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Safety Gate: the EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products

ec.europa.eu

104 points by pseudotrash 2 years ago · 34 comments

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RetroTechie 2 years ago

Found in a thrift store recently:

An AC cord, 3-pin (earthed) plugs on both ends, with 2-conductor wiring in between. Spotted 'cause cable was damaged. Even the cable itself carried markings like "3x 0.75mm^2" despite having 2 conductors in it.

This was a one-piece cable (with 'non-replaceable' plugs), so came like that out of the factory. Covered in all the usual certification / safety markings.

Yes... Chinese made. And certainly not a mistake but intentional deception + cost cutting.

I know, many Chinese manufacturers just don't care, and will produce whatever [someone] tells them to produce.

But BOY, how much I would have loved to have a word with manufacturer person in charge of that production run, and question their ethics. And maybe beat 'em up or something.

"You don't care about (potentially) life-or-death safety of random person using YOUR cord? If found by someone with authority, ENTIRE batch of such cords will be recalled, with you or your customer footing the bill, and you don't care about that either?"

I really have a hard time grasping the level of negligence displayed there. And "sorry I had no idea" doesn't apply - you're an AC cable manufacturer, for f%#! sake.

Sadly it's 100% certain such deadly-accident-waiting-to-happen products are commonplace out there. I've got more examples from personal experience alone.

  • lultimouomo 2 years ago

    > An AC cord, 3-pin (earthed) plugs on both ends

    You mean it had PLUGS on both end? That's not a cable, that's a murder attempt!

    • RetroTechie 2 years ago

      No just regular male + female plugs. If not damaged, would look okay in all respects.

      That was in the NL. Probably grey import, sold at flea markets, eBay / AliExpress purchase or similar. Doubtful such cords would pass under the radar of say, HP or the like. Then again, you never know. ;-)

    • mikestew 2 years ago

      Plugs? Sure, with one end female and one end male. I assume you’re thinking of male on both ends (which, yes, should not be sold), but that’s not necessarily the case.

      • snypher 2 years ago

        A female plug is referred to as a socket; any other case is just using the wrong terms.

  • thomond 2 years ago

    What country/continent was this?

  • rabbits_2002 2 years ago

    less than a year ago I was able to find male to male power cables on amazon lol

codeulike 2 years ago

omg the baby self feeding pillows

edit: loads of them https://ec.europa.eu/safety-gate-alerts/screen/webReport/ale...

I suppose they have had to really scale up the testing/alert system in the last decade or so due to influx of millions of new products

  • GordonS 2 years ago

    Holy shit, how the hell did this ever become a product?! Absolute insanity.

    • TeMPOraL 2 years ago

      Any parent probably invented the equivalent of one within the first six months of their kid being born - but I guess this is one of those things that are bloody obvious and desired, but not supposed to ever become products, like pacifiers on an elastic band.

      • entropyie 2 years ago

        Em, no. Never had anything like this, don't know any other parents who did either.

      • GordonS 2 years ago

        > Any parent probably invented the equivalent of one within the first six months of their kid being born

        What?! No! (and yes, I'm a parent)

        I don't detect any sarcasm in your post, but this is such an obviously dangerous idea that surely you can't possibly be serious?

        • TeMPOraL 2 years ago

          I wasn't clear enough: I meant invented only, conceptually, not actually deployed.

          My wife and I joked many times this should be a thing, but we would never have actually bought one, because it's clearly insane.

  • jstanley 2 years ago

    I mean this is obviously a bad idea, but:

    > During self-feeding, the baby is not able to control the flow of fluid. The fluid will continue to flow even if the baby is not swallowing. This may lead to choking.

    Eh? Nothing comes out of the bottle if the baby isn't suckling. The baby is able to control the flow of fluid very easily.

    • jiofj 2 years ago

      If you pinch the rubber tip (or chew on it) gravity will make fluid come out even if you don't suck.

  • fodmap 2 years ago

    omg indeed. Are those pillow 'handles' suppose to work as handcuffs?

Tomte 2 years ago

Is this a new frontend to Rapex? Did they rename Rapex?

Because consumer safety warnings (often toys with swallowing/strangulating hazards) have been available on some EU web site for years (decades, probably).

jeroenhd 2 years ago

I didn't know the EU had a centralised platform for recalls like this.

It's quite interesting to see toxic perfume bottles listed right next to cars (https://ec.europa.eu/safety-gate-alerts/screen/webReport/ale...). That's a lot of recall variety for one single platform!

rainbowzootsuit 2 years ago

I read the name and was looking for where the corruption scandal was, but instead it is a consumer protection site.

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