Latest news with #RoyalSocietyforthePreventionofAccidents
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Driving course refresher set up for over-60s
A new initiative to help older drivers stay on the road and increase their confidence has been introduced. The Gold course by Norfolk County Council is designed for motorists over the age of 60 and lasts about 60 minutes. The local authority's road safety team collaborated with Norfolk Police, the local fire service and ambulance service. Fran Whymark, Conservative cabinet member for public health, said: "It's not about losing people's licence; it's about keeping people on the road and keeping them safe." Drivers signed up to the course take the test in their own vehicle and council road safety officer Andrew Sykes said it enabled the assessor to give an objective view on their driving. "It's really not a driving test by any means - it's just an observed drive with a few hints and tips along the way," said Mr Sykes. Whymark took the course himself and admitted his driving had changed since passing his test 40 years ago. "I'm a bit older so your eyesight deteriorates, your mobility deteriorates... it's about keeping yourself safe and keeping yourself on the road. "Most people just need to tidy up a few items when they are driving." Rebecca Guy, from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents charity, pointed out there was other support and training available for veteran drivers. Motorists aged over 70 have to renew their driving licence every three years with the DVLA. Two coroners have recently recommended that the licensing system is tightened up following fatal accidents caused by older drivers. HM Senior Coroner for Lancashire Dr James Adeley pointed out the UK was one of only three countries to rely upon self-reporting of visual conditions affecting driving. Meanwhile, assistant coroner for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Beth Brown said older drivers with "compromised" ability may cause further deaths. Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. Call for drivers over 65 to have regular reviews Concerns about older drivers rising, figures suggest Norfolk County Council Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency RoSPA
Daily Mail
25-04-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
People shocked to discover the real reason for holes in ballpoint pen lids
People have been left stunned after discovering the real reason that biro pen lids have a hole in the top of them. Zach D, a popular American filmmaker who boasts 20 million subscribers on YouTube, posted a video revealing the truth in 2022 - shocking people across the internet with the revelation. In the short clip, he said that while most people believe the reason is related to the ink, the holes in pen lids have a far more crucial function. Zach - who makes and shares zeitgeist short videos to social media for his loyal band of followers - said the true reason is 'much more important'. 'Pen companies are actually required to add these little holes,' he said. 'You see, there's just enough space for airflow if the cap gets stuck in someone's throat.' According to the Bic website, the reason for the hole in the top of biro pen lids is to allow the passage of air if someone accidentally swallows the cap and it becomes trapped in their windpipe. The video continued to show a skeletal x-ray and how the lid design could allow air to pass through the throat if swallowed. The clip has since been seen a staggering 3.1 million times, with many viewers baffled to have discovered the surprisingly practical reason for the hole. 'Oh my gosh, thank you I'll be careful next time no no actually even if I did swallow they invented those holes just for me to breathe!' one commented. 'I remember chewing this pen cap during my childhood,' one person commented. 'Wow hopefully that never happens to anyone,' another added. But some Instagram user claimed to have known this for 'years'. 'I thought this was common knowledge,' one person wrote. Another said: 'Everyone knows this by now.' Global pen company Bic also confirmed the reason for the design choice in the FAQ section of the website. 'In addition to help prevent the pen from leaking, all our BIC caps comply with international safety standards that attempt to minimize the risk of children accidentally inhaling pen caps. 'Some of these vented caps, like that used for the BIC Cristal, has a little hole in the top to comply with the existing safety standards.' A hundred people in the United States reportedly choke to death on the pen lids every year. Fortunately, this figure has reduced ever since Bic and other rival pen companies added the hole design feature to pens around the world. In 2007, a 13-year-old British boy tragically died after choking to death on a pen top. Against all advice, the teenager, Ben Stirland, had been lounging on his chair and sucking his pen when he slipped off his seat and the lid became lodged in the back of his throat. Despite frantic efforts by paramedics and hospital staff to free the plastic top from his throat he lost consciousness and died two days later. A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents at the time, said that while instances of choking to death are rare, they normally only occur in very young or elderly people. They added that the event of Ben's death was a tragic reminder for people to avoid sucking on pen lids. While seemingly harmless, it would appear that pens have the potential to pose a number of surprising health risks. Last year, a doctor was forced to issue an urgent warning after a DIY makeup hack that involved using a biro pen, went viral on social media. Shelagh Kratz, from Philadelphia, racked up 10 million views on a clip posted to TikTok in which she revealed the makeup hack that involved using a ballpoint pen as eyeliner. In the clip, she showed viewers her unique method, which involved simply gliding a Paper Mate ballpoint pen along her lash line to create the look of liner with a winged tip. The influencer claimed her makeup looked 'the best' that day due to the ballpoint nib allowing for a 'super precise' application, and told viewers it was sweat-proof for a long night out. It's a trick she learned when she was completely out of the eye product after she accidentally dropped her product down the toilet while on a trip to Albania - but doctors took a dim view. In response to the video, optometrist Dr. Julian Prosia, issued a stark warning on the app, warning that it could pose a high risk of infection. 'Using pen ink on the eyelid is probably not a good idea, considering it's not meant for this cosmetic use, and it's extremely non-sterile,' he said. 'This could leave you at a higher risk for skin irritation and also infection if you do puncture the skin in the areas you're drawing over,' the doctor continued. He later added that since eyelid skin is the 'thinnest skin in the body,' you could damage the eye even further due to the sharpness of the ballpoint pen. 'You could have puncturing wounds or you could have toxicity and inflammatory issues,' he said.
