I would hope that by the time a child gets big enough to reach a switch at the back of a kitchen counter, they would be old enough to know better.

Unfortunatly children have limited understanding of risk. Where was some moderately adult supervision at this drowning tragedy in the Midlands. From what I read here the youngest was 6 and the oldest 11.

Yes Roger I think you have a point there.

However there are 11 year olds and there are 11 year olds. Some of the things I was allowed to do at 11 I would not permit some others to do at 11, it depends upon that particular 11 year old I think.

About 25 years or more ago I was speaking to the owners of a factory where a few years before I had installed there, door contacts. PIRs and a telephone dialler and sounders internal and external.

6AM one Sunday the dialler summoned the factory owners from about 3 miles away. When they got to their factory the police were in attendance and had broken in - very unusual for the police to break in in such circumstances./ However the reason being that children had climbed onto the factory roof (Northern Lights) and had fallen quite a few feet and was injured (Broken limb kinda injury). Lucky had missed by a few feet the large hand presses with big spike on them or it could have been a more tragic outcome. 

Anyway a few days letter there was a solicitors letter blaming the owners for this lad`s injury, beggars belief. at 6AM on a Sunday some three or four  6 to 8 year olds had climbed a say ten foot fence then scaled an 11 foot high wall to climb on the roof and this letter held the factory owners responsible. Where were the parents? The factory owners solicitor advised them not to worry about that damn letter.

I have probably mentioned this tale before

ebee said:

However there are 11 year olds and there are 11 year olds.

I have a job which sometimes requires a panel to assess whether a child requires more supervision outdoors than an average child of the same age. What I find difficult is deciding what level of supervision is appropriate nowadays.

It is difficult to remember what we did at what age, but by 8 we went off to the woods to play. We larked about in an old quarry and climbed derelict buildings; we scarpered from the Police. It's a wonder that I never suffered anything more than grazed knees, but we were taught not to go on the ice or speak to strangers.

Agreed Chris, we did all those things, including things our parents told us not to. People (and children) will always do what they want rather than only what they should. That is life. The point of this thread is that I am trying to find a low cost alternative that might just make that crucial difference (after the event wishing you`d done more kind of scenario). Yet on the minus side the upshot is that the more inherently safe we make something then risks become more common. "Oh it`s got an RCD on it so I will work nearer to it with this screwdriver" sort of mentality.

How many of you remember when you started showing an interest in the opposite gender "don`t do owt you shouldn`t! (repeated at least three times in succession in a stern voice), then once, in a lower voice,  "but if you do be very careful!" OK we can laugh at the absurdity of the first and last sentences  being said in the same phrase but that amusing thought is just the same with all of life`s risks too. 

What is the solution - actually there isn`t one. Do I make a box to make things safer or not? I don`t know, Should the manufacturer have made it almost impossible for a two year old girl to climb into that dryer and close the door behind her? How could they hope to achieve that? I don`t know.

Sadly that recent event in Solihull, would the call to fence off that lake be realistic to achieve and would it be successful? I really do not know.

I have a feeling that it's the sort of thing that a manufacturer could produce fairly easily.  It needs an off-the-shelf power measuring chip, a microcontroller and a relay.  Nothing exotic.  But the market is so niche, that I don't see any large manufacturer being interested.

Old school hasp and staple attached to door and body of machine? Or even 2 chains across the door attached to cabinets either side with padlock in the middle?

It seems to me that the problem here is that the door can be latched closed from the inside.  It would not be difficult or expensive to make the door so that it can only be latched closed from the outside.

I said about a Police Officer finding a child dead in a machine, it was not turned on, he simply suffocated.

Indeed not! Our fairly new one does not lock the door until the programme has been selected and the "Start/Stop" button on the natty little touch screen has been pressed, so impossible to lock oneself in.

The same may have applied to the previous machine, which expired after 17 years. By contrast, the old washing machine's stable mate drier can be shut from inside, but opened only by pressing the release button.

A game of hide and seek is all it takes.