Tuesday - February 18, 2014

the gun is too big for lady cops … authorities ignore them … they sue …. and win

What else could you expect when standards are lowered to comply more with diversity, pol. correctness and the right quotas.

It’s sort of like that post I did a couple weeks ago about the complaints from feminazis about there not being train drivers in that industry. You may recall that bit of stupidity.  So in a push to make every man a king and every woman a queen, and every single body with a god given human right to any kind of job their hearts desire, things must be altered to fit the applicant. And as it turns out here, even with the police, well. Since not every person comes in one size where one size does not fit all ... especially with guns ....

Take a look at this one.  The ladies may have a point, considering how the laws are now written.

Female firearms officers win £70,000 ( $116,780 ) payout for sex discrimination - because their guns were too big for their small hands

Victoria Wheatley and Rachel Giles are part of armed units at nuclear sites

As part of their jobs, they are required to take test shoots

Failing a test shoot could mean that officers lose their jobs

Pair complained that their performance was hampered by equipment

They said the handles of their guns were too big

Both officers say they complained to senior staff but were ignored

By Larisa Brown

Two ‘petite’ firearms officers are set to receive a pay-out of £70,000 after winning a sex discrimination case over the size of their big guns.

Victoria Wheatley and Rachael Giles said their weapons were too big for their small hands and as a result they could not reach the trigger, a tribunal has heard.

The two women struggled with the grip of the pistols they were using – a Glock 17 – and they also claimed their heads and legs were too small for their protective gear.

The case, held at the Central London Employment Tribunal last week, found the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) guilty of discrimination against both officers in the provision of suitable firearms and safety equipment.

It is understood the officers are set to receive £35,000 each after winning the case against the force – but there is expected to be an appeal.

The decision comes after a number of extraordinary cases where police forces across the country have had to pay out thousands in compensation to officers due to injuries at work -

including £8,000 to a policeman bitten by fleas.

Both females, who were described as being ‘petite in stature’ and with ‘small hands’, asked on several occasions for a smaller and suitable grip on the weapon when they could not reach the trigger, but this did not happen, the tribunal heard.

They also said their trainers failed to adjust their pistols while carrying out a test shoot.

Posted by peiper     on 02/18/2014 at 02:37 PM   
Filed Under: • Product Safety • work and the workplace •  
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   Wednesday - June 02, 2010

The Power of the Prophet in your Pocket

Well, maybe some barking islamobat will issue a fatwa against me for this.

(had to check that BMEWS still carried an ‘R’ rating. It does, though I had to scroll down to find it.)

Oh yes, H/T Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler

Posted by Christopher     on 06/02/2010 at 09:39 PM   
Filed Under: • Animals • Health and Safety • Product Safety • RoPMA • Sex • Sharia law •  
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   Thursday - February 11, 2010

It’s in the code

On Jan. 19, in a closed-door meeting in Washington, D.C., two top executives from Toyota Motor Corp. gave American regulators surprising news.

Evidence had been mounting for years that Toyota cars could speed up suddenly, a factor suspected in crashes causing more than a dozen deaths. Toyota had blamed the problem on floor mats pinning the gas pedal. Now, the two Toyota men revealed they knew of a problem in its gas pedals.

Toyota’s woes have roots in 2002’s redesigned Camry sedan, which featured a new type of gas pedal. Instead of physically connecting to the engine with a mechanical cable, the new pedal used electronic sensors to send signals to a computer controlling the engine. The same technology migrated to cars including Toyota’s luxury Lexus ES sedan. The main advantage is fuel efficiency.

But by early 2004, NHTSA was getting complaints that the Camry and ES sometimes sped up without the driver hitting the gas.

But by early 2004, NHTSA was getting complaints that the Camry and ES sometimes sped up without the driver hitting the gas. It launched its first acceleration probe, focusing on 37 complaints, 30 of which involved accidents
...
NHTSA had decided to limit the probe to incidents involving brief bursts of acceleration, and would exclude so-called “long duration” incidents in which cars allegedly continued racing down the road after a driver hit the brakes.
...
Of the 37 incidents, 27 were categorized as long-duration and not investigated. On July 22, 2004, the probe was closed because NHTSA had found no pattern of safety problems.

