This country is sh*t

[Skids]

Hello fellow question answerers and solution providers, this question, or set of questions, arrives at your screen in two parts.

Part A;
Has Health and Safety in this country gone totally looney tunes? Why, if someone microwaves their dog, is the microwave manufacturer responsible because there wasn't a 'Don't Microwave Your Dog' warning? Surely everyone who has bought, or who has been given, a microwave knows that its for cooking food, not drying wet dogs. A conventional cooker cooks food, yet they don't stick their household pets in them do they? Why do small claims courts award in the favour of the person who has been totally stupid instead of telling them to get lost and learn some common sense? Has this culture of 'someone-else-will-look-out-for-me' come about due to the ever downward spiral of this country's education standards? Who is the idiot; the guy that power drills his hand or the judge that agrees it was the fault of the power tool maker for not telling him to not drill the soft fleshy items known as body parts?

Part B;
Is this the right topic catagory to post the questions posed in Part A?

[Laura-sakura]

Was that not an urban myth? well, even if it was true did someone really try to sue the manufacturer? I don't think so....America has lost the plot with H&S and personal compensation claims, the UK is fast catching up so it wouldn't surprise me at all.

[paddy_36]

Agree Skids, I absolutely loathe and detest the compensation era we find ourselves in just now. The UK, like the USA, is now a blame culture. Why can't people take responsibility for their own actions any more?

[smudge]

Yep - I wholeheartedly agree with you Skids. It's a crazy world we live in these days - but what can we do about it? If we complain about people complaining, we'll only get accused of trying to seek compensation! :0)

[ianess]

Hello again Skids. Yep, you got it in one. The nanny state knows no bounds.  What about the latest scarelist of 359 foods that might just possibly damage you?  Is it safe to go outside?  Is it safe to stay inside?  Is it safe to drink the water that's been "purified" with the addition of chemicals?  What about breathing fresh air full of fumes coming at you in all directions especially when you think of the upper atmosphere being pumped full of jet exhaust at the rate of  a gallon a second for every jumbo jet.  The fact is...we're all gonna die of something.

Can we all agree....We're Doomed ?

[smudge]

Yep we're doomed!

[smorodina]

While I agree that people should take a lot more responsibility for their own safety, there should equally be a requirement for manufacturers and anybody dealing with the public to make sure that their products or practices are safe. I'm happy to make sure I stay away from dangerous places, but unlit or unmarked holes in public thoroughfares are a danger that should remain the responsibility of the person that put them there. Likewise, if a company markets a product it is implying that it is safe for public use and, if the contrary should prove to be the case, the company must take responsibility. On the otherhand, if I drink bleach that is clearly marked as poison, I don't think the manufacturer should be liable just because the lid was not smorodina-proof. There really has to be a balance.

[Clanad]

In Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part II, Act IV, Scene II, Dick, a butcher, said "[t]he first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."  I realize it's folly to blame any one individual or group of individuals, however, here in the U.S. President Bush has just signed a tort reform bill.  One of the problems has been that, in the U.S. at least, a person may sue another person or company without any investment.  That is, the attorney will take the case on contingency, hoping to be rewarded handsomely if the case is decided in his client's favor.  This causes the defendant to, at the very least, hire an attorney to protect his interests.  Many large companies just pay of the plaintiff to avoid the hassle, which sets the all important precedent affecting future cases.  That's not to say that there are no legitimate claims, but some of the awards in the last several years have been astronomical and in many cases have been reversed or reduced.  But this doesn't alleviate the cost to the one defending themselves.  Hopefully, the new tort reform bill will be helpful. BTW the tort reform was contested bitterly by the associations for attornies...

[rojash]

This is the daftest thread I've ever seen. Apart from Laura-sakura, you are all working yourselves into a frenzy about SOMETHING THAT NEVER HAPPENED!

[smorodina]

I'd hardly call my answer a frenzy, and I don't think any of the other answers are responding to the legend quoted - rather the principle involved. I also rather felt that mine was a very calm argument against the point in contention.

[Skids]

Thank you to all those who have commented so far.

[rojash]

Sorry smorodina, you are right about your answer. I guess I was a bit frenzied myself :-)
It's just that there seems to be a bit of a craze fro this "straw man" stuff on AB at the moment. That is: take something that has never happened or is a wildly distorted version of the truth, then rant about how shocking, wrong, unjust etc it is.
Skids based his/her premise " This country is sh*t" on arguments that don't actually stand up to even cursory examination. There are plenty of real problems that need airing without the need to invent spurious ones.

[Wraith]

Thought this might be interesting.

 

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/micropet.htm

[OBonio]

Just as a side note, a friend of mine works in a well known car factory just outside Swindon.  They export to the states.  Apparently they have to put warning labels EVERYWHERE to cover themselves in the event of someone trying to remove the cam belt with the engine running.  It's getting worse in the UK, but I don't think the states will ever be caught in terms of litigiousness.

[ICEMANSAV]

Laughed my head off!!!! who can I sue for my unfortunate yet traumatic injury?

[Miss Zippy]

Clanad � we now have contingency fee agreements (CFAs) here in the UK.  They cannot be used for all forms of litigation, but are certainly a popular method of funding personal injury claims, which is why such claims in this country have nearly doubled since 1999 when CFAs were first introduced.  I used to work in personal injury law and lost the will to live dealing with some of the spurious claims people came up with. Decent lawyers won�t entertain these sort of claims and will put the client straight (the one who wants to sue Nike because he tripped over his laces, that sort of thing) but there are lots of pseudo-legal claims companies over here who encourage people to make bogus or inflated claims.   

[peanut]

Even though i wish you could have used a different example instead of the dog in the microvave ( i cant stand knowing about bad things that happen to defenseless animals ) I agree 10000% with you. The reason this happens is because, like you said this country sucks. People know they can get away with being as dumb as a lemming and get rich from it. The court system sucks too. Everyone knows not to drill a hole in thier hand but are still dumb enough to do it. There was once a lady who spilled hot coffee on herself at a restaraunt and won a million dollars in the lawsuit. Apparently coffee is sopposed to be served cold and have a locking lid and a huge platform as the base of the cup to prevent being spilled. Hey now that i think about it i can probably sue hustler magazine for sexual harassment since there is nothing other than an age warning on the cover.

[Insane Wally]

In November 2000, Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32 foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having joined the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the Winnie left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the handbook that he could not actually do this. He was awarded $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago.

I don't think the UK is quite as looney as the States!

[brian5]

the scary thing is that if one person wins a suit like that, then people will simply start to microwave pets, to get compensation, who need to pay a �1 every week and hope your numbers come up , simply buy a cute little puppy and microwave it, then sue the company cos it didn't tell you not to.

If you think these people are complete morons, then you treally need to meet the Darwin Award winners, now here are some real stupid people

http://www.darwinawards.com/

[Fitzburger]

I think the EEC has a lot do do with it, and people exploit it.

Go and buy a box of candles and you will see the OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS

Light other end, do not place lighted candle near a leaking gas pipe, not to be taken internally etc...