Most treadmills have a guard or plastic covering on the bottom that stops the tread from pulling something underneath it. From pictures, the peloton treadmill doesnt have this... so I would guess if anything gets between the back of the device and the floor, it'll pull it under the machine.
That's what it looks like to me, too. That's a terrible design. It's just the right height to suck a small pet under the machine and crush the animal.[1] Or a foot. Looks like Pelotron wanted a nice clean look, so they left the guards off. That looked nice in the Jetsons series in 1962.[1] But not in real life.
In industry, this is called an unguarded pinch point. Classic cause of injuries and amputations. It's an OSHA violation in an industrial operation.
Every other treadmill I've ever seen had substantial guarding around the pinch points.
OSHA: "1910.211(d)(44): 'Pinch point' means any point other than the point of operation at which it is possible for a part of the body to be caught between the moving parts of a press or auxiliary equipment, or between moving and stationary parts of a press or auxiliary equipment or between the material and moving part or parts of the press or auxiliary equipment."
I think this is clearly negligence, I immediately saw the danger at a glance of the image in the article but had to look twice to confirm that they left off the guard for the bottom. They should be sued and the designer should find other work preferably not involving anything that could pose a danger to human life, maybe floral arrangement as long as they don’t find purple, yellow and red an appealing combination.
The large gap with an exposed high speed belt is an obvious hazard and is completely unnecessary. There’s an argument for not letting your children play with treadmills unsupervised but there’s no defence for a design that would allow a child to be sucked into the machine while it’s in use if they happen to wander in to the room and fall behind it. It’s an easy to imagine scenario since they might try to approach their parent from behind and be struck down by the moving edge of the belt and then pulled under.
Well some parents make mistakes or unpredictable situations happen. That is hardly unusual in a house with pets or kids. It is expected. Of course you should design with that in mind. A bunch of warnings that no one reads is no excuse.
Thats very harsh to the designer. I know many and nobody would design machine to kill. Its obvious the management decided to cut few hundred bucks to get higher bonuses.
This thing needs to be banned first, company investigate second. Bet there are email trails from angry engineers telling exactly what most of us say here. The excuse that only few people get killed so its all kumbayah is the most despicable thing a CEO can say. He needs to resign immediately.
The picture you link to is of a pair of Truform Runner treadmills[1]. I have no idea of how safe they are, but they are notable for not having motors which means that they wouldn’t pull a child under them on their own. Could they injure a child? I don’t know.
Perhaps someone that has used one and can comment on it. I’ve been thinking of replacing my current treadmill with one of these. I don’t have small children or pets, but I’d like to get a safe treadmill if I’m going to buy new one.
There are many models of slatted treadmills and in my shopping I haven't seen one with a guard
It could be a coincidence, a lot of treadmills period don't have guards, but really I think the answer here is maybe making sure kids can't activate it
I was expecting the child standing on it to be the one hurt since at full tilt those could easily catapult a child with deadly force..
> the answer here is maybe making sure kids can't activate it
That doesn't help if a kid or pet are caught in there while the adult is on the treadmill, especially at higher speeds or when reaction time is slowed due to wearing headphones.
The answer is to install protection. Having slats instead of the classic band doesn't make it impossible to protect that pinch point, rather just makes the machine bulkier (longer) and less aesthetically pleasing. There are plenty of mechanisms and sensors that can detect something being caught in there and immediately stop operation but they cost more.
See the video above, with the small child being slowly pulled under the treadmill. The machine not being able to detect *it lifted off the ground repeatedly while operating" in order to come to a full stop immediately is the kind of thing that happens when half-assed engineers meet half-assed managers, thinking they can make a "full-assed" product.
Yeah, no... there is no "one answer" unless you want to say "don't be a negligent parent and let your kids near running power equipment"
Why are you acting like this is a binary choice instead of a case where multiple mitigations can try and help make a bad situation slightly less worse?
There are multiple stories of children dying on treadmills without ever leaving the top surface of them. Mike Tyson's daughter died after getting caught in a rope hanging near the machine.
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At the end of the day with you on it or not, if your kids are near the running machine, it's already a dangerous situation and the most important mitigation called "parental supervision" has failed. No other mitigation will change that.
I wonder how long until I get the requisite "have you seen how easily kids escape supervision!" I sure have, and that's why having a system only an adult can activate goes a long way.
