I think warning stickers are just an odd artifact of an adversarial legal system designed to achieve safer products and services. People don't 'need' 40 safety

I think warning stickers are just an odd artifact of an adversarial legal system designed to achieve safer products and services. People don't 'need' 40 safety stickers on a ladder or a 'warning: hot' label on a cup of coffee. In litigating personal injury suits, plaintiff's lawyers simply use e.g. lack of a sticker as grounds for a claim. The defendant says fine and adds another sticker. It's a messy system that sometimes results in pointless measures, but overall it has resulted in goods and services being much safer than they otherwise would be. And if the coffee reference refers to the McDonald's case, I think that one is totally different: they handed that lady a 180+ deg cup of liquid - that was negligent of them.