There are no short cuts to safety. This applies in the home as much as it does in the workplace or on the roads. One of the greatest dangers comes from electric power. We take it for granted. We buy electrical goods, plug them into a power socket and expect them to work safely. Unfortunately all around the world, not least in the Kingdom, this is not always what is happening.
The risk comes from two sources. Improper electrical installations in a home or office or from faulty or fake electrical devices. It is these devices which are posing a growing risk here. It is unfortunately the same old story of an influx of phony goods, often sold at the same price as the real thing and to all intents and purposes looking like the real deal. This even comes down to the right packaging, the correct electrical security labeling and a book of well-printed instructions, all of which look, for all the world, to be entirely genuine.
Yet the goods inside are cheap fakes. Worse, no attention has been paid whatsoever to the safety of the wiring. The prime consideration of the fakers has been to make sure that the device, be it a CD deck or an oven or a hair dryer, appears to work fine, at least for a while. Yet all too often these electrical devices are death traps.
There are two clear dangers. The first is that a user will be electrocuted, because internal wiring has been wrongly connected, meaning that metal parts of the device will become live. An unwary user grasping a metal surface would immediately receive a shock. What often kills is that an electrical charge causes human muscles to contract; thus someone who has grabbed something will find it very hard to let go, because the charge is forcing them to clamp down on the item. Generally speaking, unless they can free themselves, the only way they will be able to let go will be if the power is turned off at the mains. Anyone unwise enough to rush to try and help them pull their hand free, is also in danger of being electrocuted, because the charge will pass to them.
However according to recent findings by Saudi investigators, the greatest danger comes from fires. Most homes have many quietly glinting lights from equipment that is on standby or from household Wi-Fi routers. These are never turned off. The assumption of course is that they have been designed and built in such a way that the heat will be “sunk” away or, when a certain temperature is reached, a small fan will kick in.
However fake goods are by their very nature, even if they are an accurate “passing off” of an esteemed international brand, simply not going to be made to the same safety standard. And why should they be? The cheats are anonymous. If there is a tragic death because someone was using a fake product, who is there to sue?
Moreover, it is not just counterfeits of advanced and expensive equipment that is finding its way into the Kingdom. Cheap items such as power strips and light fittings have been flooding into Gulf countries. As the Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s inspection teams have discovered in recent months, these may be low-value items but they are highly dangerous. They have indeed, say officials, been responsible for numerous fatal fires and the extensive destruction of property.
On the face of it, the obvious answer is urge consumers to take the greatest care when buying a piece of electrical equipment and to purchase only from reputable outlets. No one who buys an unboxed mobile phone off a seller in the street, should expect that it is anything other than stolen or a cheap and possibly dangerous fake. Yet the real culprits, the people who really need to be tracked down and punished, are the unscrupulous middlemen who source and import fake and unsafe goods into the Kingdom and the wider region.
There is nothing wrong with buying low and selling high. That is what makes for good business. There is however everything wrong with buying cheap in the knowledge that the goods really are cheap, in fact are effectively worthless because they are counterfeit, badly made and dangerous. In the Kingdom, all too often when traders are caught and prosecuted by the authorities for malfeasance, their names are not announced. Therefore customers can rarely be warned off dealing with them. As the death toll from faulty, counterfeit electrical goods continues to rise, surely it is time that these traders were named and shamed?
Editorial: Merchants of death
