from Hacker News

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

by pseudotrash on 9/19/23, 9:11 AM with 32 comments

  • by RetroTechie on 9/19/23, 1:43 PM

    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.

  • by codeulike on 9/19/23, 10:59 AM

    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

  • by Tomte on 9/19/23, 10:38 AM

    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).

  • by jeroenhd on 9/19/23, 10:18 AM

    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!

  • by rainbowzootsuit on 9/19/23, 11:13 AM

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