I'm also reminded that it took that famous Triangle garment factory fire in New York City at the turn of the century (which roasted dozens of workers, some beyond recognition for family members to identify) for the government to require businesses (which fought it tooth and nail at the time as being too costly and excessive governmental interference) to install emergency exits, etc.
My sense of things around here is that it most typically takes a disaster for government agencies to move in many areas of legislation and regulation, which argues for the position that sometimes the government waits TOO LONG to "interfere". (For example, the news reports indicate that the recently passed legislation making it more costly to company execs to defraud their shareholders and employees was dying a slow death in committee until the Enron scandal blew up in the wake of the earlier ones -- Tyco, etc. It seems that it took a mini-flood of such scandals building up to a crescendo to finally push the legislators to do something.) Ezra Ezra Steinberg wrote: > Thank you, Pat, for this useful bit of information. > > It makes me think of the role of safety some more as it relates to metrication. For > example, we have the one incident in Canada reported as a mix-up of gallons and > litres that (nearly?) caused the plane to run out of fuel. We also have the issue of > non-SI units used in aviation here in the States and SI units in other parts of the > world. I don't believe one has to be an expert in failure analysis (or wait for a > highly publicized collision -- or didn't we recently have one in Europe between that > Russian aircraft and another one) to sensibly worry about differing sets of units > being used in the same industry or area of commerce. The appropriate governing body > could conceivably mandate a change to SI units for all aircraft built in the US so > that SI units only would used in communications between aircraft and controllers. > But airline companies are consumers. Why not wait for "market forces" to reach the > point where the aircraft builders would see the market pressure for SI-only > instrumentation and only then switch their gauges, thus inducing the controlling > agency to switch the rules because airline companies and their suppliers are pushing > for the change? > > Ezra > > Pat Naughtin wrote: > > > Dear Ezra and All, > > > > An interesting situation arose in Australia a few summers ago when one state > > (Victoria) was experiencing a worse than usual bush fire (I think these are > > called wild fires in the USA). They called for help from a neighbouring > > state (New South Wales) only to discover that each of the two states had > > decided to use differing standards for purchasing of their hose fittings > > the two fire service's fittings wouldn't fit. > > > > At the post mortem held after the fire, I don't think that issue such as > > 'market forces' and 'individual freedom' were very high on the agenda. All > > Australian states now have fire fighting fittings that are made to uniform > > standards. > > > > Cheers, > > > > Pat Naughtin CAMS > > Geelong, Australia > > > > on 2002-10-08 04.47, Ezra Steinberg at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > > > > > Jim Elwell wrote (in part): > > > > > >> He (the "metric martyr" -- Ezra) refused to use a NEW approved scale system. > > >> He had a perfectly good one > > >> that the government had approved in the past. > > > > > > So, then, for example, if a manufacturer has an existing long-standing > > > approved > > > fire-protection system for his plant and is suddenly told by the government > > > that a different fire protection system must be installed, is that ALWAYS > > > unacceptable? Should "market forces" only decide which kind of fire protection > > > system should be used in the country? > > > > > > Ezra > > >
