60 Fun Facts About Safety

If your clothing catches fire, what three-step technique are children taught?

It is taught to kids, emergency crews and industrial workers, mainly in North America.

The fire triangle shows a fire needs heat, fuel and what third element?

Throwing a fire blanket over a blaze works by cutting off that third side of the triangle.

Fires involving ordinary solids such as paper and wood fall into which category?

Class B is flammable liquids and, under the European scheme, Class C is flammable gases.

The first record of a fire extinguisher is a 1723 patent by which English chemist?

Captain George Manby's portable pressurised 'Extincteur' followed in 1816, using pearl ash solution and compressed air.

Household smoke detectors sense smoke either optically or by which other process?

The first single-station smoke detector was invented in 1970 and went on sale the following year.

The gas that CO alarms detect is nicknamed the 'silent killer' because it is what?

Alarms are designed to sound within 60 minutes at 70 ppm but immediately at 500 ppm or more.

What is the recommended rate of chest compressions during adult CPR?

Compressions should be 5 to 6 cm deep, and untrained rescuers are told to skip the breaths and just push.

The Heimlich manoeuvre is used to treat what emergency?

The rescuer stands behind the victim and applies pressure just below the diaphragm; it is also called an abdominal thrust.

An AED delivers an electric shock to correct which heart rhythm?

The devices talk the rescuer through every step, which is why they are taught in basic first aid classes.

The recovery position is used for a casualty who is unconscious but still what?

Lying on the back can let the airway close; lying on the side keeps it open and lets fluid drain.

Which Swedish carmaker introduced the three-point seat belt as standard in 1959?

Engineer Nils Bohlin then proved its worth in a study of 28,000 Swedish accidents.

Early airbags inflated using a small explosion of which compound instead of compressed air?

Allen Breed's sensor could set one off in under 30 milliseconds; GM put them in fleet Impalas in 1973.

The first crash test dummy, built in 1949 to test aircraft ejection seats, had what name?

Today's Hybrid III dummies come in sizes for a ten-year-old, a six-year-old, a three-year-old and a grown man.

By roughly how much does texting while driving raise crash risk, per the US DOT?

Polls regularly find that over 30 percent of US drivers admit to having recently texted at the wheel.

The world's first numeric speed limit, set in Britain in 1861, was how fast?

The 1865 'Red Flag Act' cut it to 2 mph in towns and 4 mph in the country.

The first electric traffic light was built in 1912 by a policeman where?

Lester Wire's design came 44 years after gas-lit signals went up outside the Houses of Parliament in London.

The black-and-white striped zebra crossing was first trialled in which country?

A thousand experimental crossings went in during a 1949 Pedestrian Safety Week, and the first permanent one was marked in Slough in 1951.

The first 911 emergency call in the United States was made in 1968 in which state?

Britain had been using 999 since 1937, and Winnipeg was the first North American city with a central number in 1959.

The first Poison Control Center opened in 1953 in which US city?

Its founder had become the man the whole country phoned about poisonings, taking calls at home around the clock.

OSHA, the US workplace safety regulator, was created by a law signed by which president?

The Occupational Safety and Health Act became law on December 29, 1970, and the agency sits inside the Department of Labor.

The first American hard hat, patented in 1919, was made of what?

E. W. Bullard came home from World War I with a steel helmet and turned the idea into the 'Hard-Boiled hat' for miners.

Lockout-tagout procedures ensure that dangerous equipment cannot be what during maintenance?

Every hazardous energy source has to be isolated and rendered inoperative before work starts.

In the hierarchy of hazard controls, which two measures sit at the top as most effective?

Personal protective equipment sits at the bottom, as the last line of defence.

Which California professor developed the ground-fault circuit interrupter in 1961?

He had spent years estimating exactly how much current it takes to send a human heart into fibrillation.

The biohazard symbol was designed in 1966 by an engineer at which chemical company?

Charles Baldwin wanted a symbol that was memorable but meant nothing else, so it could be taught from scratch.

The three-bladed radiation trefoil symbol was designed in 1946 at which university's radiation lab?

The first versions were magenta on a blue background rather than today's black on yellow.

Which symbol is used internationally to warn of poison?

Pittsburgh's Mr. Yuk sticker was invented because children associated the pirate flag with adventure rather than danger.

Kevlar, the fibre in bulletproof vests, was invented at DuPont in 1965 by which chemist?

By tensile strength-to-weight it is five times stronger than steel, and its first commercial use was in racing tyres.

Smokey Bear's slogan was updated in 2001 from 'Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires' to prevent what?

The change came after huge fires in grasslands, and to make clear he was not opposing prescribed burns.