I'm a fully grown man with one and I'm certain if I were to put just a single foot on it at full tilt I'd violently injure myself. I can't even imagine what it'd do to a child. A guard wouldn't change that
Who said anything about this being a binary choice or about negligent parents? I mentioned the adult on the treadmill to highlight that the answer is not "making sure kids can't activate it". The device is expected to be used with unsupervised children or pets around it so a simple child lock is not nearly enough. The back of the treadmill is always unsupervised during use so you either make it safe, or you clearly instruct the owners to only operate them in strict isolation from children or pets.
> that's why having a system only an adult can activate goes a long way.
And I'll just say it again so it's very clear: it doesn't go nearly far enough.
But I want to see a guard behind and under the treadmill so it can't grip and drag anything under it. I want to see sensors that detect when something was grabbed by the belt past a certain point, detect the (sudden) change in drag, detect the inclination of the treadmill, detect and only operate when someone is on the treadmill so that putting "just a single foot on it at full tilt" is simply not possible. When the failsafe is triggered it should cause an immediate but relatively gentle stop and maybe even slowly reverse the direction of the belt for a short time to release whatever was caught.
My cheapo gardening tools make sure they only operate when both my hands are tightly gripping the handles, they detect when something is wrapped around the spinning parts and stop to prevent damage, some even detect if you hold them at the wrong angle and cut power.
The are plenty of engineering solutions to to cover 99.9% of accidental and maybe even intentional misuses. But they cost $10 more and don't look that nice. So killing or injuring a child as a cost of doing business is preferred.
You literally start your comment by acting like what I described is useless then follow with
"The answer is to install protection."
Sure sounds like you're saying "the answer" is install protection.
When there is no "the answer" other than "kids and abrasive belts moving at 6 miles an hour don't mix"
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Thats is why I said this is about negligent parents because it is! That child on the top of the treadmill could have easily grasped the nice tactile looking knob on the side of the machine.
They would have been instantly catapulted off the machine at full speed and no guard would have helped.
Like a Tread has a safety key clipped to you, your "reaction time" would literally be turning your body.
But even that is a red herring: if you're letting your kids near the machine while you're using it and unable to react to them even getting near you, let alone on it, again you're being negligent and no mitigation will change that.
That's not saying there should be no safety features before someone starts misconstruing this comment to say that...but the machine by it's nature exposes its most dangerous surface. It's like if your cheap gardening tool required holding it by the blade to use it, the treadmill belt has to be exposed in large swaths for the thing to work and presents an immediate danger to children.
Like seriously, think of a treadmill as a chainsaw you run on because it's not that far off in terms of power or how many people get hurt by them every single year.
Again treadmills injured over 20 thousand people in one year. 20 thiusand ER visits... if it was as easy to make a treadmill "99.9% safe" as you're handwaving it away to be with grandiose psuedo-political pandering... I'm sure someone would have thought of it.
I literally started just by saying that I have no idea how you came up with the binary choice claim (still don't). Then I clearly highlighted that the answer isn't simply to implement a child lock like you suggested. That's a very small part of the answer. Like a positive attitude is just a very small part of the answer for curing disease.
> When there is no "the answer" other than "kids and abrasive belts moving at 6 miles an hour don't mix"
Kids don't mix with a lot of things that still fill our houses because we designed them to be as safe as they reasonably can. Even your lowly power outlet isn't just 2 hanging wires with a warning post-it because someone smart enough thought it'd be a bad idea to expect humans to not make mistakes. The live wire buried in the wall, holes covered with plastic, fuses or GFCI/RCBO, etc. to keep you safe. Most of your belongings are designed to enforce some safety measures. But a treadmill operating by itself and dancing around the floor while sucking in a child is OK because the parent should have been there?? That's a bad product and an indefensible position.
Engineering for consumer devices has to be done with safety in mind and compensating for the mistakes that the customers will inevitably make. I'll leave this here:
> "It is believed that at least one incident occurred while a parent was running on the treadmill, suggesting that the hazard cannot be avoided simply by locking the device when not in use," the CPSC said.
So with your answer being categorically classified as "not the answer", the big part of the real answer is to install many protections that Peloton and others skimped on. Some of them I listed and would have prevented anyone from being thrown off, or sucked under of the treadmill unless they were going out of their way to achieve this.
