Safety facts you may have never considered

 1 = 8

Yes, you have read it right: one equals eight. It may look hard to believe but Dr Fiona Fylan has been able to prove it with experimental evidence. Have you ever asked the question why the speed limit is 30 miles per hour? Why not 31 m/h for example? And does one mile really matter? Well, it actually does significantly. Utilising speed measurement tools of the same kind used by police, Dr Fylan and her team undertook 2 emergency stop experiments. One for a car travelling at 30 m/h and another for the same car and the same driver travelling at 31 m/h on the same road and under the same conditions.

The conclusion was astounding. The car traveling at 30 m/h stopped at a certain point while the one travelling at 31 m/h was still travelling at 8 m/h when it passed the same point where it would have stopped if it was travelling 30 m/h. Now, does this really matter? Well, crashing into an object at 8 m/h would at least incur a decent repair bill let alone the ramifications of hitting a child at this speed.

 Experienced Swimmers are more likely to drown

It’s not a joke! If you really feel confident about your swimming skills, you may need to consider the fact that overconfidence tops the reasons why excellent swimmers drown. It’s common sense that people who don’t have enough confidence in their swimming abilities won’t go deep in water and eventually won’t deliberately put themselves at serious risks. To the surprise of many, the International Life Saving Federation statistics identify a quarter of the 1.2 million drowning victims worldwide every year as good swimmers.

Excluding children under 5 years old, who sadly constitute the highest number of drowning incidents, makes swimmers the largest segment of drowning cases around the world amongst adults. However, extra confidence is not the only reason behind high level of drowned swimmers. Skilful swimmers usually swim unsupervised. They’re more likely to swim very long distances and are more willing to take different risks when swimming. They try to hold their breath for long which is one of the main reasons for drowning even in shallow waters as it causes blackout and unconsciousness. All the aforesaid reasons together would put professional swimmers at a higher risk of drowning.

 Fatigue or alcohol?

It goes without saying that drink driving dramatically impacts public safety as it delays drivers’ reaction and reduces diligence, focus and visibility but have you ever thought that fatigue might be even worse than alcohol. Driving after long hours of none sleep can cause as impaired reaction and vigilance as driving over alcohol limit. Therefore, it’s no surprise that tiredness accounts for over 20% of road accidents which in some cases surpasses the level of accidents caused by drink driving. However, fatigue seems to have more fatal consequences as sleepy drivers crash at a higher speed. Their vigilance is impaired to the extent that they don’t usually use the break.

 Safety signs are not colourful decors

If you’re like many of us who don’t really care about safety signs, you may need to
reconsider this behaviour as I did. Some even underestimate the importance of safety signs at workplaces or believe their colours are for aesthetic purposes. Nonetheless, research stresses the key role of safety signs in reducing the risk of serious injuries at the workplace. Some studies suggest that installing the right safety signs that alert people of dangers and tell them what to do in case of emergencies contribute to a high level of accident prevention. Safety signs are colour coded and knowing what colours mean can help us understand the
sign without even reading its details. For example, red means prohibition, yellow refers to a danger, blue signifies a mandatory instruction and green indicates health and safety.

 However, if you don’t take safety signs seriously, take a look at the signs below for fun: