Yes, I’m talking about fire alarms. Specifically, when fire
alarms are triggered in public spaces. I was shopping today when suddenly the
fire alarm began to ring and as I looked around I realized that no one else
concerned. I began to think and wonder if I should be evacuating the building.
It didn’t seem like a test, but because no one else appeared to be distressed I
plugged my ears and finished shopping as quickly as possible. It wasn’t until I
left the building, that upon seeing the firemen running into the building, did
I realize that this in reality was not a test. This brings us to question
safety alarms and their impact on our realization of imminent danger.
Think about the times you have heard a fire alarm go off in
a public space. Did you think it was a test? Did you think that perhaps you
were not in danger because you saw no signs of immediate crisis? At what point
do we stop and say that this is a problem that we need to fix?
I think it is something we need to evaluate before people
are unnecessarily injured or killed because they didn’t take the signal that
notifies us of danger as a serious threat. How often has major catastrophe
happened due to people thinking the alarm was false, rather that it had to be
false?
We need to re-think the design of the system. We need to recondition
what an alarm signifies, because right now most of us think it is a false
alarm.
No comments:
Post a Comment