> if it was as easy to make a treadmill "99.9% safe" as you're handwaving it away
It is easy to make them safer than they are now. Manufacturers just choose not to because it's cheaper that way, because regulation doesn't force their hand, and because the occasional injury or death is the cost of doing business. And I say this as someone who saw every step of this, from designing and building (up to and including medical devices to give you an idea of my upper limit for safety and caution), to setting the company strategy, in a time when there was no "move fast and break things, we'll just send an OTA to fix it".
You had multiple opportunities to understand the point I'm making very clearly but chose to focus on covering your weak position. That's too bad.
You started this comment with another bit of nonsense so I'm going to stop reading and save my breath.
"It's a very small piece" when it literally would have prevented the exact incident linked in this thread that ended up with a child already abrading their face on the top surface before ending up under it.
You can't understand the basic details of the situation so your comments are not worth my time
Nothing is worth your time when you put ego first, and focus on saving face and being boorish after being called out on a bunch of half baked ideas. I even quoted something that I expected would grease the wheels of reason:
> "It is believed that at least one incident occurred while a parent was running on the treadmill, suggesting that the hazard cannot be avoided simply by locking the device when not in use," the CPSC said.
A child lock or quick reaction are not enough despite your insistence. Any kind of engineering background, or maybe just common sense, would tell you this. You even accidentally figured it out by noting that a treadmill could hurt an adult if they stepped on it at full tilt. This machine and many others have none of the safety mechanisms and failsafes that needed to make them safe enough to use in a home. They're just made to look pretty and save a buck, so they will kill or injure adults, children, or pets just the same.
Omitting essential safety measures and replacing them with a disclaimer is the hallmark of incompetent engineers. Like replacing the protection in a bathroom outlet with a disclaimer "don't use around water".
I tried taking the best possible interpretation but your comments don't show evidence that you have anything really pertinent to say on the topic, just opinions and guesses that don't stand up to reality. Might be worth it to take your time and understand what I'm saying and that way maybe you'll get something useful out of this conversation.
For adult use yes... But perhaps it should warn that no children or pets should be allowed anywhere near it at any time.
> > "It is believed that at least one incident occurred while a parent was running on the treadmill, suggesting that the hazard cannot be avoided simply by locking the device when not in use," the CPSC said.
It doesn't take long for a child or small pet to be pulled under and injured even when the adult is on the treadmill. From the video it looks like there's absolutely no mechanism to prevent this, or even detect that it's happening. The treadmill seems to be happily operating without any supervision of any kind, and is lacking even basic fail-safes that should kick in at least when it's lifting off the floor and hopping sideways while still pulling the child under.
When the government has to warn people to stop using your product if there are small children or pets at home you know you have bad engineering and bad management.
I stand by saying having the machine powered near kids is already game over. They should maybe add a child-safe mode that requires an additional pin to activate, guards are a red herring here
The treadmills at a nearby gym have a cord you clip to your chest. If you go off the back of the mill, it tugs on the cord and triggers the dead-man-switch.
Of course, I've never seen anyone attach the cord.
It has one, I have a Tread and it's referred to as the "key" and has the same type of clip.
Kids of course don't know to use an emergency stop which is why I'm going on and on about maybe not being negligent parents and leaving kids near a piece of power equipment that causes 20k+ injuries a year...
I have a Peloton Tread so I'm talking about something I own? I even mention shopping for one in another comment
What kind of garbage comment is this anyways? I have one "top level" comment on this thread, and every other comment is replying to someone who replied to me. As if I'm the first person on HN to reply to people who replied to them.
So much for "assume positive intent" right?
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If you think guards mean you can leave your kids near a piece of exercise equipment capable of injuring a person 100 different ways be my guest.
If I seem passionate about it's because of the utter absurdity! If someone left kids playing with a chainsaw and they got hurt you'd lock up the parents....
But somehow sticking a just as powerful motor on a abrasive belt driven device you literally stand on doesn't ring any alarm bells? Chainsaws and treadmills cause the same order of magnitude of injuries a year.
It's a piece of dangerous power equipment. You're being negligent to let kids play near it. End of story.
It could be a far less dangerous power equipment, and should be.
The difference?
