DANGERS OF KITE FLYING

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23111, 29 August 1940, Page 5

DANGERS OF KITE FLYING

WARNING ISSUED BY POWER AUTHORITIES The Municipal Electricity Department is finding distressing evidence of how little is realised of the dangers of kite flying in the proximity of overhead electric lines. If parents and teachers would only recognise the terrible swiftness with which tragedy may come there would be more warnings issued to children about flying kites in such surroundings, says a statement issued by the department. On one occasion the department's, staff received a call to New Brighton, where a child was found with his kite entangled in the bare conductors of the 11,000-volt overhead line. He was pulling manfully at the tangled string, and gradually drawing together the wires of this high tension circuit. There was an even more dangerous case where a kite was being flown with a fine wire near overhead power lines, an action which officers of the department described as “an incredible folly.’’ Low tension lines also have a very definite danger for kite flyers and the only safe course is to avoid entirely all types of overhead electric lines. A wet kite string in contact with a live line may have very serious results for the child holding the lower end. When the risk is so real, and a word of warning may mean so much, a strong plea is made by the department to parents and to school teachers to warn children against flying kites near overhead lines, and particularly to urge them to abandon any kite which becomes entangled with an overhead wire. A word of warning may mean nothing less than a life saved, and the precaution is surely worth taking, it is stated. '