Tuesday 16 February 2010

The Answer Is Always A New Law

Two tragic cases, reported in the Telegrah, highlight the present trend of thinking that if a tragedy happens, the answer to prevent reoccurance must be a new law. That is not to say that no sympathy exists for the parents of the children involved, but.....

In respect of the two instances quoted in the Telegraph article, it is a wish to have a law passed to ban 'looped' curtain or blind cords - err and presumably this new law will also impose penalties on anyone who ties the two separate ends together - and that will be 'policed' how, exactly?

Sheila Merrill, home safety manager for England at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents - oh Lord, we got one of those for Scotland and Wales too? - promptly provides a quote stating the bloody obvious. "The danger for young children is that a loop which hangs at waist height for an adult could slip around the neck of a young child if he or she falls or, if the loop is at floor level, it could become wrapped around the neck of a baby who is crawling."

Sheila, Purleese! Admittedly, the details of how these tragic accidents happened are not provided but the immediate question one has to ask is where were the parents, or those charged with the children's care? Have people become so conditioned that they are not able to realise that babies and very young children are, in fact, 'accidents waiting to happen' and as a result take the necessary precautions, which includes watching them?

1 comment:

Ray said...

I suspect it is something to do with the guilt that people feel when an accident like that happens and they deep down and secretly really know it is their fault for not foreseeing the possible accident.

So they pass the guilt on to make themselves feel better by blaming the blind cords themselves, and thus campaign for a ban.

This applies to the calling for bans in general, for all sorts of things that the vast majority have no problem with, and do not affect others. The vocal minority refuse to address their own inadequacy and irresponsibility and therefore inflict pointless bans and misery on the rest of us to assuage their own bad feelings.