ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades "Danger of Death"

Incredible!
Nearly fell off my chair laughing and broke some bones...

Glenn,
Thanks for that one!.
That was a cool link.

I really surprised by the directness of the British sign!

When last at Heathrow, I was impressed by a sign that said "Kindly refrain from parking here, or we shall be unfortunately obliged to tow your vehicle." In the US, a sign will more likey read "Cars parked here will be dismantled and sold for parts."

Guys,
Probably a sour taste in the mouth thing, but I assisted earlier tonight a neighbouring Orion Energy Faultsman to remove a burned child from a 33kV transformer, wearing all the required safety signs,fences, and so forth.
Usually out of my area, but you can't deny the child-like screams from a guy that was responded to that, going over the radio, just fortunate that us guys use the same radio frequencies.

I think that must have been the polite version for the benefit of newly arrived visitors.

The approach to parking in most bigger cities now seems to be "Cars parked here will be clamped and towed and the offender will be incarcerated in the Tower of London."

That's what Blair calls "Getting tough on crime" I suppose.

Oh dear, I can't imagine how it must feel to have to do something like that.

It goes to show though that all the signs in the world don't stop things like this from happening. How old was the child?

Maybe it's time to bring back some of the public warning announcements that used to be on TV about this sort of thing. I can't help feeling that a few of these suitably placed during kids' TV would be far more effective than going overboard with all the signs.

Like this one:
http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/pifs/pif_m-r/playsafefrisbee.rm

(You might want to skip that link Mike -- I know you've seen it before anyway.)

Shiny new "Danger of Death" signs have just appeared on every distribution pole around my little settlement.

Danger of Death, but not necessarily from the power, in my area its more likely to be from a rotten pole falling on you or your house

[This message has been edited by DaveB (edited 01-26-2005).]

Trumpy: Really sorry to hear you'd to deal with something like that. Really horrible.
I hope the kid's OK
ESB (Ireland) and NIE (Northern Ireland Electricity) still occasionally run those ads in a joint campaign in both areas.

The ads I've seen recently are all aimed at farmers though.

There have been drastic improvements in substation design over the years though. The high voltage ones are extremely tightly fenced and usually in pretty kid-free areas.

The distribution substations are all usually indoors with cables accessing underground.

I have no doubt that the risk was a lot higher in the 1960s as plenty of very early installations were still in service and I doubt, despite the best intentions of designers, that they were very child-safe.

Funny you should mention that. The poles themselves in my little settlement seem to be reasonably secure, but some of the wiring is in need of attention.

It seems to have settled down this last year, but the year before that we had 24-Seven out about five times in a month repairing bad splices. One time I had a neighbor come round and ask me to look up at the pole in her garden:

"Is it supposed to be smoking like that?"

I had two calls to local houses about the same time which turned out to be bad neutrals on the supply. Just as well the homes weren't PME, but some around here are, and the whole network is supposed to be secure for PME.

At another pole the underground feeder from the nearby sub has the armor almost corroded away to nothing in places as it runs up the pole.

You can really see the green on a lot of the cables, and BT have also had a lot of problems with corrosion. That's what we get for living right by the beach on the North Sea. I guess.

By the way Dave, I see you're located in Clacton, or maybe Jaywick? I haven't been down that way for years -- Used to have a holiday caravan on Mersea Island about 30 years ago when I was a kid.

I can't remember exactly which piece of legislation its written down in (possibly the Electricity Supply Regulations), but it states that Danger of Death signs must be affixed to every single pole, and there is a timeframe in which this needs to be carried out.

Be prepared to see a whole load more!

Ian