By August 2007, NHTSA wanted Toyota to issue a Lexus and Camry recall to remove the floor mats Toyota blamed for the acceleration problems. “Toyota assured us that this would solve the problem,” said Nicole Nason, then NHTSA’s administrator.

In their probe, NHTSA investigators asked Toyota, “Are you sure it’s not the gas pedal?” Ms. Nason said. “They assured us it’s just the floor mat.”

Toyota says that, at that time, it had no indication of problems with the pedal design.

Vehicle engines are all controlled by computers these days. Toyota’s gas pedal doesn’t have an actual throttle wire. It’s a “fly by wire” system and similar systems are used by many other companies. The technology is a spin-off from the aerospace industry, where control systems need to work in as little “real time” as possible. A predictive algorithm that gathers sensor data and user input can react faster than a physical connection, and make the engine changes smoother with less wasted fuel.

That’s when the sensors are working properly and sending in correct information. And when the algorithm is written correctly (especially the parts that deal with sensor output outside the normal bounds (either from a dead sensor or from one sending in an unnaturally high signal) ... and then thoroughly tested. Exhaustively tested. I used to do software testing. Boundary testing was one of the most basic parts of it, right down at the same level as Garbage testing. And we found bugs in commercial software like crazy, although many of those were set aside. “We don’t care that the program crashes when the database query fails because the field is empty. This software is run on an existing database, so the fields are never empty!” We got that a lot. And it did make a bit of sense in a way. It was what we called “a chicken-egg thing”. But this kind of attitude is inexcusable when you are dealing with electro-mechanical systems, because parts can ALWAYS fail. Wires can short, interfaces can get dirty, etc. You HAVE to test the boundaries and ensure that the system has a “worst case” safe path to follow. Granted that the permutations are very large in number. eg: take an engine that has 20 sensors feeding it’s computer. Each sensor can go dead, or provide a reading in it’s proper range, or go hot and provide an excessive signal. Dead and excessive are the boundary test cases. Two conditions. And 20 sensors. Since each sensor impacts how the whole engine runs, there are 2²⁰ unique permutations. Just for the “bad sensor” scenarios. That’s more than a million: 1,048,576 to be exact. (an actual “meg") If you physically tested each one on a running engine, and gave each test just 5 seconds to see how the engine reacted, it would take almost 61 days to run that test working 24-7.  It’s far more likely that the Toyota gas pedal issue is not boundary condition related, which means there are nearly an infinite number of sensor permutations, because sensors are analog devices even if they are only sampled digitally. So no doubt this testing was done on a computer model. But models are just that: models. Not the real thing. And “mission critical systems” like cars, heart monitors, air-to-air missiles, etc., need to be tested on the real thing as much as possible.

Toyota has a fix and they’re making big efforts to put it in place. But such systems are in lots of other cars too. Should you find yourself in an “unforeseen sudden acceleration” situation, remember what you learned in Driver’s Ed and just put the damn transmission in neutral. Then step on the brakes. And if the brakes fail, use the hand brake. And aim for something soft.

Notice that I’m not railing on Toyota for being a heartless evil giant corporation. That’s just the way it is. Same goes for Boeing, Chevrolet, Dell, Remington. People have problems with their machines, the corporations investigate when they see enough complaints of a similar nature. Then they get around to making a fix and issuing a recall when government and media pressure force them to. So let the buyer beware, and don’t forget how to handle emergency situations. Because it’s your life.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/11/2010 at 11:02 AM   
Filed Under: • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles • Product Safety •  
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   Monday - December 22, 2008

How’s this for stupid!  Police sent on two-hour course to learn to climb 3ft ladder. Moonbat Alert!

The lunatics may be running the asylum but never mind.  At least I am happy to see public monies spent on this most important safety issue.

Moonbats Rule!

