Harrisons Law

fini

fini

fini

Soldato
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I've just read this Sky News article.

In Brief: Two kids died in separate incidents within a week from strangling themselves on the cords used to pull blinds up and down. Sad story. The parents are now trying to get a law pushed through that they're calling "Harisson's law" which would ban all curtains and blinds from having looped cords.

So I find the above to be just a ridiculous overreaction and then notice at the bottom of the article that the family have set up a website to promote its campaign for a new law - massive overreaction. I subsequently notice that the website has a forum and in it what can only be described as a potential winner of overreaction of the year award 2010, the father is trying to muster support for a minutes silence at all sporting matches this weekend.

Seriously, I understand that the guy is in mourning for the loss of his kid, but there's a point where perspective was tied to a cannonball and shot to the moon in all this.
 
What a silly law. Still, if it saves a child, I suppose it's worth it. It's hardly like we'd miss having looped cords on blinds is it?

Also, lol at the minutes silence at all sporting events.
 
It'd be easier to ban children than the things that could potentially kill them.

Seriously, massive over-reaction. Pretty much everything can kill an overly curious child
 
Fini , you are part of the problem, you are giving him publicity, i bet about 100 other people have posted this on 100 other forums basically saying exactly what you have said!!!!!
 
Im guessing the parents were not around when the children hanged themselves. ridiculous overreaction from the parents who are looking for someone else to blame.

imho
 
Can't really imagine how you could do such a thing, even if you are that small. :confused:


As sad as it is accidents happen, if their child died choking on a piece of Lego or something I wonder if they would be trying to ban that as well.
 
Impractical and wrong to ban everything which could potentially kill, as that is almost everything!
 
silly idea. not trying to sound harsh, but shouldn't the parents be keeping an eye on children to stop them from doing things like this??
 
For 40 years I've been around looped cords for blinds. They have probably been out long before that. I've never even heard of some dumb kid hanging themselves with it. Surely the parents should have those things tied up and out of reach. Take away all shoelaces and power cords, also.

I'm wondering if the normal mounts for blinds could even support a child. :confused:
 
A classic example of fallacy in action.

The problem is, people believe this crap, and politics itself is based on fallacy without sufficient safeguards in place (and we don't have sufficient safeguards at present).
 
If it wasn't a blind, it'd probably have been something else. I imagine there are many, many, many more deaths caused by kids slipping over with knives/scissors etc. whilst off the parent's radar. BAN THEM ALL!

RIP poor kid though. :(

I was reminded by the news report on a freak accident involving the death of a small child whilst helping washing up. IIRC the mother dropped a caserole dish which shattered, resulting in a wayward shard cutting the child's throat. Almost anything can kill a child. It's up to parents to make the environment as safe as reasonably possible whilst being sensible.
 
If it can save a life, they may as well alter the design for future products, they can run and jump if they think it would be applicable for existing blinds though
 
Lakeland said:
If it can save a life, they may as well alter the design for future products, they can run and jump if they think it would be applicable for existing blinds though
Click to expand...

Rubbish, if people have kids then perhaps they should be making the house more child friendly and in future family planning clinics, GP surgeries etc should be offering advise such as blinds, plug covers etc.

There's no reason to ban or alter a perfectly good design because of a few accidents. People die in some bloomin weird way, we don't see bridges being altered because people fall or jump off, what we going to do - make them NOT go over water and be really, really low? perhaps have trampolines at each side to chuck you back onto mattresses for the roads we can no longer have as people might get run over?

Everything we do in life has a risk, these poor kids died, it's terrible for the families, but it doesn't mean we have to start redesigning life around everything that is involved in someones death when that item isn't actively causing it. The cord didn't wrap itself around a neck, the child had to move it, it's an inanimate object.

What next? Ban rocks incase a kid bumps his or her head on it?

Lets face it, parents have to have this information to help "child proof" the home, but that's the end of it.

PS My wife is expecting a baby later this year, so this information WILL be put to good use and I do feel a huge amount of sympathy for the families. I'm not heartless. :)
 
Halfmad said:
Rubbish, if people have kids then perhaps they should be making the house more child friendly and in future family planning clinics, GP surgeries etc should be offering advise such as blinds, plug covers etc.

There's no reason to ban or alter a perfectly good design because of a few accidents. People die in some bloomin weird way, we don't see bridges being altered because people fall or jump off, what we going to do - make them NOT go over water and be really, really low? perhaps have trampolines at each side to chuck you back onto mattresses for the roads we can no longer have as people might get run over?
Click to expand...

We shouldn't have to alter everything, but are you really saying that you'd complain if your blind didn't have a looped cord? Little things like that CAN be altered. It doesn't cost you anything, and you won't miss it. Now changing a bridge, that's ridiculous, because it WILL have an effect of people.
 
Dolph said:
A classic example of fallacy in action.

The problem is, people believe this crap, and politics itself is based on fallacy without sufficient safeguards in place (and we don't have sufficient safeguards at present).
Click to expand...

The problem is when douchebags get these kinds of laws passed(though maybe not exactly in this case) parents take less responsibility for their kids safety and are MORE LIKELY to overlook another potential problem.

Meagans law was an example a law that basically does nothing, but sounds good to people and WRONGLY makes parents feel safe, they feel like their kids are instantly less likely to be hurt so are less on the look out.

Laws that prevent people from taking responsibility only make for worse parents, accidents happen, how many kids over hundreds of years have fallen on a knife or fork, is that how a freaking spork was born?

Almost any single thing in the house can kill someone, in some bizarre way, you can't ban or change everything.

Plenty of parents of overly curious or dumb kids would have the extra wheel put in at the bottom of a blind cord to keep the cable tense and in place and prevent it being able to wrap around a kid. So these parents rather than accept they are partially at fault for not installing them, want a law to be passed so they feel better that there was nothing they could have done but have helped other families.

Life often sucks, people need to accept the bad things that happen or everyone will end up in a safe room scared to do anything.
 
Idiotic over reaction that should leave them being ridiculed. A good analogy would be an ex teacher of mine who was in a bike accident that left his 17 year old daughter dead and him paralysed for life. I mean, Honda should've told him accidents can happen and people can die. As bikes, blinds has been around for 50+ years and accidents happen, that's part of life.
 
It WILL get to the point where someone decides that life is just too dangerous and we should all be killed to avoid potentially dying in an accident.
 
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