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Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters

theguardian.com

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Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters

#21

Post by TeMPOraL »

toothbrush wrote: post #18

I've seen it mentioned here and there that one isn't supposed to ride it all the way around (that is, on the horizontal sections), but the reason escapes me. If you stay inside the cabin, what exactly can go wrong? (serious question) Getting stuck doesn't seem logical, why would the probability of the paternoster stopping increase when there is a (modest) load on the horizontal sections?

The reason is that the cabins are being cleaned on the bottom and top of the loop - there's a mesh of blades entering the cabin making sure there's nothing left on, or inside the walls and then the remnants of whatever it was that was not supposed to be there are dropped through an open hole in the floor to the recycling bin (waste from paternosters is obviously recycled, this is Germany we're talking about).

;).

More seriously though, I guess it's not that you can't, only that you shouldn't, because there's always a shorter route to your destination that doesn't involve looping.

Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters

#22

Post by yabatopia »

toothbrush wrote: post #18

I've seen it mentioned here and there that one isn't supposed to ride it all the way around (that is, on the horizontal sections), but the reason escapes me. If you stay inside the cabin, what exactly can go wrong? (serious question) Getting stuck doesn't seem logical, why would the probability of the paternoster stopping increase when there is a (modest) load on the horizontal sections?

Some people wrongfully believed the elevator cabin was fixed to the chain. So at the top or bottom the cabin would turn upsidedown, including the passenger, rather than moving horizontally.

Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters

#24

Post by KuchenKerze »

Yuioup wrote: post #20
KuchenKerze wrote: post #3

Sadly they are slowly disappearing. Mainly because of safety reasons, they are considered dangerous.

Just out of curiosity. I have never ridden one of those but what can actually go wrong? From what I can see: * You can jump in too late, thus falling an unexpected height and break your ankles. * You take too long getting in thus getting a garment/arm/leg stuck between the ceiling of the paternoster and the floor. Am I correct? Or am I missing something?

I can't think of much more that could happen. My opinion is: if you are a human equipped with a brain (which functions normally) there is not much risk using an paternoster.

Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters

#25

Post by _pmf_ »

rffn wrote: post #9

The article misses important points about the reason for the outcry on the proposed law. Many people here are fed up with the overregulating nanny state with more and more unnecessary rules imposed by inept control freaks like Andrea Nahles. She also seems to have difficulties with judging the impact of her ideas. There are now way too many similar the her in today's politics (throughout most of the political parties…

> rules imposed by inept control freaks like Andrea Nahles

Thank god we have the CSU to counter balance these socialist control freaks and their utterly ridiculous ideas, right?

Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters

#26

Post by thomasz »

KuchenKerze wrote: post #24
Yuioup wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity. I have never ridden one of those but what can actually go wrong? From what I can see: * You can jump in too late, thus falling an unexpected height and break your ankles. * You take too long getting in thus getting a garment/arm/leg stuck between the ceiling of the paternoster and the floor. Am I correct? Or am I missing something?

I can't think of much more that could happen. My opinion is: if you are a human equipped with a brain (which functions normally) there is not much risk using an paternoster.

I can assure you that this is a very dangerous assumption. In theory, almost all workplace safety regulations could be replaced by a "Just put up a 'don't be an idiot'" sign. But then we would have a lot of unnecessary deaths and horrible accidents.

The are many reasons for this, but it mostly comes down to people being distracted and simple statistics - given enough time, even a small risk will lead to accidents.

Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters

#27

Post by einrealist »

_pmf_ wrote: post #25
rffn wrote: post #9

The article misses important points about the reason for the outcry on the proposed law. Many people here are fed up with the overregulating nanny state with more and more unnecessary rules imposed by inept control freaks like Andrea Nahles. She also seems to have difficulties with judging the impact of her ideas. There are now way too many similar the her in today's politics (throughout most of the political parties…

> rules imposed by inept control freaks like Andrea Nahles Thank god we have the CSU to counter balance these socialist control freaks and their utterly ridiculous ideas, right?

Haha, you mean the CSU which advertises data retention whenever a car tire pops? If I can think of one control freak party, its the one that wants tighter control over refugees. Not that anything hurts the clean image of the typical bavarian town.

Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters

#28

Post by DanBC »

Yuioup wrote: post #20
KuchenKerze wrote: post #3

Sadly they are slowly disappearing. Mainly because of safety reasons, they are considered dangerous.

Just out of curiosity. I have never ridden one of those but what can actually go wrong? From what I can see: * You can jump in too late, thus falling an unexpected height and break your ankles. * You take too long getting in thus getting a garment/arm/leg stuck between the ceiling of the paternoster and the floor. Am I correct? Or am I missing something?

Uneven floor means increased risk of trips and falls. Considerable effort is spent on reducing falls because they're a cause of a lot of avoidable injury.

There have been some deaths caused by paternosters. The number (5 between 1970 and 1993) is tiny, but there aren't that many paternosters.

A man died in 2012 when he fell into the shaft.

We probably shouldn't be installing more paternosters unlesss we come up with safer designs. I don't think we should be closing the existing examples.

Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters

#29

Post by rffn »

_pmf_ wrote: post #25
rffn wrote: post #9

The article misses important points about the reason for the outcry on the proposed law. Many people here are fed up with the overregulating nanny state with more and more unnecessary rules imposed by inept control freaks like Andrea Nahles. She also seems to have difficulties with judging the impact of her ideas. There are now way too many similar the her in today's politics (throughout most of the political parties…

> rules imposed by inept control freaks like Andrea Nahles Thank god we have the CSU to counter balance these socialist control freaks and their utterly ridiculous ideas, right?

There is not much a difference to me whether she want to have mandatory classes on Paternoster use, the Greens want to impose a veggie day a week or the CSU wants to have a data retention law to allow to sniff in our digital life. I do not want any of this. For the parties missing in this list above I am sure I can find for almost all of them a fitting example to add them. To me this seems to be a more general issue.

Re: Lovin' their elevator: why Germans are loopy about paternosters

#30

Post by matt4077 »

furyg3 wrote: post #7

It seems like there should be a way to build these in a safe way. For example, angling the ceiling of the compartment as well as where the ceiling of the building meets the compartment should offer quite a lot more safety: http://i.imgur.com/CJbf1oq.png You could also imagine 'sprung' walls between the compartments that prevent limbs/feet from getting squashed. As for accessibility for disabled persons, I see no reas…

Indeed! Also, they should probably find a solution for that problem where little children get smashed like a not-so-lucky group of rebels in a trash compactor when the paternoster goes over the top.
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