Things you hardly dared use, because they were "dangerous" (lighthearted)

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Children are always being told things are dangerous, such as fire, escalators, roads, and so on. Were there any things which you hesitated to use as you got older, because "danger" had been drummed into you? (Lighthearted, obviously: otherwise this thread is too dangerous!)

Matches were one of mine. I could hardly bring myself to light them, in case I got burnt.

My grandmother emphasised how dangerous her appliances were, such as her ancient twin tub, and her electric lawn mower, and I almost forbade her from operating them, on this basis. (I was six at the time.)

In my first year at secondary school, I was astounded when we were made to use methylated spirit (to erase permanent marker), from a bottle prominently marked "poison".

I am 27. I can't use a lightener - they frighten me and I hate how close the flame is to the thumb

I use matches to light a candle. Plus I love the smell of a match

Pressure cookers.

We had one which my mum hated using but then my dad, an inveterate tinkerer, decided to 'improve' it by messing about with the safety valve. This resulted in a jet of stew gravy being blown out of the pressure release hole.

Chip pans. Always hated the feckers. My aunt destroyed her kitchen by trying to put out the blazing chip pan by putting it under the tap - took out the picture window and a set of cupboards but thankfully left her mostly intact.

In a houseshare, I had to deal with two chip pan fires thanks to a drunken housemate fancying a midnight fry-up. No damage done other than to my nerves.

Any sort of industrial machine with lots of spinning bits and not much in the way of protection to prevent accidental entanglement. I can still recall the horror of first year in secondary school being made to take metalwork. Being jostled from behind and getting inched closer and closer to a spinning lathe which had no guards to speak of still elicits a shudder.

Proper laughing at "space chickens" 😂

Tp everyone saying unplug things when thunderstorms are around. It was about surges which can fry things. Nowadays they are rare.
It's not really irrational fear!

I was wwll freaked out by lack of lighting rods in uk tbh... Not sure why you don't need them!

That's the one. I'm glad it's not just me that remembers it. I cannot imagine how that poor woman must have suffered. Escalators are definitely a last resort.

I knew them as Bengal Matches.

@SinnerBoy just Google shark slippers, there are lots of them, but choose carefully if you want the “feet in mouth” ones.

@Wtfdude What’s a lightning rod? Do you mean lightning conductors on tall buildings? Most tall buildings do have them.

As for surges in thunderstorms, most modern equipment has protection built in, certainly anything made since about 2001. Older equipment might be vulnerable, though.

That's why I said they are rare but fear was justified 😁

The pole and cable by the house. Any house. We all had these. Not sure actually on new builda now

Not really, no!
I worked as a chemist so used a number of flammable/toxic/explosive substances at work which has made me a bit laissez-faire at home! 😁
I did read the instructions carefully, and actually put safety goggles on, when using a chainsaw but I'm always perhaps shockingly relaxed when it comes to power tools, lighting gas ovens with naked flames, climbing ladders etc etc!

Swans aren't stupid. I, and a friend, walk a canal path regularly.

One day recently, the resident swan pair, were sat with their adolescent kids, close to the footpath and as we approached, they 'went' for a man walking past in the opposite direction.

We were approaching from one side. There were 2 men approaching in the opposite direction, who stopped to talk to the man who had just been 'chased'. After a while we decided to go for it. I did pick up a stick, just in case, but we walked past with no issue.

The two men then decided it was safe.

It was so funny to see them run when the swan chased them.

Came on to say exactly that. They terrify me

I don't like chip pans, and when I do roast potatoes I put them in cold oil rather than hot sizzling oil. They still work ok.

The kite/pylon ad and mum getting crushed by her son in the car has a modern equivalent by Network Rail https://www.networkrail.co.uk/communities/safety-in-the-community/railway-safety-campaigns/trespass-campaigns/ Harrison's story PS I would suggest don't watch it, it's enough to see the poster I think.

I've got an instant pot. It does both, perfectly and perfectly safely

The issue with old style pressure cookers was drying out and the weight shooting off, (and if you were lucky embedding itself in the ceiling).

With the Instant Pot, if it dries out, it switches off. AND, even if that went wrong, the 'weight' doesn't come off. So safe - and so quick, I love it, particularly for soup

OMG - you remember this from That's Life too!

I have described this to countless people over the years and not one of them has believed me. I feel absolved!

Also, I was about 29 before I stopped jumping off escalators three steps from the top (and I wasn't even wearing wellies).

ManorMouse · Today 16:02

Chip pans. Always hated the feckers. My aunt destroyed her kitchen by trying to put out the blazing chip pan by putting it under the tap - took out the picture window and a set of cupboards but thankfully left her mostly intact.

Yeah, right.

I do a similar course every 4 years for work and the demonstration is even more spectacular.

My dad was a terror for telling me how he had a friend that died of whatever he was trying to stop me doing. I genuinely didn't question the mortality of his friends being akin to residents of Midsomer until well into adulthood.

Still can't conceive of wearing a necklace to bed or I will get strangled. Panic every time I need the loo on a plane as we will clearly hit turbulence and I will die from not wearing the seat belt. Leather sole shoes never entered my life, so I have had no worries about slipping in the rain and hitting my head. Of course he had a friend who died of that too.

Used an escalator yesterday - there was a woman behind me drilling her child on how to jump off at the end or 'your foot will get stuck in the machine and pull you in and then you'll have no foot'. Said it twice and made this 3-4 year old repeat it (deep level tube station).

By the time they got to the bottom, the kid, who had been happy and chatty went silent and then it sounded like they froze because there was no well done, no 'yay! Good job!', nothing. So another kid unnecessarily taught to be scared.

Holy shit. I genuinely thought I was the only weirdo out there who side-eyed escalators, but apparently (as per this thread) there are LOADS of people in their mid to late 40s who are convinced they'll be eaten by the fuckers.

I hope Esther Rantzen knows what she's done to a generation.

There was the old PSA of the kid's welly boot being sucked in and mangled by an escalator.

I feel like I did all of the dangerous things but the one i would least like my children to do is relating to candies/fire - i used to like passing my finger through a lighter flame, if you did it fast enough it didn't burn. my children do not have access to flames

Grapes. I still struggle to give adults them!

I'm scared of getting the hob really hot

Haha, yes indeed. It's a wonder I'm still going strong.

I remember my DM having a strong belief that the seeds of red and green peppers were poisonous, and when I spotted some in a salad I was eating at a friend's house I tried to fish them out very discreetly, while wondering if I had accidently eaten some before seeing them, how the family could all be so casually munching away with actual poison on their plates, and, if I had eaten some, why I hadn't died yet. It was a few years before I learned the truth.

Sparkles - after watching the advert where a girl burns her hand.

Gas - from the gas leak advert in the eighties where they smell gas and some one goes to switch a light on

The casualty theme tune

Flying - after watching an episode of casualty

Railway lines - after watching a railway safety video about a boy who gets hit by a train. (Probably means the video did its job)

Chip pan - ours went up in flames many times when I was a kid (no smoke alarm either!)

Birthday bumps (a weird thing where people knee you in the bottom, one for every year of your life)

I heard a rumour a boy was paralysed after receiving this.

Ditto swinging on your chair.