Electrical Risks

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25609, 25 September 1948, Page 6

Electrical Risks

An amendment to the Electrical Supply Regulations gazetted this week should do something to reduce the dangers created by faulty electrical appliances and wiring. In future, power supply authorities, through their inspectors, will be able to check consumers from using defective equipment or wiring as it is discovered, and ensure that defects are remedied. These provisions, with the one requiring inspections and tests of fixed wiring, should make electrical risks less frequent; but they do not go nearly far enough. There is still much more to be done to make domestic electrical equipment safer. Fatal accidents have, shown that this equipment may be dangerous unless efficiently designed and produced in the first place and installed and tested by qualified electricians and then handled carefully. To have wiring inspected and tested is a necessary precaution; but it needo to be reinforced by fixing proper standards of efficiency and safety for electrical appliances. It may be assumed that the amendment to the regulations is only a beginning, and that the Government* intends to do more to reduce electrical risks. There is already sufficient evidence to prove that it must do more.