Far fewer people who make mistakes will end up with severe consequences.
Had that been done, this story would likely not be a discussion.
The fact that it is a discussion is why product safety is a thing. And it will prove to be smart business too. The fallout from this will be extremely likely to exceed the cost of more safe engineering.
Doing that engineering is cheap insurance for everyone.
Too many stories like this will eventually result in that engineering being a requirement too.
Nobody is defending the parents. I won't.
But, the high price paid did not have to happen too.
Producing products carries a responsibility to the general public. It is cheaper for the enterprise to say, "fuck 'em, they better watch out."
Stories like this actualize those external costs, and justify regulation to insure those external costs are not out of hand too.
Fact is anyone shipping power like this into homes knows stuff happens to even the best parents.
Part of making the money involves doing the work to minimize danger. And it has to be that way, or the carnage would be unacceptable.
These people short cut all that and now have a nice shiny bit of gore to their name.
Next time, do the work, because people are not perfect and sometimes shit happens.
Even better?
Had they done the work, they would be in a strong position to talk about safety around their gear, but they did not care, leaving them in a very poor, "who are you to talk?" position, deservedly so.
There is just so much vaguery here that's all based on a false premise.
A machine that can accelerate your adult weight up 12 MPH. And has a grippy surface for you to run on it. Will ALWAYS be too dangerous to EVER leave your kids near it and you are NEGLIGENT if you allow them to be near it.
I never said it can't be safer, but it can not, by it's very intended purpose ever be safe enough to let kids be near it
This feels like kids found a loaded gun and instead of talking about how to deny access to the gun we can make the gun safer. Sure you can make it safer, but the root issue is the access because it is a naturally dangerous object.
It's as simple as that. We can spitball all the imaginary mitigations until the thing has a 3 x 3 exposed square for your feet and it will still be too dangerous for kids to be near.
All true, and that same machine should be produced safely, because the danger is known and how to mitigate it is also known.
They either were incompetent or did not give a fuck, neither is acceptable.
Secondly, because these are known dangers and mitigation are known, out there, expected, ordinary people may actually see more danger because generally set expectations do not match reality.
The reality being this machine is a bigger risk than may be expected, and it does not have to be. Should not be.
They can afford for it not to be too.
Any competent product safety people would have required the basics, which would take this story off the table.
This company does not have those people, and they should.
A loaded gun is inherently dangerous. Making it more safe, denying access, education all make sense, and the more of those things we do the better off we all are in the form of reduced cost and risk exposure.
Fact is guns are designed to kill things. We can only do so much, right?
Now, the inherent danger on a treadmill is different from a gun. Fact is treadmills are not designed to kill things.
That difference matters.
It can be made such that it rejects the danger condition mechanically, while still performing the task in a reasonable, cost effective way.
Fans are similar things. They are not designed to cut things or kill, but they can do that, unless designed to not do that.
Open, metal blade fans look cool, and are quiet, but people can get fingers into them easily.
Fans with fine screens on them reject the fingers, but pass the air. Fans with plastic blades improve things more. Bladeless fans, or flexible blade fans more still, though one can argue they perform a lot worse and may not always make sense.
All of these are primary, passive safety, engineered in to be a basic part of the device in question.
Doing that is the most robust kind of safety too.
No software, just physics applied to minimize harm. Always on.
For a treadmill, guards and paying attention to basic dimensions are primary safety, always on features.
Passive safety is best coupled with education, and it can all be enhanced further with software too.
Say we made a fan with software and sensors that can act quickly enough to stop the fan should people get fingers in the blades.
What happens when the sensor fails, or the software glitches?
Those are secondary safety concerns. Good to have, but not as good as primary safety is. Not always on.
You are talking about education as a safety measure. And you are not wrong to do so.
Others here, myself included, are talking about basic, primary safety, always on.
Education is not always on. Software and other active safety features are not always on.
Guards and basic dimensions being such that the machine rejects things it could do serious harm to are always on.
None of this is imaginary. None of it is trivial either.
It all adds up, and shipping a ton of these machines lacking basic, primary safety features increases the harm in the world, and for what?
A bit more margin, or other minor considerations.
Remember it all adds up.
Take a decade and a well designed machine with robust safety features and this one, and this one will injure or kill more people than the other one will.
That harm will happen because mistakes happen.
