Accident Totals And Suggestions As To How To Avoid Them Can Be Downright Misleading

Spoilsports In Chief, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents put out a proclamation in May of this year in relation to safety around the barbeque. Apparently, last year one thousand eight hundred people required treatment at the local A&E department because of misfortunes involving a bbq. But I am having a problem making sense of the figures.

For instance, it says that 800 were the result of to a scald or burn, two hundred had managed to cut themselves in some way. And what, you could ask, of the other 800 people? Alas, despite the large part of the total there is no clue. What they did to themselves and how doesn’t seem worth recording.

Here’s another. Of the one thousand eight hundred, 1400 had happened at home, and the other 300 in a public location. Do you spot something? The outstanding 100 must have been damaged in a separate dimension where nowhere is either private or public but everyone gets together for a barbeque and occasionally someone gets hurt and they need to take a trip to Earth for treatment. Do they have such things as a Weber bbq in this distant place or do they make their own? I’d like to know.

What I think what happens here is that the vast majority of the accidents happen and the word ‘barbeque’ is used in the context of “we were having a bbq round the Weber and as I went to get the relishes from the fridge, went over the cat lying in the hall and got a biff on the head as I fell against the wall. Is this a barbeque accident? No, more of a pet accident I would suggest, and I bet RoSPA gleefully carve a notch in the log to do with bbq, Weber bbq, pets, and probably alcohol just in case. 1 accident, four reports.

This is also the case with traffic incidents involving alcohol. If a bus transporting fifty passengers brakes quickly because a drunk swerves into the road in front of it and somebody bangs their head on the seat in front and needs treatment, the official record will be fifty two people involved in an alcohol related road incident. (The other one os the driver)

RoSPA have suggested a number of tips to follow to help avoid mishaps such as not lfiring up a barbeque in an enclosed space. This is great but what do they mean ‘enclosed space’. A small patio with a fence round it is an ‘enclosed space’ (so is a large patio with a fence come to that) but surely this is a suitable location? Another one suggests never pouring petrol, meths or accelerants on a barbeque. This is tosh. They cannot mean never, what they mean is when it’s already going. If you’re using a coal burning Weber bbq for instance, you may require something to get it going initially and these will normally involve an accelerant of some description. I do concede that petrol is a bit extreme but meths? Another suggestion is that you don’t start a bbq lelow a tree as they “have been known to catch fire”. Well, thanks for that, I lived in Canberra during January 2003 when the bush fires raged and destroyed some of the outer suburbs. I know trees can burn a bit, what with being made of wood and all!

However, sarcasm aside, RoSPA do fine and heroic work, though I reckon a lot of it is probably pretty non-taxing when it comes to thinking up guidelines, but as long as there is a shortage of commonsense the temptation to tut and wag fingers will always be there.

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