The real bear cub who became the living Smokey was rescued in 1950 from a fire in which state?

The five-pound cub was found after the Capitan Gap fire and lived out his life at the National Zoo in Washington.

Health authorities recommend scrubbing your hands with soap for at least how long?

Ignaz Semmelweis proved handwashing prevented hospital deaths back in 1846, and was ignored for decades.

What does SPF on a sunscreen bottle measure protection against?

Franz Greiter introduced the Sun Protection Factor in 1974; his original 1946 Glacier Cream is thought to have been about SPF 2.

Heat stroke is defined by a body temperature above what?

It happens when the body's own cooling is overwhelmed, and confusion is one of the tell-tale signs.

Hypothermia is defined as a core body temperature below what?

Normal body temperature sits between 36.5 and 37.5 degrees Celsius.

Food safety agencies define the temperature 'danger zone' for bacterial growth as roughly what range?

Microbes grow fastest in the middle of that band, between about 21 and 47 degrees Celsius.

Radon is the second most frequent cause of which disease in the United States, after smoking?

The colourless, odourless noble gas seeps up from uranium in the ground and collects in basements.

The word 'asbestos' comes from a Greek word meaning what?

Inhaling the fibres causes asbestosis, lung cancer and the cancer mesothelioma.

The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York killed how many garment workers?

Locked stairwell doors trapped the workers, and the disaster drove a wave of workplace safety laws.

The great fire that Fire Prevention Week commemorates each October destroyed which city in 1871?

Legend blames Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern in the barn on DeKoven Street.

The first modern fire escape was patented in 1887 by which inventor?

Daniel Maseres had built a window-mounted descent machine a century earlier, in 1784.

The green 'running man' emergency exit pictogram was developed in which country?

ISO 7010 adopted it internationally in 2003; some US states still insist on red EXIT lettering.

Titanic carried how many lifeboats, despite having davits for 48?

The disaster led to the 1914 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, still in force today.

The modern cork life jacket was created in 1854 for the rescue crews of which British institution?

Captain John Ross Ward's brown cork vest gave both buoyancy and weather protection.

Coal miners once carried canaries underground mainly to detect which gas?

John Scott Haldane proposed the idea in 1895 and birds were in use the following year.

The Davy safety lamp was designed to stop miners' flames igniting which explosive gas mixture?

Sir Humphry Davy took on the problem after the Felling colliery explosion, using wire gauze to contain the flame.

Safety orange is chosen for hunting gear and cones because it contrasts most sharply with what?

Azure is orange's complementary colour, so the two clash as strongly as any pair can.

Warning traffic signs across most of the world take what shape?

The usual version has a white background and a thick red border; China uses black on yellow.

Walter Hunt invented the modern safety pin in 1849 to pay off a debt of how much?

He sold the rights for a few hundred dollars and never saw the fortune it made.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission, which coordinates product recalls, was created in which year?

It was set up by the Consumer Product Safety Act to tackle 'unreasonable risks' of injury from everyday goods.

The National Safety Council, founded in 1913, is headquartered in which state?

Congress granted the nonprofit a charter in 1953.

The Automatic sprinkler that bears his name was patented in 1881 by which American?

Sprinklers had been in US factories since 1874, where turn-of-the-century fires were routinely catastrophic.

A tornado watch means conditions are favourable for tornadoes; a tornado warning means what?

Doppler radar can spot rotation in a storm before a funnel ever touches down.

If caught outdoors in lightning with no shelter, the recommended 'lightning position' is what?

One British estimate found a quarter of people struck were sheltering under trees.

Where was the world's first compulsory seat belt law introduced in 1970?

It followed trials of Hemco belts in police cars, which cut officer injuries and deaths.

Which US state first required seat belts in all new cars, from the 1962 model year?

Congress followed in 1966 with the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act setting federal standards.

The first single-station home smoke detector, sold in 1971, was powered by what?

The ionization unit cost about $125, roughly $1,000 in today's money, and sold a few hundred thousand a year.

Swiss physicist Walter Jaeger's failed 1930s poison-gas sensor reacted instead to what?

The frustrated scientist lit up and saw his meter drop, an accident that helped pave the way for the modern smoke detector.

Which British captain demonstrated the 'Extincteur', a pressurised fire extinguisher, in 1816?

It was a copper vessel holding three gallons of potassium carbonate solution under compressed air.

The CO2 fire extinguisher was developed in 1924 at which company's request, for switchboards?

Walter Kidde's tall cylinder held 7.5 pounds of carbon dioxide, an agent that would not conduct electricity.

Who patented the first automatic electric fire alarm in 1890?

He was an associate of Thomas Edison; Europe's first electrical heat detector followed in Birmingham in 1902.