Gulf Today
20-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
Final Destination is scarier than ever amid rise in freak accidents
Kyle MacNeill, The Independent A golden rule of horror is that there must be a fiend or a foe. A gross mutant; a bloodthirsty vampire; a demented ghost; a psycho killer. It needs to be something we can actually see (through the slits of our fingers) and fear for days, or years, to come. Something to infiltrate our dreams like those poor residents of Elm Street. Something really, truly terrifying. It's these somethings that tend to sell tickets — relative to how much cornea-popping, popcorn-chucking trauma they cause. Then 25 years ago this month, Final Destination broke the rule. The iconic Noughties horror franchise doesn't feature a single tangible monster, either supernatural or human. There's only Death. Each of the five films follows a group of teens, one of whom has a premonition of an imminent freak accident that comes true. The survivors soon realise that they have defied destiny and no matter what they do, they will meet their demise in the most bizarrely brutal ways possible: car crashes, rollercoaster malfunctions, plane explosions and the kind of workplace accidents that would get Injury Lawyers 4U spamming your voicemail. Crucially, though, we never see Death. It's just there... it's everywhere. And Final Destination, a quarter of a century on, is freakier than ever. Look away, those with a nervous disposition: according to a Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents report from November 2024, freak deaths are 42 per cent higher than two decades ago, becoming the second biggest killer for under-forties. More time spent indoors has proved fatal; over 55 per cent of preventable deaths now happen at home. Poisonings are up by 96 per cent in the past decade; exposure to inanimate mechanical forces (like, being crushed by machinery) are up by 23 per cent and fatal contact with animate forces (like, say, being charged by a cow) is up by 66 per cent. Whether it's down to more DIY, an increasingly blasé attitude to danger or — most likely — being superglued to our phones, there's a genuine epidemic of bizarre deaths. Jeffrey Reddick, the creator of the classic franchise, isn't shocked by the stats. 'I've been nearly hit so many times by someone who is turning when they're not supposed to be, they've got their phone covering their view. It's crazy.' He's even noticed the potential scene unfolding out his window. 'There's construction everywhere outside my flat. And I'm just like, I hope nothing happens. But if it does, I already told Craig [Perry, producer], you guys can milk it for marketing,' he laughs. It makes for creepily prescient timing: a new movie is on the way after a 14-year hiatus, with Final Destination: Bloodlines set for release in May. But back in the late Nineties, the lack of any tangible enemy made it tricky for Reddick to get his idea off the ground. His flash of inspiration came after reading an article about a woman who had changed her flights after her mum had a vision of it crashing (scarily, Reddick read this story while he himself was on a plane). The mother was, somehow, right. It got his mind whirring. 'I had this thought of: what if she had cheated death? I thought that was a really cool idea.' Originally writing it as a spec script for The X Files — 'the hottest show on TV' at the time — one of Reddick's colleagues at New Line Cinema said it would make a great full feature film. With Perry and Warren Zide – both producers on American Pie — joining the team, they honed Reddick's vision. The adults, for example, were changed to more splatter-friendly teens. 'I just wanted to get this made,' Reddick laughs. 'I'll kill old people. I don't care.' But New Line still had concerns and were worried it would be all filler, no killer — literally. 'They said there's nothing you can see or fight. They didn't understand it.' Forced to throw something in, Reddick added an Angel of Death character that would taunt the teens. Call it fate, but Glen Morgan and James Wong – both writers on The X Files — were then invited to join the team. Reddick had originally envisioned the characters committing suicide after suffering from survivors' guilt, but Morgan and Wong crucially changed it to Death getting its revenge. The new duo also bravely killed off the Angel and fought to make sure that Death wasn't shown at all — beyond the occasional shadowy presence. The result was Final Destination, released on 16 March 2000. The film follows a group of college students who narrowly miss a plane crash and are then bizarrely butchered through a horrific chain reaction. Critics were savage but that didn't stop it from pulling in $112.9m off a $23m budget. Four other lucrative films followed over the next 11 years; Reddick only worked directly on the first two, but is still close to the team to keep his original vision intact. The new instalment is being directed by duo Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein (Freaks) who got the job after a Zoom audition with Warner Bros. During the video call, Lipovsky and Stein's office suddenly went up in flames and the ceiling fan came crashing down, decapitating them both. Thankfully, it was all pre-recorded SFX. The stunt landed them the honour of directing one of horror's most storied franchises.
