4 ms·

I genuinely don't see the harm of these things – I often think the issue is that lots of measures improve safety at the margins (e.g. if someone is drunk and st

I genuinely don't see the harm of these things – I often think the issue is that lots of measures improve safety at the margins (e.g. if someone is drunk and stumbling down the stairs this announcement might help them) rather than on average. That is: many safety features will produce limited tangible benefit to the average person most of the time, but they do reduce accidents which normally happen at the tail end of the distribution in more extreme circumstances.

newsclues 2y ago
You think stumbling drunk people are helped by signs and announcements?
- justinclift 2y ago
  Sometimes, probably yes? :)
  - newsclues 2y ago
    I'd love to see the research that would substantiate that, from anecdotal evidence, stumbling drunks don't read or listen to anyone.
  - jahewson 2y ago
    Ha ahahahahahah ha.
- salawat 2y ago
  There is an art to the production of low cognitive load information systems, which, as somewhat of a bonus, have the side effect of being navigable even by the mentally impaired. Don't believe it? Think about that credit card of yours. You can instigate the movement of money while so piss drunk you can't even walk! Amazing on how such care isn't put into other things.
MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
Behold, the last man.
cwillu 2y ago
Banner blindness. If 95% of safety signage is banal and useless to most people, then most people will simply stop paying attention to signage. Putting up a sign is not a free action!
- short_sells_poo 2y ago
  To be honest this is a general problem with the UK. Try driving on any major street and you'll realize it's plastered with mostly useless signs. A dozen warnings assault your senses at any one time, which makes it very difficult to pick out what is actually important. This is compounded by sometimes completely braindead implementation of rules. E.g. most bus lanes in London can be used by motorcyclists, but some cannot. There's no rhyme or reason, the entire thing is decided by a small blue sign at the start of a particular stretch which may or may not have an even smaller motorbike icon on it - among an icon for a bus, taxi and pushbike. Whoever thought this is a good idea is either a moron or deliberately wanted to extract fines from motorcyclists who accidentally use the wrong bus lane.
  - logifail 2y ago
    > To be honest this is a general problem with the UK Hotel lifts would appear to be another example of this. Automated "doors closing" / "doors opening" announcements seem to be present almost everywhere. Presumably a significant number people suffer appaling crush injuries from lift doors in other countries ... or maybe they don't, and companies across the UK just let their Health and Safety conslutants get the upper hand.
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      ...or visually impaired and thus use those announcements to understand what state the lift is in.
      - jakey_bakey 2y ago
        Lol yeah of all the examples to choose Why are the pavements at crossings so bumpy?! It's political correctness gone mad!
2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
it's not so much "harmful" as it is a symptom of and also reinforcing a society mentality of immature and infantile irresponsibility. but one might also argue it is harming visual and acoustic silence by constantly announcing something and hanging signs everywhere.
logifail 2y ago
> I genuinely don't see the harm of these things [..] they do reduce accidents It would be good to see actual data backing up this hypothesis. The cynic in me says another equally plausible hypothesis would be that this is entirely about the owner/operator/landlord avoiding any legal responsibility for accidents than actually reducing the number of accidents.
- tim333 2y ago
  My mother had a job coming up with such warnings. She was a 'home safety technician' for the local council, advising people not to fall off ladders and the like. It seems to work like there are statistics that so many people end up in hospital after falling of a ladder or whatever and the council thinks we must fix this, we'll hire someone to educate the public. The odd poster probably doesn't make much difference to the number of people falling but it was quite an easy and entertaining job for my mum.

newsclues 2y ago

You think stumbling drunk people are helped by signs and announcements?

justinclift 2y ago
Sometimes, probably yes? :)
- newsclues 2y ago
  I'd love to see the research that would substantiate that, from anecdotal evidence, stumbling drunks don't read or listen to anyone.
- jahewson 2y ago
  Ha ahahahahahah ha.
salawat 2y ago
There is an art to the production of low cognitive load information systems, which, as somewhat of a bonus, have the side effect of being navigable even by the mentally impaired. Don't believe it? Think about that credit card of yours. You can instigate the movement of money while so piss drunk you can't even walk! Amazing on how such care isn't put into other things.

MrBuddyCasino 2y ago

Behold, the last man.

cwillu 2y ago

Banner blindness. If 95% of safety signage is banal and useless to most people, then most people will simply stop paying attention to signage. Putting up a sign is not a free action!

short_sells_poo 2y ago
To be honest this is a general problem with the UK. Try driving on any major street and you'll realize it's plastered with mostly useless signs. A dozen warnings assault your senses at any one time, which makes it very difficult to pick out what is actually important. This is compounded by sometimes completely braindead implementation of rules. E.g. most bus lanes in London can be used by motorcyclists, but some cannot. There's no rhyme or reason, the entire thing is decided by a small blue sign at the start of a particular stretch which may or may not have an even smaller motorbike icon on it - among an icon for a bus, taxi and pushbike. Whoever thought this is a good idea is either a moron or deliberately wanted to extract fines from motorcyclists who accidentally use the wrong bus lane.
- logifail 2y ago
  > To be honest this is a general problem with the UK Hotel lifts would appear to be another example of this. Automated "doors closing" / "doors opening" announcements seem to be present almost everywhere. Presumably a significant number people suffer appaling crush injuries from lift doors in other countries ... or maybe they don't, and companies across the UK just let their Health and Safety conslutants get the upper hand.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    ...or visually impaired and thus use those announcements to understand what state the lift is in.
    - jakey_bakey 2y ago
      Lol yeah of all the examples to choose Why are the pavements at crossings so bumpy?! It's political correctness gone mad!

2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago

it's not so much "harmful" as it is a symptom of and also reinforcing a society mentality of immature and infantile irresponsibility. but one might also argue it is harming visual and acoustic silence by constantly announcing something and hanging signs everywhere.

logifail 2y ago

> I genuinely don't see the harm of these things [..] they do reduce accidents It would be good to see actual data backing up this hypothesis. The cynic in me says another equally plausible hypothesis would be that this is entirely about the owner/operator/landlord avoiding any legal responsibility for accidents than actually reducing the number of accidents.

tim333 2y ago
My mother had a job coming up with such warnings. She was a 'home safety technician' for the local council, advising people not to fall off ladders and the like. It seems to work like there are statistics that so many people end up in hospital after falling of a ladder or whatever and the council thinks we must fix this, we'll hire someone to educate the public. The odd poster probably doesn't make much difference to the number of people falling but it was quite an easy and entertaining job for my mum.