Tuesday 15 March 2011

The Attack Of The Killer Lighters

CLICHY, France, March 15 — BIC, the leading manufacturer of stationery products, lighters and shavers, and independent pollsters APCO Insight today published a new poll that shows that nearly 87 per cent of Europeans are worried by information that pocket lighters with the capacity to kill and maim are openly on sale across the continent.
Crikey! What level of risk are we talking that can give all these people sleepless nights?

According to European Commission figures, 40 are killed and 1900 injured every year in Europe because of accidents with lighters, many of them children.
Ah, I see. Not a very high one, it would seem. Considering the population of Europe is estimated at a billion people, statistically you could be on the verge of winning your second national lottery jackpot by the time a lighter callously slaughtered you - and it's a half million to one chance of an 'injury', of what seriousness they don't say.

Still, when you have an institution such as the EU gagging to legislate on even the most negligible of risks, one can't blame BIC for nudging Brussels into action which will benefit their business, eh?

H/T Gawain


9 comments:

Gawain Towler said...

It's very very dangerous out there you know. People might die

Gawain Towler said...

Oh yes, APCO Insight describe themselves as 'Independent pollsters'. They are the market research wing of a massve international PR firm, employed by.... Bic

George Speller said...

It won't be long beforte we're not allowed to have matches or sharp things.

Just when we need them.

Anonymous said...

I have to say that I have come close to injuring myself with a Bic lighter on several occasions trying to remove those bloody childproofing bits of metal that make them almost impossible to use.

Furor Teutonicus said...

The "Hold away from face" instruction is always slightly confusing. Or do Health & Safety smoke fags through their arse?

(And how do they tell the difference?)

Dick Puddlecote said...

Nisakiman: Those 'childproofing bits' are what the EU are talking about when they call for non-dangerous lighters. It was an EU law which demanded they be put there.

Anonymous said...

But if lighters are banned, all the smokers will then have to go to an EU-approved centre to light each fag, where they will receive a severe pre-smoke lecture on the mythical harm they are planning to inflict on a young polar bear 5,000 miles away.....

Anonymous said...

Anon 15:34

Why, oh Why, oh Why do you put these ideas into their minds ...

Alan

Anonymous said...

"Blogger Dick Puddlecote said...

Nisakiman: Those 'childproofing bits' are what the EU are talking about when they call for non-dangerous lighters. It was an EU law which demanded they be put there."

Yes DP, I'm well aware that the horrible bits of added metal are as a result of EU directive. I was just wondering if many of the injuries quoted were as a result of trying to make the damn things usable again. Personally. I've stabbed myself with a letter-opener and been nearly blinded by one of the bits of metal flying off the lighter at high velocity.

I'd go back to matches if it wasn't for the fact that I'm a rollies man, and would end up spending as much on matches as on tobacco...