Police sent on two-hour course to learn to climb 3ft ladder
Police officers have been sent on a courses to learn how to climb a 3ft ladder to put up anti-speeding devices.

By Jon Swaine
Last Updated: 3:24PM GMT 22 Dec 2008

Forty-five staff at Lancashire Police had to complete a two-hour seminar before they were allowed to install roadside speeding signs. The class included guidance on how to use a ladder safely.

The devices - smiley-face speed indicator signs (Spids) - were being put up freely by staff before health and safety officers from the local council told the force that they were breaching regulations.

Some staff were banned from even moving existing signs until they had attended the seminar. Several of the £3,500 devices were left dormant for up to four months as a result.

A police statement, which was issued as part of a Freedom of Information request, said: “It would appear that, although working at less than one metre above ground level, staff should have been on a ladder training course.

“It is fair to say that risks associated with deployment of a Spid sign have not changed, but the risks associated with working at height were not fully appreciated initially.”

Ben Wallace, the MP for Lancaster and Wyre, said: “It’s another example of the tail wagging the dog, of bureaucracy gone mad. It beggars belief that bureaucracy stands in the way of common sense, even when it concerns our police force.”

Lancashire police said that the training course had also been necessary because some devices had not been installed correctly and could not detect all oncoming traffic. They said that the courses had not cost anything more than staff time.

A spokesman said: “The two-hour class briefly touched on how to use a ladder safely. If we didn’t do it and people were falling off ladders, we would be criticised.”

STUPID ELF N SAFETY

Posted by peiper     on 12/22/2008 at 11:02 AM   
Filed Under: • Nanny State • Product Safety • Stoopid-People • UK •  
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   Saturday - February 16, 2008

Business Opportunity

news source

More than two years after residents of FEMA trailers deployed along the Mississippi Gulf Coast began complaining of breathing difficulties, nosebleeds and persistent headaches, U.S. health officials announced Thursday that long-awaited government tests found potentially hazardous levels of toxic formaldehyde gas in both travel trailers and mobile homes provided by the agency.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which requested the testing by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said it would work aggressively to relocate all residents of the temporary housing as soon as possible.

Levels of formaldehyde gas in 519 trailer and mobile homes tested in Louisiana and Mississippi were — on average — about five times what people are exposed to in most modern homes, the CDC reported. In some trailers, the levels were nearly 40 times customary exposure levels, raising fears that residents could suffer respiratory problems and potentially other long-term health effects, it said.

The Sierra Club began warning about formaldehyde levels in travel trailers by early 2006, after conducting its own air-quality tests. FEMA officials initially dismissed the environmental group’s testing, saying the trailers conformed to industry standards.

Formaldehyde is used in a wide variety of products, including composite wood and plywood panels used to manufacture the thousands of travel trailers and mobile homes purchased by FEMA after the storms.

There are no federal safety standard for formaldehyde fumes in homes or travel trailers, though the Department of Housing and Urban Development regulates the presence of the chemical in the manufacture of mobile homes.

In addition to causing respiratory ailments, formaldehyde is considered a human carcinogen, or cancer-causing substance, by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Paulison said it had not yet been decided whether the agency would force residents living in FEMA trailers or mobile homes on private property — such as homeowners overseeing the rebuilding of a house — to leave.

He also vowed that FEMA would no longer use travel trailers to house disaster victims.

“We will not ever use trailers again,” he said. “… That is not a good housing alternative for us.”

This is pretty much the same story we wrote about several months ago. I don’t work for a lumber company, but I do know that plywood, MDF, paneling, and insulation can be made without using urea-formaldehyde based resins. If a trailer making company came up with a couple models that could be “certified formaldehyde free” they could make millions. MILLIONS. But they would have to work with the government to develop a forward plan. You can’t build 100,000 trailers overnight. No, somehow the government has to stockpile them. And at the same time perhaps outlaw formaldehyde as an ingredient in building supplies?

Posted by Drew458     on 02/16/2008 at 12:09 PM   
Filed Under: • Product Safety •  
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