Firefighters are terrible at evaluating risk:
- Requiring all passengers in cars to wear helmets: would save 350 lives a year in California
- Requiring small apartment buildings to have a second staircase: saves zero lives a year in California
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The dead end corridor lengths and occupancy limits in currently deemed safe double stair buildings is greater. Ruins their entire “study” with a simple diagram.
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Jason,
@jasonc_nc
Wanted to highlight this point on travel distances & occupant loads in single stair building proposals.
This example has the same travel distance as what is already deemed safe for dead end corridors. Often w/ higher actual occupancy
Pushback against these is purely vibes-based x.com/trevoracorn/st…
“ Requiring small apartment buildings to have a second staircase: saves zero lives a year in California”
You don't have to make it a law. You can wear a helmet while in a car and nobody will stop you.
Often, when I hear about something involving Fire Code, i seem to wind up thinking, “Who did the risk reward analysis on this idea” followed by, “none of the guys I know who became firefighters were good at math/statistics, they were all avid pyromaniacs”.
While we're on the topic:
Forcing cyclists to wear helmets and ride on roads instead of sidewalks increased injuries and deaths.
And traffic circles increase accidents relative to intersections, but lower the speed at which the collisions happen.
"Requiring all passengers in cars to wear helmets: would save 350 lives a year in California"
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The media could not be played.
People who don't do comprehensive quantitative cost-benefit analysis are terrible at evaluating risk.
Complete BS. Since 1930 two stair cases have been required. Local jurisdictions forced retro-fits in the 1940s or pushed over decade to have non-compliant multi-family torn down. That is why no lives lost. You just want to make money, don't care about lives.
But what about the financial damages of the CA passengers who would be passed over for their next modeling/acting gig bc of helmet hair
You're right but the specific examples are wrong. Lobbyist groups care about specific "useless" safety features because local governments are extremely risk-averse and also dont want to endanger economically productive classes of people.
It’s standard “humans are bad at risk evaluation”. The 350 are 1 or 2 at a time in a wide area. If/when an apartment fire causes deaths a 2nd staircase would have prevented, dozens will have died, making it appear worse.
There were quite a few spectacular fires in the first half of the 20th century where people died because there weren’t enough exits or the exits were blocked.
Could you imagine how much sightlines would be worsened if people wore helmets in their cars lol
False risk assessment
Requiring helmets would lead to even riskier driving
Wait until you start researching car/booster seats and how little impact they have after age 4...
How many lives would be lost due to passengers wearing helmets? No one has ever studied that.
4.000.000.000 4 BILLION for helmets. I am absolutely 100% no doubt in my mind certain there is 5 million other ways to better allocate that money than saving 350 lives. Statism is evil.
Why is all new construction in a fire zone not 100% fire proof and reasonably heat resistent.
That’s because the apartment requirement is about making a lot of money for others, with zero pushback from the consumers.
How about we just have a rope ladder that attaches to a couple knobs in the wall by a window and we busted it out just like a fire extinguisher? You just throw that in each apartment or in the hallway a few of them and you’re good they’ll never be used but just in case.
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