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Because kids respond to safety pitches only when there is an MC Skat Kat-esque mascot involved, the Department of Buildings is using "Safe-T Rider," the elevator safety cat (courtesy the Alabama-based Elevator Escalator Safety Foundation) to emphasize elevator—and escalator and moving walkway—safety to young New Yorkers during Elevator Safety Week!
The DOB isn't the only agency spreading the word. Yesterday, MTA employees have been handing out "Be A Safe Rider" activity books in select stations, with things like mazes and connect-the-dots to help teach kids about elevator and escalator safety. Kids can also sing along with Safe-T Rider on the website with such lyrical genius as "If the elevator isn't level with the floor / Then you should be alert that much more!" Who knew?
Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri has been visiting schools to teach kids how to "Ring, Relax and Wait" when there is an elevator emergency, and brought along his terrifying sidekick. Maybe rule one of Elevator Safety should be "Don't get in an elevator with someone in a Safe-T Rider costume."
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It freaks me out that the neck of his mask isn't tucked into his shirt
It freaks me out that Safe-T has a soul patch.
too funny!
and why are his nipples on the outside? is it cold in here?
Stop it. That's no way to talk about a burn victim.
Holy crap that is funny.
Thank you, Sexual Harassment Panda!
That is the scariest looking shit I've ever seen. Please make it go away.
Remember, kids, smart people know how to ride an elevator safely. Darwin sorts out the rest.
Is that Carrot Top??
i would jump down an elevator shaft to get away from that freakshow.
Elevator safety has never been so DOPE YO!
Why doesn't the city just drop a few students twenty feet onto a concrete floor to show them what happens when you screw around with elevators?
That is one stupid looking character. What age group are they trying to reach? He looks like the kind of character they put outside for the opening a used car dealership.
Wow, that's scary
Man... that's an ugly mascot.
Where's felixtheelevatorsafetycat?
The illustrated version doesn't look bad, although it's hard to tell whether it's supposed to be male or female in the fourth picture. It's the costume that's horrible.
He needs to team up with the sad spongebob: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dwarbi/4101267964/
It looks like "Safe-T-Rider" got stuck between two floors, if you know what I mean...
I really think it's time that Parsons re-evaluate their graduate school program.
I don't think the message is getting across to the general audience shown in that picture considering that half of them will be having children of their own in nine months. Stickers are nice but hardly the learn all approach to elevator safety.
Really a poor article Gothamist, you’ve missed out on an opportunity to promote Elevator & Escalator Safety and instead made a joke of it all together. If you would have spent some time researching the reason why there is an Elevator Escalator Safety Foundation you might have found something more to talk about than the person dressed up as a cat.
Copied From the eLCOSH Website (feel free to search for the entire report online for additional information)
Deaths and Injuries Involving Elevator and Escalator Passengers
In addition to endangering people working on or near elevators and escalators, these devices are potential sources of injuries and deaths for people using them as passengers.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 68 elevator-related deaths from 1992-2003 among people using elevators while at work, an average of six passenger deaths per year (see fig. 5). These included supervisors/managers, clerks/stock handlers, janitors/cleaners and their supervisors, plus a wide variety of other occupations.
Almost all the fall deaths involved falls into elevator shafts, including 18 deaths where an elevator door opened and there was no elevator car. The "caught in/between" and "struck by" deaths often involved getting caught in the elevator door or between the elevator and door or shaft.
Information on passenger injuries and deaths is reported through the CPSC National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (fig. 6). During the nearly 10 years covered, the CPSC reported 56 non-work related deaths of elevator passengers – about six per year – in 21 states and the District of Columbia: California (2 deaths), District of Columbia (5), Florida (4), Illinois (3), Indiana (1), Louisiana (1), Maine (1), Michigan (3), Minnesota (3), Missouri (1), North Carolina (2), New Jersey (4), New York (12), Ohio (2), Pennsylvania (4), Rhode Island (1), South Dakota (1), Tennessee (1), Texas (2), Virginia (1), West Virginia (1), and Wisconsin (1). Thirteen of the deaths involved children age 10 or younger.
During this same period, the CPSC reported 24 non-work related deaths of escalator passengers in 12 states and the District of Columbia – about two per year. The states were Alabama (1 death), California (2), District of Columbia (3), Florida (1), Illinois (3), Maryland (1), Minnesota (3), Nevada (1), New York (3), Ohio (1), Virginia (1), Washington (2), and Wisconsin (2). The eight "caught in/between" deaths usually resulted after clothing became trapped at the bottom or top of an escalator or between a stair and escalator sidewall; seven of the 16 fall deaths were from head injury. Four of the fall deaths occurred due to falling off the escalator while riding the escalator siderails.
In 1994, the Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that there were 7,300 escalator and 9,800 elevator injuries requiring hospitalization (CPSC 1998, Cooper 1997). The data were based on a nationwide survey of 90 hospitals. Based on the number of elevators and escalators in the United States, the CPSC estimated that there were 0.221 accidents per escalator and 0.015 accidents per elevator annually.
The CPSC estimated that 75% of the escalator injuries resulted from falls, 20% from entrapment at the bottom or top of an escalator or between a moving stair and escalator sidewall, and 5% "other." The "caught-in" incidents generally resulted in more serious injuries than did falls. Of particular concern is the fact that half of the approximately 1,000 sidewall-entrapment injuries involved children under age five (Armstrong 1996b). The children's injuries were mostly caused when a child's hands or footwear (including dangling shoelaces) became caught in an escalator comb plate at the top or bottom of an escalator or in the space between moving stairs and an escalator sidewall (see annex 2).
In 2001, the CPSC estimated that there are 6,000 hospital emergency room-treated injuries associated with escalators each year (CPSC 2001).
This is the reason why the Elevator Escalator Safety Foundation is in existence.
Tom
Elevator Radio Show Podcast
Some things are worthy of ridicule or criticism, and some things are not.
The education of young kids as to the importance of (A) not horsing around in or around escalators and elevators, and (B) accident awareness; isn't something that should be taken lightly, or worse, overlooked.
Sure, soul patches on mascots are funny. Watching paramedics collect the fingers and toes of children from between escalator steps is not. And this is far from mere gratuitous graphic illustration on my part. This is a reality. As a professional in the field, I've seen far too many instances of injuries to children that were not previously educated in these matters. Parents too, for that matter.
If parents won't take the initiative (I've actually seen parents wheel their strollers down escalators and topple over them when they get jammed in the combplate), then maybe its not too "ridiculous" for an association dedicated to public safety and awareness, to go right to the source (e.g., the children).
If it saves one child, its worth it.
No matter how they go about getting the message across.
I too find it unfortunate that people can not see things for what they are.
Having been in the vertical transportation business for some 50 years I have seen my share of Escalator and elevator incidents. The slogans are to the point, particularly when one bears in mind the woman who is still walking with a stick after falling out of an elevator some 5 years ago etc. etc.
Escalator mishaps are almost a daily event when kids that don't know any better place their feet and/or hands against the sides adjacent to the steps where, depending on the friction generated, toes and fingers can get amputated!
Please be carefull out there.