Chinese Escalators Are Death Traps

[Eddie Teach]

Why don't people walk on escalators?

Increased chance of tripping and it ultimately means you get there half a second quicker but are closer to the people ahead of you than is strictly comfortable(or more succinctly, cause nobody else is).

N.B. I'm mostly thinking of mall escalators. The ones at the airport are bigger and many people do keep walking.

[Admiral Yi]

In DC it was stand right walk left.  Makes sense, like a slow and a fast lane in a highway.

[DontSayBanana]

During my public admin training I spent some time in the district's traffic department. As part of an effort to get a speed limit in a certain section of the local autobahn there was rather detailed report on a motorcyclist who had crashed in the dark, and who was not discovered until morning, spread out over several hundred meters of road after having been run over "by an undetermined number of vehicles."

An acquaintance in Germany used to work as EMT, but he had to quit after scraping one guy too many off the railroad tracks, because he couldn't handle it anymore.

Having a parent who ran a volunteer squad was a double-edged sword, since I wasn't as insulated from what was going on as a career firefighter or EMT's kid would be.  I learned very quickly that fire police blocking off a road instead of directing traffic around the accident meant either a fatality or a likely fatality- either way, it was guaranteed to not be for the easily disgusted.  Likewise, if we saw MERC Team vehicles, we knew it was really bad- MERC stood for mobile emergency responder counseling (IIRC, it's been a few years, and they've since undergone a few name changes), so if they were there, it was guaranteed to be a doozy.

[Monoriu]

I have just seen the photograph, which I will not post, of a lift accident in China.  Basically, a young girl walked into a lift, and it went up before the girl had completely entered the lift.  So the head ended up one floor above, and the rest of the body remained on the original floor 

[Josquius]

I have just seen the photograph, which I will not post, of a lift accident in China.  Basically, a young girl walked into a lift, and it went up before the girl had completely entered the lift.  So the head ended up one floor above, and the rest of the body remained on the original floor 

Nightmare.
I've been told of a building in Newcastle that used to have a always running chain lift. It was pulled out after an accident like this.

[Monoriu]

These accidents seem to happen quite frequently in China.  Somebody lost a leg yesterday in another escalator accident. 

[Tonitrus]

These accidents seem to happen quite frequently in China.  Somebody lost a leg yesterday in another escalator accident.

I just kinda figure that, based on population, all horrific events have about a 3-4x chance of occurrence in China vis-a-vis America. 

Except probably mass shootings (not government sanctioned ones, anyway). 

[Ancient Demon]

Why don't people walk on escalators? You are trying to get from point a to point b, just because the ground starts moving at some trivial pace toward the destination, you should stop walking?

I get it if you are awkwardly carrying luggage or something, or out of shape/ill to the point walking is a serious effort, but otherwise, lets keep it moving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrSUe_m19FY

[HVC]

Another Chinese escalator strikes.

http://gawker.com/man-loses-leg-after-falling-through-escalator-panel-1721744966

[Caliga]

I just kinda figure that, based on population, all horrific events have about a 3-4x chance of occurrence in China vis-a-vis America. 

Yup.

BUS ACCIDENT IN MANHATTAN, 3 INJURED

BUS ACCIDENT IN MUMBAI, 651 KILLED, 8,387 INJURED

[jimmy olsen]

I just kinda figure that, based on population, all horrific events have about a 3-4x chance of occurrence in China vis-a-vis America. 

Yup.

BUS ACCIDENT IN MANHATTAN, 3 INJURED

BUS ACCIDENT IN MUMBAI, 65 KILLED, 83 INJURED

^^^ More realistic.

[Eddie Teach]

Cal's bus drove into a nuclear reactor.

[jimmy olsen]

Damn, what a terrible way to go.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/06/woman-found-dead-in-elevator-30-days-after-power-cut-off-by-building-workers

Woman found dead in elevator 30 days after power cut off by building workers

Maintenance crew detained after failing to check if anyone was in the elevator of a residential building in the city of Xi'an, in China's north-west


Associated Press

Sunday 6 March 2016 07.24 GMT  Last modified on Sunday 6 March 2016 07.26 GMT 

A building maintenance crew has been detained after a woman was found dead inside an elevator that had its power improperly cut off 30 days earlier, local Chinese authorities have said.

The Gaoling district government in the north-western city of Xi'an, Shaanxi province, said on Saturday that two maintenance workers turned off the power source on 30 January in a residential building after they were called to check on a glitch. However, they failed to check if anyone was inside the elevator.

The district said the maintenance crew found a female corpse there on 1 March when they returned for repairs.

The woman was identified as a 43-year-old resident who was living by herself. Police ruled out any foul play but concluded her death was caused by the gross negligence on the part of the maintenance crew in a case of involuntary manslaughter, the government said.

China has poor records on workplace safety where proper safety procedures and practices are routinely ignored.

In July, a Chinese woman was killed when she was swallowed by a mall escalator when a metal platform on top of the escalator suddenly caved in. She was holding her two-year-old son then but threw the child to safety when she fell.

[Monoriu]

I read another elevator story in the news.  A family of three went downstairs together.  The wife took the baby and went back home to retreive something while the father waited for them in the lobby.  The father never heard from them again. 

A few days later, their bodies were found *on top* of an elevator.  The police theory was that the elevator malfunctioned, and the door opened when the elevator wasn't there.  The wife absent-mindedly stepped in anyway and dropped to her death. 

[The Brain]

The Gaoling district

Fuck yeah. :bb: