Without the lid on the cup will lose all of it's strength. Engineering wise the lid is what makes it a rigid cylinder.
When it spills as the cup compresses and runs down your hand and burns the OP they'll drop the cup and potentially burn or splash it all over other customers.
I seem to remember at one place, can't think where though, they gave out a semi-rigid cardboard collar to hold the cup with.
It tells me what them establishments do, not what the standard is or if there is any standard or any legal procedure to follow. McDonalds shouldn't assume anything. They are serving a hot drink, as long as the goods they deliver are not defective, then they are covered. One should assume coffee/tea is made from boiling water and served straight away.
It tells me that this woman could have reasonably assumed that if she were to accidentally spill it in her lap it wouldn't cause life-threatening full thickness burns, requiring skin grafts, an eight day stay in the hospital and $20,000 in medical bills. Hot drinks can be served hot without being served at near boiling. Coffee and tea should be allowed to brew/steep and come down in temperature. If they are served to people as a takeaway item, particularly to those in cars, the cups should be sturdy with a secure lid, unlike the one served in this case. If you are made repeatedly aware (700 times over ten years) that your policy of serving superheated (yes it was) coffee in unsuitable cups is causing your customers great bodily harm, and your cost analysis reveals it's cheaper to shut them up by throwing a few hundred dollars their way than it is to make your product safer, I think you deserve to be sued and for quite a lot.
All this woman wanted was to have her medical bills paid for and when all she was offered was $800 she took it to the jury.
It tells me that this woman could have reasonably assumed that if she were to accidentally spill it in her lap it wouldn't cause life-threatening full thickness burns, requiring skin grafts, an eight day stay in the hospital and $20,000 in medical bills. Hot drinks can be served hot without being served at near boiling. Coffee and tea should be allowed to brew/steep and come down in temperature. If they are served to people as a takeaway item, particularly to those in cars, the cups should be sturdy with a secure lid, unlike the one served in this case. If you are made repeatedly aware (700 times over ten years) that your policy of serving superheated (yes it was) coffee in unsuitable cups is causing your customers great bodily harm, and your cost analysis reveals it's cheaper to shut them up by throwing a few hundred dollars their way than it is to make your product safer, I think you deserve to be sued and for quite a lot.
All this woman wanted was to have her medical bills paid for and when all she was offered was $800 she took it to the jury.
Well that's nonsense as a British court come to the conclusion that a hot drink cooler than what McDonals used to serve would also cause they same amount of burns and the same severity. Tell me why a company providing a hot drink (cooler than what people make at home) should pay someones medical bills because of an accident they did not cause? Anyone placing a hot drinks between their legs is asking for trouble. $800 is a lot of money for an accident they caused themselves.
I've also read that it indeed did have a lid on, one that would be secure if she hadn't of took it off. I can't believe I'm even arguing this. A women buys a hot drink, one would assume a hot drink is very hot. You don't then place said hot drink between your knees, remove the lid, spill it on yourself and then go on to blame McDonalds that it was to hot. Who would she be sueing if she did this at home? The maker of her trousers for holding in the liquid?
A cooler drink wouldn't have caused the burns as quickly. She would have had more time to get out of her clothes. I'm speaking from personal experience as someone who's been badly scalded by hot liquid (no, it wasn't my fault, and no I didn't sue anyone). Amazing that in the years I worked in coffee shops we were able to serve coffee at safer temperatures to happy customers. But then the quality of our drinks wasn't so poor that we had to mask it by burning off the taste buds of our patrons.
You can't believe you're arguing this, I can't believe the complete lack of human compassion and the inability to appreciate the severity of this woman's injuries.
A cooler drink wouldn't have caused the burns as quickly. She would have had more time to get out of her clothes. I'm speaking from personal experience as someone who's been badly scalded by hot liquid (no, it wasn't my fault, and no I didn't sue anyone). Amazing that in the years I worked in coffee shops we were able to serve coffee at safer temperatures to happy customers. But then the quality of our drinks wasn't so poor that we had to mask it by burning off the taste buds of our patrons.
You can't believe you're arguing this, I can't believe the complete lack of human compassion and the inability to appreciate the severity of this woman's injuries.
A British court says otherwise.
BIB - You know you are losing an argument when you have to start making stuff up as if I've said or as if I'm saying stuff like that.
It tells me that this woman could have reasonably assumed that if she were to accidentally spill it in her lap it wouldn't cause life-threatening full thickness burns, requiring skin grafts, an eight day stay in the hospital and $20,000 in medical bills. Hot drinks can be served hot without being served at near boiling. Coffee and tea should be allowed to brew/steep and come down in temperature. If they are served to people as a takeaway item, particularly to those in cars, the cups should be sturdy with a secure lid, unlike the one served in this case. If you are made repeatedly aware (700 times over ten years) that your policy of serving superheated (yes it was) coffee in unsuitable cups is causing your customers great bodily harm, and your cost analysis reveals it's cheaper to shut them up by throwing a few hundred dollars their way than it is to make your product safer, I think you deserve to be sued and for quite a lot.
All this woman wanted was to have her medical bills paid for and when all she was offered was $800 she took it to the jury.
Sorry to perhaps derail things slightly, but superheat is a scientific term, specifically a fluid is only superheated once it's above it's boiling point? So was it "superheated" or not?
I don't really want to comment to much, but I think given that the poor lady was sitting in a car seat (conceivably wearing a seat belt - is there much difference practically between a beverage at 82 and 72 degrees C? There is still a lot of energy and still a significant temperature difference in the cooler, but still hot fluid.
it was not the industry standard to serve superheated beverages to the public in flimsy container
That is correct...but only because the superheated beverage would immediately flash off as steam and then into water vapour because you can't keep superheated water in a liquid state at normal atmospheric pressure in essentially an open container.
In another post you said the person got 3rd degree burns and the drink was 'way too hot' it was no hotter than a cup of tea or coffee that 99% of the population would make.
The woman did something that made her spill a hot drink over her - that's not the fault of MacDonalds.
It tells me that this woman could have reasonably assumed that if she were to accidentally spill it in her lap it wouldn't cause life-threatening full thickness burns, requiring skin grafts, an eight day stay in the hospital and $20,000 in medical bills. Hot drinks can be served hot without being served at near boiling. Coffee and tea should be allowed to brew/steep and come down in temperature. If they are served to people as a takeaway item, particularly to those in cars, the cups should be sturdy with a secure lid, unlike the one served in this case. If you are made repeatedly aware (700 times over ten years) that your policy of serving superheated (yes it was) coffee in unsuitable cups is causing your customers great bodily harm, and your cost analysis reveals it's cheaper to shut them up by throwing a few hundred dollars their way than it is to make your product safer, I think you deserve to be sued and for quite a lot.
All this woman wanted was to have her medical bills paid for and when all she was offered was $800 she took it to the jury.
Her 'level' of injuries is irrelevant here...she did something stupid.
You may say that you personal 'steep' tea and coffee so it cools down...not everyone does...and when they don;t they know about it and let it cool down...like the coffee I got from the NEC in Brum last weekend and carried it around unsipped for a good 10minutes until it had cooled down...the cup was well insulated (and protected my hands).
And again it was not superheated...
It's like having the sign HOT WATER over hot water taps...well, yes it's hot water.
This is all the compensation culture and also protecting people from themselves...there is...sorry...was something called 'personal responsibility' which seems to have disappeared and been replaced with 'It wasn't my fault.' when clearly it was that persons fault...they just couldn't be bothered thinking about their actions.
Also, the drinks are in perfectly good cups...millions are used everyday with out people getting burnt and requiring skin grafts...the root cause of the injury was not the cup but the actions of the woman.
is there much difference practically between a beverage at 82 and 72 degrees C? There is still a lot of energy and still a significant temperature difference in the cooler, but still hot fluid.
No, there isn't much difference.
When I;m designing lagging thicknesses for pipes and tanks (for personnel protection) I use a required maximum surface temperature of 50Degrees C which is hot but will not burn if you touch it...it's not always obvious what tanks and pipes are hot or what someone might put their hand on...but you always make sure hot surfaces are covered...and because one is in a processing area where one should know there are hot surfaces you are careful.
Just like when you have a hot drink in a cup that you have just bought...the cup is cardboard because its a good insulator and the lid is on tight to avoid it popping off...take these two things into account and the way one should take a lid off a drink is either on a firm surface or standing up with the cup at 'slightly' arms length such that any spillage goes onto the gorund and not yourself....i.e. the polar opposite of the woman who got burnt...soft surface and between the legs...only the merest of risk assessment is required to realise the hazard and potential harm involved in that action...
You may drink water straight from the kettle, but if you run a business which includes handing hot beverages to people in cars you should assume that there are going to be accidents.
They do assume accidents can happen...which is why they put the drink in an insulating cardboard cup with a tight fitting plastic lid and a hole in the lid through which you can drink once the drink has cooled to a temperature that you are happy to imbibe it at.
The woman bypassed one of the safety features of the cup...removing the lid...
What should they do? Make the drinks at a lower temperature and have people complain the drinks aren't hot enough?
Make a load of drinks in advance and allow them to cool on the counter and then hope customers ask for drinks before they go stone cold and are able to pick a cup of drink at a 'safe' temperature to spill over your lap?
Well, the expert in thermodynamics as applied to skin burns who testified at the trial was able to dupe the jury I guess.
You said it was "her own stupid fault". Was I supposed to infer compassion from that comment?
Yup, her lawyers certainly managed to do that.
We aren't talking about compassion here we are talking about someone doing a dangerous act that hurt her.
As for compassion...in my job everything I do I have to make sure it will not harm an operator years down the line...and have to take into account any 'stupid' thing they might do...of course I have compassion about someone being hurt...is doesn't alter the fact that it was her fault for being doing something stupid.
In another post you said the person got 3rd degree burns and the drink was 'way too hot' it was no hotter than a cup of tea or coffee that 99% of the population would make.
Such a drink made at home would typically be in a china mug, with sugar added, cold milk, and a metal spoon used to stir it.
All things which would tend to cool down the liquid. The woman might expected the liquid in that container to be at the same sort of temperature as a home-made drink.
I've myself had my lips unexpectedly scalded, by a hot-chocolate drink from a machine, served in a polystyrene (ie. insulating) cup. Such a drink is just near-boiling water, but flavoured.
They do assume accidents can happen...which is why they put the drink in an insulating cardboard cup with a tight fitting plastic lid and a hole in the lid through which you can drink once the drink has cooled to a temperature that you are happy to imbibe it at.
The woman bypassed one of the safety features of the cup...removing the lid...
What should they do? Make the drinks at a lower temperature and have people complain the drinks aren't hot enough?
Make a load of drinks in advance and allow them to cool on the counter and then hope customers ask for drinks before they go stone cold and are able to pick a cup of drink at a 'safe' temperature to spill over your lap?
Are the McDonald's takeaway cups and lids the same now as they were at the time of the lawsuit? The other establishments in the area, according to McDonald's own survey served drinks at lower temperatures. We certainly did at the coffee shops I worked in. And when you brew a cup of coffee or tea at home, you are in the safety and comfort of your kitchen. When you run a business you have a duty of care to your customers and when you are serving hot drinks to the public in their cars it is safe to assume accidents will happen and it is prudent to take precautions. McDonald's knew people were being badly burned by their coffee but chose to not do anything about it.
It's like having the sign HOT WATER over hot water taps...well, yes it's hot water.
Not as daft as it sounds. Most hot water taps at work are temperature controlled - the odd few come directly off the hot water circuit and have hot water warnings.
However some people use them everywhere - kinda negating the whole point of the warning.
Such a drink made at home would typically be in a china mug, with sugar added, cold milk, and a metal spoon used to stir it.
All things which would tend to cool down the liquid. The woman might expected the liquid in that container to be at the same sort of temperature as a home-made drink.
I've myself had my lips unexpectedly scalded, by a hot-chocolate drink from a machine, served in a polystyrene (ie. insulating) cup. Such a drink is just near-boiling water, but flavoured.
YEs...you've scalded your lips having a drink like that...haven't we all...even in mugs at home hence it is not an unknown phenomena to have a hot drink in a container when you have just bought it.
If I poured a mug of tea I had made two minute ago into my lap I would gte serious burns too.
Whenever you assess the risks from hazards you always take into account the experience of the person who could come in contact with that hazard...and when the hazard is a hot drink...we've all had experience of them...especially someone in their retirement years.
YEs...you've scalded your lips having a drink like that...haven't we all...even in mugs at home hence it is not an unknown phenomena to have a hot drink in a container when you have just bought it.
If I poured a mug of tea I had made two minute ago into my lap I would gte serious burns too.
Whenever you assess the risks from hazards you always take into account the experience of the person who could come in contact with that hazard...and when the hazard is a hot drink...we've all had experience of them...especially someone in their retirement years.
As serious as the injuries Stella Liebeck sustained? Are you sure? I'm really having trouble accepting that it is reasonable to expect that spilling the average cup of coffee or tea in my lap will result in third degree burns over 6% of my body. The freshly home brewed cup I just sat down with really isn't all that hot.
Apparently, on top of having better cups and lids, McDonald's will now put the cream and sugar in the coffee for its drive-thru customers so they don't have to bypass that important safety feature that is the lid. Serving hot beverages to people in their cars represents special circumstances not present in your home kitchen or even inside the cafe or restaurant. McDonald's knew this, but decided the bottom dollar was more important than customer safety.
I will however concede to you and conor the bold the word superheated. I was parroting the language that's been attributed to the Shriners Burn Institute, as they had made an appeal to fast food coffee vendors to stop "super-heating" their beverages because of the severity of the scalds they were treating as a result.
I'm really having trouble accepting that it is reasonable to expect that spilling the average cup of coffee or tea in my lap will result in third degree burns over 6% of my body. The freshly home brewed cup I just sat down with really isn't all that hot.
Yes, most people's experience of spilling hot drinks will be different: the liquid will typically be cooler, and it might well have been a much smaller volume which is rapidly dissipated away. They will also usually be in a position to quickly move out of the way.
But, if they had to imagine someone pouring half-a-pint or more of just-boiled water from a kettle onto their groin, while sitting in a constrained position in a car, then they would no longer be surprised at the injuries.
Serving hot beverages to people in their cars represents special circumstances not present in your home kitchen or even inside the cafe or restaurant.
Perhaps car manufacturers are also partly to blame for making cars with nowhere to put a drink! Some do have holders, but mine doesn't and there isn't a single flat spot except on the floor!
Even the Boy Scouts are hit with H&S, you want to see the risk assessments needed before you can take a group out camping for a weekend! Obviously safety is vitally important but the increase in paperwork and 'guidelines' often means much fewer trips these days for many Troops
Yes, most people's experience of spilling hot drinks will be different: the liquid will typically be cooler, and it might well have been a much smaller volume which is rapidly dissipated away. They will also usually be in a position to quickly move out of the way.
But, if they had to imagine someone pouring half-a-pint or more of just-boiled water from a kettle onto their groin, while sitting in a constrained position in a car, then they would no longer be surprised at the injuries.
Perhaps car manufacturers are also partly to blame for making cars with nowhere to put a drink! Some do have holders, but mine doesn't and there isn't a single flat spot except on the floor!
Indeed, but (sorry to keep on this point) because McDonald's was well aware of the problem and still and did nothing to mitigate the risk they were forced to accept 80% of the fault.
As serious as the injuries Stella Liebeck sustained? Are you sure? I'm really having trouble accepting that it is reasonable to expect that spilling the average cup of coffee or tea in my lap will result in third degree burns over 6% of my body.
Position of personal incredulity...or simply not reading and digesting all the information about on of the most common things in the world...cups/mugs of hot drinks.
1) We have now established that a cup of tea/coffee can not be superheated at normal atmospheric pressure (make it in a perssure cooker fine it will do that...but you'll have to be in a room at the same pressure because if you could possibly get the lid off the cooker at normal atmos pressure you will have a faceful of steam/scalding water vapour.
2) Tea/coffee is made with boiling water, obviously, some people don't make it at boiling temperature...but they obviously don;t like a nice cuppa.
3) hot liquids tend to stay hot for sometime, and an adult should realise this.
4) the woman did something unwise and patently silly hot drink between legs.
5) As for scalding temperature here is the first hit from google (I really can't be bothered checking another source (as I wold normally do -you can do it):
"An approximate one-second exposure to 160° F water will result in third degree burns.1 Where the water is 130° F, an approximate half-minute exposure will result in third degree burns."
i.e. it is QUITE easy to see how you could get 3rd degree burns over 6% of your body...it fits with the known data on what happens when you get hot liquid over you.
Now we can look at the best temperatuer to brew coffee at:
Paraphrase...way hot over 100DegC (within the machine) hence to get a good cup of coffee one would expect the resulting coffee to be VERY hot.
Now if we put all of these things together:
A very hot cup of coffee is not out-of-the-ordinary, outlets will make hot drinks for patrons, adult patrons should have the experience to realise hot liquids burn, patrons should realise they need to be careful around hot liquids, patrons should have a hint of personal responsibility
i.e. when all siad and done, although terrible for the woman in question, it was her own fault.
Now based on the number of cases of major scalding compared with the number of drinks served the rate of scalding is what...a few that we have seen?
A baby due to an unfortunate accident.
A pensioner due to her not thinking.
People will always get scalded, people will always get killed in car crashes etc...what we need to do is reduce the residual risk to a minimum and that is what MacDonalads and others have done...apart from serving drinks at sub optimal serving temperatures.
Indeed, but (sorry to keep on this point) because McDonald's was well aware of the problem and still and did nothing to mitigate the risk they were forced to accept 80% of the fault.
You mitigate risks down to a point...there comes a point when a foerseeable hazard only occurs when a person willfully neglects their own safety as with this woman.
It is NOT a problem if someone is sensible.
What you do not guard against within risk reduction is willful dangerous acts.
Right that's the last I'll be contributing to this as I've put in all the required information...unless you wat some sections of various health and safety legislation etc.
I think we have seen why some places have 'health and safety gone mad' when people still have the view of personal safety that epicurian does. It has been most information - thanks for the discussion...I have rather enjoyed it.
The thing is I have to mitigate serious hazards like chemical explosion, liquid fires, over-pressure, dangerous dusts...things which are *really* hazardous with a high (unmitigated) risk where there are mulitple factos which have to fail for someone to get hurt but I have to take account and look at all of them.
Hence, why some one opening a carton of hot liquid wedged in between their kness in the confines of their car seat really is just ludicrous in the extreme and although I feel for her (as we all don't always think) in this case it's petty darn obvious what the outcome could be.
If she had left the safety device in place...the lid...none of this would have happened.
Oh, and I'm no fan of MacDonalds and never give them my custom so I'm not 'defending' MacDonalds especially. Not that they need defending in this case.
Comments
(I am open to being put right)
I seem to remember at one place, can't think where though, they gave out a semi-rigid cardboard collar to hold the cup with.
It tells me that this woman could have reasonably assumed that if she were to accidentally spill it in her lap it wouldn't cause life-threatening full thickness burns, requiring skin grafts, an eight day stay in the hospital and $20,000 in medical bills. Hot drinks can be served hot without being served at near boiling. Coffee and tea should be allowed to brew/steep and come down in temperature. If they are served to people as a takeaway item, particularly to those in cars, the cups should be sturdy with a secure lid, unlike the one served in this case. If you are made repeatedly aware (700 times over ten years) that your policy of serving superheated (yes it was) coffee in unsuitable cups is causing your customers great bodily harm, and your cost analysis reveals it's cheaper to shut them up by throwing a few hundred dollars their way than it is to make your product safer, I think you deserve to be sued and for quite a lot.
All this woman wanted was to have her medical bills paid for and when all she was offered was $800 she took it to the jury.
Well that's nonsense as a British court come to the conclusion that a hot drink cooler than what McDonals used to serve would also cause they same amount of burns and the same severity. Tell me why a company providing a hot drink (cooler than what people make at home) should pay someones medical bills because of an accident they did not cause? Anyone placing a hot drinks between their legs is asking for trouble. $800 is a lot of money for an accident they caused themselves.
I've also read that it indeed did have a lid on, one that would be secure if she hadn't of took it off. I can't believe I'm even arguing this. A women buys a hot drink, one would assume a hot drink is very hot. You don't then place said hot drink between your knees, remove the lid, spill it on yourself and then go on to blame McDonalds that it was to hot. Who would she be sueing if she did this at home? The maker of her trousers for holding in the liquid?
You can't believe you're arguing this, I can't believe the complete lack of human compassion and the inability to appreciate the severity of this woman's injuries.
A British court says otherwise.
BIB - You know you are losing an argument when you have to start making stuff up as if I've said or as if I'm saying stuff like that.
Sorry to perhaps derail things slightly, but superheat is a scientific term, specifically a fluid is only superheated once it's above it's boiling point? So was it "superheated" or not?
I don't really want to comment to much, but I think given that the poor lady was sitting in a car seat (conceivably wearing a seat belt - is there much difference practically between a beverage at 82 and 72 degrees C? There is still a lot of energy and still a significant temperature difference in the cooler, but still hot fluid.
You have read my posts about thermodynamics haven't you?
(Side note on my job: I'm a Chartered Chemical Engineer with a Masters degree and 20years of industrial experience.)
RIght...
That is correct...but only because the superheated beverage would immediately flash off as steam and then into water vapour because you can't keep superheated water in a liquid state at normal atmospheric pressure in essentially an open container.
In another post you said the person got 3rd degree burns and the drink was 'way too hot' it was no hotter than a cup of tea or coffee that 99% of the population would make.
The woman did something that made her spill a hot drink over her - that's not the fault of MacDonalds.
Her 'level' of injuries is irrelevant here...she did something stupid.
You may say that you personal 'steep' tea and coffee so it cools down...not everyone does...and when they don;t they know about it and let it cool down...like the coffee I got from the NEC in Brum last weekend and carried it around unsipped for a good 10minutes until it had cooled down...the cup was well insulated (and protected my hands).
And again it was not superheated...
It's like having the sign HOT WATER over hot water taps...well, yes it's hot water.
This is all the compensation culture and also protecting people from themselves...there is...sorry...was something called 'personal responsibility' which seems to have disappeared and been replaced with 'It wasn't my fault.' when clearly it was that persons fault...they just couldn't be bothered thinking about their actions.
Also, the drinks are in perfectly good cups...millions are used everyday with out people getting burnt and requiring skin grafts...the root cause of the injury was not the cup but the actions of the woman.
No, there isn't much difference.
When I;m designing lagging thicknesses for pipes and tanks (for personnel protection) I use a required maximum surface temperature of 50Degrees C which is hot but will not burn if you touch it...it's not always obvious what tanks and pipes are hot or what someone might put their hand on...but you always make sure hot surfaces are covered...and because one is in a processing area where one should know there are hot surfaces you are careful.
Just like when you have a hot drink in a cup that you have just bought...the cup is cardboard because its a good insulator and the lid is on tight to avoid it popping off...take these two things into account and the way one should take a lid off a drink is either on a firm surface or standing up with the cup at 'slightly' arms length such that any spillage goes onto the gorund and not yourself....i.e. the polar opposite of the woman who got burnt...soft surface and between the legs...only the merest of risk assessment is required to realise the hazard and potential harm involved in that action...
Well, the expert in thermodynamics as applied to skin burns who testified at the trial was able to dupe the jury I guess.
You said it was "her own stupid fault". Was I supposed to infer compassion from that comment?
They do assume accidents can happen...which is why they put the drink in an insulating cardboard cup with a tight fitting plastic lid and a hole in the lid through which you can drink once the drink has cooled to a temperature that you are happy to imbibe it at.
The woman bypassed one of the safety features of the cup...removing the lid...
What should they do? Make the drinks at a lower temperature and have people complain the drinks aren't hot enough?
Make a load of drinks in advance and allow them to cool on the counter and then hope customers ask for drinks before they go stone cold and are able to pick a cup of drink at a 'safe' temperature to spill over your lap?
Yup, her lawyers certainly managed to do that.
We aren't talking about compassion here we are talking about someone doing a dangerous act that hurt her.
As for compassion...in my job everything I do I have to make sure it will not harm an operator years down the line...and have to take into account any 'stupid' thing they might do...of course I have compassion about someone being hurt...is doesn't alter the fact that it was her fault for being doing something stupid.
Who knows what happened, all I'm saying is the Bristish court disagreed.
It is her own stupid fault. That's not to say I don't feel for someone who died 'due' to her injuries. Can't believe you are even saying that.
Such a drink made at home would typically be in a china mug, with sugar added, cold milk, and a metal spoon used to stir it.
All things which would tend to cool down the liquid. The woman might expected the liquid in that container to be at the same sort of temperature as a home-made drink.
I've myself had my lips unexpectedly scalded, by a hot-chocolate drink from a machine, served in a polystyrene (ie. insulating) cup. Such a drink is just near-boiling water, but flavoured.
Are the McDonald's takeaway cups and lids the same now as they were at the time of the lawsuit? The other establishments in the area, according to McDonald's own survey served drinks at lower temperatures. We certainly did at the coffee shops I worked in. And when you brew a cup of coffee or tea at home, you are in the safety and comfort of your kitchen. When you run a business you have a duty of care to your customers and when you are serving hot drinks to the public in their cars it is safe to assume accidents will happen and it is prudent to take precautions. McDonald's knew people were being badly burned by their coffee but chose to not do anything about it.
Not as daft as it sounds. Most hot water taps at work are temperature controlled - the odd few come directly off the hot water circuit and have hot water warnings.
However some people use them everywhere - kinda negating the whole point of the warning.
YEs...you've scalded your lips having a drink like that...haven't we all...even in mugs at home hence it is not an unknown phenomena to have a hot drink in a container when you have just bought it.
If I poured a mug of tea I had made two minute ago into my lap I would gte serious burns too.
Whenever you assess the risks from hazards you always take into account the experience of the person who could come in contact with that hazard...and when the hazard is a hot drink...we've all had experience of them...especially someone in their retirement years.
As serious as the injuries Stella Liebeck sustained? Are you sure? I'm really having trouble accepting that it is reasonable to expect that spilling the average cup of coffee or tea in my lap will result in third degree burns over 6% of my body. The freshly home brewed cup I just sat down with really isn't all that hot.
Apparently, on top of having better cups and lids, McDonald's will now put the cream and sugar in the coffee for its drive-thru customers so they don't have to bypass that important safety feature that is the lid. Serving hot beverages to people in their cars represents special circumstances not present in your home kitchen or even inside the cafe or restaurant. McDonald's knew this, but decided the bottom dollar was more important than customer safety.
I will however concede to you and conor the bold the word superheated. I was parroting the language that's been attributed to the Shriners Burn Institute, as they had made an appeal to fast food coffee vendors to stop "super-heating" their beverages because of the severity of the scalds they were treating as a result.
Yes, most people's experience of spilling hot drinks will be different: the liquid will typically be cooler, and it might well have been a much smaller volume which is rapidly dissipated away. They will also usually be in a position to quickly move out of the way.
But, if they had to imagine someone pouring half-a-pint or more of just-boiled water from a kettle onto their groin, while sitting in a constrained position in a car, then they would no longer be surprised at the injuries.
Perhaps car manufacturers are also partly to blame for making cars with nowhere to put a drink! Some do have holders, but mine doesn't and there isn't a single flat spot except on the floor!
Indeed, but (sorry to keep on this point) because McDonald's was well aware of the problem and still and did nothing to mitigate the risk they were forced to accept 80% of the fault.
I immediately ran to the bathroom, close by, dropped my trousers and undies and directed the cold shower on myself.
My Mum got our next door neighbour (a nurse) then a Doctor was called and visited (sleeping tablet worked)
But it was very, very nasty, in spite of my quick action, and I was shaking with shock.
I also later got a single, huge blister the size of my hand.
Missed my willy and balls though. Phew.
Position of personal incredulity...or simply not reading and digesting all the information about on of the most common things in the world...cups/mugs of hot drinks.
1) We have now established that a cup of tea/coffee can not be superheated at normal atmospheric pressure (make it in a perssure cooker fine it will do that...but you'll have to be in a room at the same pressure because if you could possibly get the lid off the cooker at normal atmos pressure you will have a faceful of steam/scalding water vapour.
2) Tea/coffee is made with boiling water, obviously, some people don't make it at boiling temperature...but they obviously don;t like a nice cuppa.
3) hot liquids tend to stay hot for sometime, and an adult should realise this.
4) the woman did something unwise and patently silly hot drink between legs.
5) As for scalding temperature here is the first hit from google (I really can't be bothered checking another source (as I wold normally do -you can do it):
"An approximate one-second exposure to 160° F water will result in third degree burns.1 Where the water is 130° F, an approximate half-minute exposure will result in third degree burns."
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070728120624AAsXiaJ
130F is ~56Degc.
160F is~ 71DegC.
i.e. it is QUITE easy to see how you could get 3rd degree burns over 6% of your body...it fits with the known data on what happens when you get hot liquid over you.
Now we can look at the best temperatuer to brew coffee at:
http://www.huladaddy.com/coffee-talk/how-hot-is-your-coffeemaker.htm
Paraphrase...way hot over 100DegC (within the machine) hence to get a good cup of coffee one would expect the resulting coffee to be VERY hot.
Now if we put all of these things together:
A very hot cup of coffee is not out-of-the-ordinary, outlets will make hot drinks for patrons, adult patrons should have the experience to realise hot liquids burn, patrons should realise they need to be careful around hot liquids, patrons should have a hint of personal responsibility
i.e. when all siad and done, although terrible for the woman in question, it was her own fault.
Now based on the number of cases of major scalding compared with the number of drinks served the rate of scalding is what...a few that we have seen?
A baby due to an unfortunate accident.
A pensioner due to her not thinking.
People will always get scalded, people will always get killed in car crashes etc...what we need to do is reduce the residual risk to a minimum and that is what MacDonalads and others have done...apart from serving drinks at sub optimal serving temperatures.
You mitigate risks down to a point...there comes a point when a foerseeable hazard only occurs when a person willfully neglects their own safety as with this woman.
It is NOT a problem if someone is sensible.
What you do not guard against within risk reduction is willful dangerous acts.
Right that's the last I'll be contributing to this as I've put in all the required information...unless you wat some sections of various health and safety legislation etc.
I think we have seen why some places have 'health and safety gone mad' when people still have the view of personal safety that epicurian does. It has been most information - thanks for the discussion...I have rather enjoyed it.
The thing is I have to mitigate serious hazards like chemical explosion, liquid fires, over-pressure, dangerous dusts...things which are *really* hazardous with a high (unmitigated) risk where there are mulitple factos which have to fail for someone to get hurt but I have to take account and look at all of them.
Hence, why some one opening a carton of hot liquid wedged in between their kness in the confines of their car seat really is just ludicrous in the extreme and although I feel for her (as we all don't always think) in this case it's petty darn obvious what the outcome could be.
If she had left the safety device in place...the lid...none of this would have happened.
Oh, and I'm no fan of MacDonalds and never give them my custom so I'm not 'defending' MacDonalds especially. Not that they need defending in this case.