Posted By Raymond Rapp David Thanks for the information. Incidentally, did the research establish other variables including incidents that were alcohol related? Ray

Posted By Dave Merchant "350 accidents" is an irrelevant number without a denominator. How many millions of journeys is this spread across?

Posted By willhiem David, I'd be very interested in reading your study, if you could provide your email, i'll send on my details, thanks.

Posted By Dave Merchant I'm not disputing that each accident was preventable, but certainly the "little or no cost" argument is wrong. Let's assume doing something costs £1k per escalator - which is fine for the one where the guy dies, but there are hundreds of thousands of escalators in the world, and you have no way to know which will see accident 351. So your overall budget is either a few hundred million quid to inspect and assess every single one (and upgrade those which need it), or nothing. It's like saying one zebra crossing is cheap compared to the thousands of road deaths per year. Fine, if everyone crosses at the same place. I'd ballpark the statistical risk per trip as vanishingly small - there are millions of escalator trips per hour in the UK alone, and the numbers for CP97-1 in the US for injuries of any type (down to a stubbed toe) were around 1 in 4 million, with fatalities at below 1 in 500 million, which makes them the one of the safest forms of motorised transport in the world.

Posted By Jonathan Breeze Dave Merchant, The logic of your statement is flawed. I can choose where to cross on the road or use the zebra crossing. However I often cannot choose how to get to other floors in a building but must use the escalator. Dave Merchant, The logic of your statement is flawed. I can choose where to cross on the road or use the zebra crossing. However I often cannot choose how to get to other floors in a building but must use the escalator. Now if all the escalators in the world were installed to the same high standard and kept maintained...

Posted By Jonathan Breeze Oops, Cross posted same point with David Cooper.

Posted By Dave Merchant The logic of my zebra crossing statement was meant to be flawed - that's the point. Previous research (and there's been a lot, just ask the Elevator and Escalator Safety Foundation) tends to show that the primary cause of most accidents is human behavior rather than design/maintenance faults. There will always be some escalators installed in a stupid place or maintained poorly, but if every one was perfect you would still have occasional people falling off, unless they're all caged in. Sometimes people are just stupid. Because the per-trip rate is so vanishingly small it's into noise, so the argument that these 350 accidents can be 'prevented' doesn't float - there can never be zero, and 350 is probably as low as it'll go. Let's say we enclose very escalator well, to prevent side falls - how many people could be injured during the installation of the enclosures, or because they resulted in a change in smoke dispersal during a fire? Probably very few, but it's one small number against another small number. I'm not questioning the accident figures in the report, just if they're actually of any statistical 'significant risk', which is what matters to the people riding on the things. Airbags save lives, but also cause injuries and deaths. They're only worthwhile because the huge number of collisions allows a mismatch of probability, and there's no similar comparison available for lifts or escalators.

Posted By Jonathan Breeze Dave M, I worked that out after I posted. Sorry! I woke up this morning thinking it was Saturday and I haven't yet recovered from the disappointment.

Posted By David A Cooper Many thanks for your kind words Chris. I have been presenting these findings and a general safety course on escalators free of charge to a number of EHO gatherings around the UK as well as at International meetings. If anyone would like me to present to their association I am more than happy to do so. Presenting the findings are an integral part of the Universities requirements so I would be pleased to share the information with anyone who is interested. Dave