCunningham 8y ago
  > Per mile travelled, (modern) elevators are literally the safest form of transit ever developed by our species. Aeroplanes are at 0.05 deaths per billion km. There are around 30 deaths due to elevators in the US each year. So for elevators to be safer people would need to be traveling 600 billion km in elevators each year. The population of the US is around 300 million, so each person would need to average 1000km a year, or around 3km a day. Even people in tall skyscrapers probably don't hit that number on too many days.
  - xoa 8y ago
    Definitely, I don't think aircraft can be beat on a fatalities/distance basis given not just their sheer distance covered by their uniformity and professional standards of maintenance. There are still plenty of ancient elevators around, and plenty that don't receive the upkeep they should (granted that's always been an issue for a lot of general infrastructure). That said elevators are still pretty safe, and are you sure that "due to" part is appropriate to use in a passenger perspective thread? >There are around 30 deaths due to* elevators in the US each year* I last looked at it many years ago so I don't have current sources, but the numbers presented by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Consumer Product Safety Commission indicated that around half the deaths (14/30 at that point) were those working near or with elevators, not the passengers. That is of course an important issue, but it's also a different one then in-use operational safety mechanisms, and I don't think airline rates cover on the ground maintenance deaths either. That stats I remember from around 5 years ago were that there were something like 900,000 elevators operating in the US and about 18 billion trips a year. So in terms of "get on the moving box, arrive safely" they still look pretty good. All this is US centric granted, it wouldn't surprise me if there are countries where elevator deaths are much lower, though then again I'm sure there are places where maintenance is worse too. Aircraft are somewhat unique from a safety perspective in terms of not just themselves but the entire system built up around them worldwide.
    - OscarCunningham 8y ago
      > I last looked at it many years ago so I don't have current sources, but the numbers presented by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Consumer Product Safety Commission indicated that around half the deaths (14/30 at that point) were those working near or with elevators, not the passengers. That is of course an important issue, but it's also a different one then in-use operational safety mechanisms, and I don't think airline rates cover on the ground maintenance deaths either. Sure, but I decided it didn't really matter since I don't think that people in the US even average 100m in an elevator every day, so even if only one person died every year aeroplanes would still be safer. The other option for "safest vehicle" I considered was spacecraft. Even though they have a high mortality-per-journey I thought that maybe they travelled so far that they would come out looking pretty good per-mile. But, as it turns out, the moon isn't far enough away.
  - agurk 8y ago
    Looking at wikipedia [0] they also list deaths per billion journeys and per billion hours. Following on from your assumptions, these give the following: At 117 deaths per billion journeys, only 256 million would be required, which would be fewer than one journey per person per annum. So lifts are much safer per journey. For 30.8 deaths per billion hours it would be just under a billion hours needed (or 3.25 hours per person per year, ~0.5 minutes a day). I would imagine per minute this would put lifts and air travel at a similar risk per minute. Wikipedia doesn't state if these are for general aviation or just commercial operations, which would skew the numbers considerably. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comparisons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comp...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- ams6110 8y ago
  It's funny that many workplaces encourage using the stairs for health and fitness reasons, when you're much more likely to suffer serious injury or death in a slip and fall on the stairs than getting hurt in an elevator.

You can look at it from another point of view: elevators have so many safety mechanisms nowadays that they can fall 84 floors and still not cause any injuries to their passengers.

icebraining 8y ago

Plus even such a "non-event" is news, because it happens to rarely.

starpilot 8y ago

Yeah, I'd be way more interested in the safety mechanism behind how these people got out unscathed vs the rescue effort. This is really impressive engineering.

snuxoll 8y ago

Per mile travelled, (modern) elevators are literally the safest form of transit ever developed by our species. They are rather impressive devices from a safety perspective, somebody else linked the video in the thread so I'll chime in and say I highly recommend the defcon video "From the Pit to the Penthouse".

OscarCunningham 8y ago
> Per mile travelled, (modern) elevators are literally the safest form of transit ever developed by our species. Aeroplanes are at 0.05 deaths per billion km. There are around 30 deaths due to elevators in the US each year. So for elevators to be safer people would need to be traveling 600 billion km in elevators each year. The population of the US is around 300 million, so each person would need to average 1000km a year, or around 3km a day. Even people in tall skyscrapers probably don't hit that number on too many days.
- xoa 8y ago
  Definitely, I don't think aircraft can be beat on a fatalities/distance basis given not just their sheer distance covered by their uniformity and professional standards of maintenance. There are still plenty of ancient elevators around, and plenty that don't receive the upkeep they should (granted that's always been an issue for a lot of general infrastructure). That said elevators are still pretty safe, and are you sure that "due to" part is appropriate to use in a passenger perspective thread? >There are around 30 deaths due to* elevators in the US each year* I last looked at it many years ago so I don't have current sources, but the numbers presented by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Consumer Product Safety Commission indicated that around half the deaths (14/30 at that point) were those working near or with elevators, not the passengers. That is of course an important issue, but it's also a different one then in-use operational safety mechanisms, and I don't think airline rates cover on the ground maintenance deaths either. That stats I remember from around 5 years ago were that there were something like 900,000 elevators operating in the US and about 18 billion trips a year. So in terms of "get on the moving box, arrive safely" they still look pretty good. All this is US centric granted, it wouldn't surprise me if there are countries where elevator deaths are much lower, though then again I'm sure there are places where maintenance is worse too. Aircraft are somewhat unique from a safety perspective in terms of not just themselves but the entire system built up around them worldwide.
  - OscarCunningham 8y ago
    > I last looked at it many years ago so I don't have current sources, but the numbers presented by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Consumer Product Safety Commission indicated that around half the deaths (14/30 at that point) were those working near or with elevators, not the passengers. That is of course an important issue, but it's also a different one then in-use operational safety mechanisms, and I don't think airline rates cover on the ground maintenance deaths either. Sure, but I decided it didn't really matter since I don't think that people in the US even average 100m in an elevator every day, so even if only one person died every year aeroplanes would still be safer. The other option for "safest vehicle" I considered was spacecraft. Even though they have a high mortality-per-journey I thought that maybe they travelled so far that they would come out looking pretty good per-mile. But, as it turns out, the moon isn't far enough away.
- agurk 8y ago
  Looking at wikipedia [0] they also list deaths per billion journeys and per billion hours. Following on from your assumptions, these give the following: At 117 deaths per billion journeys, only 256 million would be required, which would be fewer than one journey per person per annum. So lifts are much safer per journey. For 30.8 deaths per billion hours it would be just under a billion hours needed (or 3.25 hours per person per year, ~0.5 minutes a day). I would imagine per minute this would put lifts and air travel at a similar risk per minute. Wikipedia doesn't state if these are for general aviation or just commercial operations, which would skew the numbers considerably. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comparisons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comp...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ams6110 8y ago
It's funny that many workplaces encourage using the stairs for health and fitness reasons, when you're much more likely to suffer serious injury or death in a slip and fall on the stairs than getting hurt in an elevator.