To be surprised the amount of places that still have "child plug safety" things

[JumpyCastle]

This week I've seen them in a coffee shop, a friend's house and a local leisure centre. How is it still so common to have these devices that make a normal plug so much more dangerous?

Where is the daily mail scare story's when you need them?!

It's bizarre jumpy

Is it just me that thinks the plug covers make it more appealing for small kids to mess around with?
That's why I never bothered with them.

BarbarianMum

What year was this?

Link to RoSPA website. They explain why they are not needed as the safety mechanism is inbuilt.

[https://www.rospa.com/home-safety/resources/policy-statements/electricity/]

www.rospa.com/home-safety/resources/policy-statements/electricity/

Five years ago we had to have them to be approved to adopt

Why aren't the safety features that we think of as standard (three pins, on / off switch) more common around the world, does anyone know?

Five years ago we had to have them to be approved to adopt

Says it all about the 'professionals' that everyone else is supposed to blindly follow the 'advice' of.

PigletJohn c 1978 but wiring was older.

I've come across sockets where the earth contact that should connect to the pond was so badly bent it didn't make proper contact.

We were approved for childminding 5 years ago and had to have them, but as I mentioned above we went for a different design which doesn't have the risks of the in plug ones. Plus you can't lose the blooming things when you take them out to use the plug!

The poorer ones are still common advice and readily available so it's not surprising people still use them.

Apparently the reason we have the safety standards is due to a wholesale review of our electrical regulations post war, including the specific requirement to make sockets safer for children.
Many british territories overseas also have the same safety shutters in the sockets and some other countries are starting to introduce them (USA) but on a piecemeal basis.

Notsosureanymore - if you read the government guidelines it explains how safe uk sockets are. They were designed with by a team that included a woman with a young baby. The protectors specially over ride some of the in built safety features. It's really interesting

barbarian

Could it have had round-pin sockets? A lot of them were still in use and got replaced with BS1363 when rewired during the 1970's

Olenna Our excellent safety features were all part of the post war improvements, including setting up the NHS. It was rather a collectivist triumph, as there was research into the dangers of electrical outlets and national solutions put in place. No outlets in bathrooms is part of this. British electricity is about the safest in the world, whereas in the US, for example, it has been left to private enterprise, and the design in my experience has been unsafe and inefficient. They are now using a 3 pin plug on certain products like laptops, but you have to retrofit outlets to cope with them.

X post there, wonky.

Thanks Basket and wonky. I'm a pretty chilled parent, but living in an apartment in America with permanently live sockets - well, I'm just glad that my DC are old enough to explain the dangers to.

Sometimes unplugging things like the toaster or fan there are sparks around the plug - at least the electricity isn't as strong in the US, but would presumably still give a nasty shock

I was going to post the RoSPA link but someone's beaten me to it.

For goodness sake if RoSPA don't recommend them AND give you a good reason why not, why on earth would you stubbornly ignore them?

John possibly, I honestly don't remember - I just remember the bang, the flash and my mum panicking.

I've lived in an old New York appartment, Olenna and I got a small shock a few times, and saw sparks nearly every time I plugged or unplugged anything. The third pin, as well as being a safety feature also keeps the appliance in the wall more effectively, so something like an iron, hairdryer or hoover, it's never going to fall out mid use like it does elsewhere in the world.

My American friends all think it's mad not to have outlets in the bathroom, and can't understand how we cope drying our hair in the bedroom!

If, in the 1970's the house still had old BS 546 sockets, it might have been possible to poke a small screwdriver or skewer into them

The sockets did not have the narrow rectangular openings, and may not have had shutters, so they were not as safe as the sockets we use today.

Many other countries still use round-pin sockets without shutters, and in various respects they do not meet the standards of our wonderful design.

Even a baby's finger will not reach into a UK socket far enough to get a shock, even if he has an accomplice to force open the shutters by inserting a properly shaped and sized tool into the earth opening, and the shutters prevent you poking even a small screwdriver into the live slot.