51
When Escalator Breaks, It Turns Stairs (aartaka.me)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
24 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

We need resilient systems that fall back to sanity when broken / discriminating. And not whatever.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 4 points 5 months ago (7 children)

My understanding is that even if the brakes are working, it's still not safe for maintenance people to have the public using them as stairs. And maybe to fix whatever is wrong they might need to disengage the brakes anyway.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (6 children)

    Oh no... You absolutely can't be doing maintenance on an escalator while people are walking on it. Not only unsafe, that's just not going to work at all most of the time. The maintenance crew and the public would be in each other's way.

    On the other hand, when it breaks on a Monday, and the crew says they can be there to do the repair on Thursday, that means that it's safe to use the escalator as stairs for a couple of days while you wait.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (5 children)

    Escalators have brakes to prevent them from moving. If the escalator breakdown causes the brakes to fail, then it can accelerate enough to seriously injure people

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Sure. But if the brakes have not failed... Then it's safe to use for a reasonable period of time.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

    And how do you know that the brakes won't fail?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Multiple independent braking systems and adequate maintenance.

    A single failure may cause the escalator to stop working, but it takes 3 failures in a row to make it catastrophic. Regular maintenance catches this failures before 3 in a row can occur.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago*

    If you're afraid of this kind of thing, then don't use escalators when they aren't moving, that's fine.

    According to a quick Google search, there are 2-3 escalator related deaths per year in the US. That's not just counting malfunctioning escalators, it also counts morons doing dumb things on escalators (and "within the US" includes every Florida Man out there).

    You can worry about this if you like worrying, but it's probably not worth it.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent