Thursday, August 19, 2010

The cost of security

According to the coroner's report, Victor Yeo fell to death accidentally at the Hilton Hotel on his wedding night. He was locked in the staircase and tried many ways to get out.  In desperation, he climbed through a ledge and fell.

I have personally experienced this type of situation in the staircase of some hotels. I like to walk through the staircase for exercise, and found that I could not get back. Sometimes, I had to go all the way down to the ground floor. The signs were usually inadequate - adding to the frustration.

I suspect that this must be a safety regulation from the fire department. It is impractical, probably unnecessary and caused a lot of inconvenience. It has now led to an unfortunate death.

Are there other safety and security regulations that fall in the same category - unnecessary, inconvenient and impractical? There are plenty of them - and they interfere with many aspects of our daily lives.

In the name of protecting the consumer, they expose the consumer to more risks. Some of them falls within the realm of internet banking and airport security, which I have raised many times previously. We need to find the balance between safety and practically.

4 comments:

Solomon said...

Yes,this happened to me too. For security reason, once the door is closed, the door could not be opened. I have to climb over railing and small hill in order to get back to the hotel lobby.

Parka said...

The hotel should not have let that happen, which can be attributed to the design of the hotel.

Chee Ming said...

From what I heard from the Ch. 8 news, a lot of coincidences (aka negligences from the hotel) happened that led to Mr. Yeo's demise. E.g. Things like failing to put up railings and lights were switched off at the accident site.

Since the coroner report stated that it's an accident, shouldn't the hotel be held responsible for this accident?

yujuan said...

If a fire breaks out in the middle of the night, and people are brought up to take the stairs instead of lifts, then people who stumble onto openings which are not lit up, there could be more tragic chaos.
Perhaps the hotel had overdone on
energy saving practices.

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