We can't undo dead and maimed people either. Talking about blame and shame, shoulda, coulda, woulda still leaves us with unrecoverable harm that was unnecessary.
Harsh world you want to live in!
Better hope you are not tired, or uninformed because in your world nobody gives a fuck whether you and yours live or die, or get hurt.
In the one product safety people work to make reality, people do give a fuck, and consider talking about close calls and minor injuries, when it all could and would have been so much worse, a very nice problem to have.
So, here is how that will all go:
On an A / B test, the safer world wins by a mile.
In that world we admonish the parents, who still have a live kid, and we all carry on thankful what could be done, makes good sense to be done, WAS DONE.
In this world, we admonish the parents, express our condolences and lean hard on these clowns to either step up or get out of the game.
In yours... well? Good luck. I suppose we can tell the parents they can just make another kid.
We do exactly what you said, AND we continue to improve product safety so that we minimize the harm in all fronts.
Read it again. Everything you say about parents is valid, education done, the whole nine.
The difference is you want to make it all about the parents, despite the fact that this kind of thing could, and does happen to even the best parents.
Because NOBODY is perfect there is a responsibility to design with that in mind, and in this case with this product, this company, that did not happen and it should have, same as the parents should have...
We have standards for all this because when we subtract either error here we end up with a far better outcome.
And that is why there willbe far fewer events overall, and for those that do happen, far less harm.
This is no contest, unless you somehow believe it makes more sense for people making products to not give a fuck about what happens to the people who use them.
We did that already and it was terrible. That movie already played out and the world moved on.
Back in the 20's it worked much more like you advocate here. The verdict was clear and does not favor the position you have advocated for here.
Even seems like a switch where if the feet come off the ground it would turn off. Granted injury would still be possible but maybe more road rash than actually getting sucked under.
Seems like if a cheap space heater can have switched like this I don’t see why a 34 billion company can’t focus on this to come up with something truest innovative and safe.
Regarding the photo switch. My first thought was that dyson is now counting dust particles 15,000 times a second in a consumer grade battery powered vacuum these guys could do something equally innovative.
For the record, I just looked at my (formerly commercial) treadmill and it has no guard. Looking at a google image search for "treadmill" shows maybe 1/3 do not have a guard.
Whether or not it is a terrible design, it's common.
I checked my treadmill and it doesn't as well. I also googled trying to see what they look like. They seem to be used on treadmills that sit higher off the ground.
My guess is that the Peloton design is more dangerous due to the treads, the thickness overall and how to high it sits off the ground. Perfect design for sucking things under.
Yeah what should I look for? Is it like this just a piece of plastic on the 'outside' of the tread? [1]
My proform doesn't have one? though i always wear the emergency clip on treadmills. cheaper treadmills though motors are super slow to ramp up and down. [2]
I just came back from my usual gym, a Snap Fitness, which has Cybex treadmills. Those have the belt running around a roller at the back, and then, on the underside, there's a bar or plate just past the roller, almost touching the belt. So if something gets pushed underneath, it gets peeled off the belt, instead of being sucked underneath. Simple.
Checked my NordicTrack 1750 and it has something similar. Didn't even realize that bar was there but it's good to know it is and what it is for. I'm not familiar with the design of the Peloton treadmill but it seems like most could have something similar.
Oh cool. Still would suck to get sand papered. I wonder if could make something like those construction cutting blade things, where if you trigger the bar with a lot of force it hard stops.
I always wear the clip i've fallen off a treadmill before didn't get great balance on the hand rails stepping off a sprint.
I mean, there is no regulation for it, but it seems like an incredibly risky design for the manufacturer. Quick release forks famously have "lawyer lips" that make sure the wheel doesn't fall out in case you are riding the bike without actually closing the quick release.
I always thought those lawyer tabs were so dorky... until a branch or something somehow unhooked my qr lever descending camino alto, at which point the lawyer tabs really were the only thing keeping me from a pretty nasty accident.
My treadmill doesn’t have a guard either. It does monitor the motor and if it suddenly stops it shuts down. I have observed an accident at a commercial gym where it also shut down on jam.
Early 90's read a long article on safety. First point front and center is safety is a primary system design issue.
Example: Old coworker mentioned working on a controller for an airbag. She said the watchdog timeout was set to a shorter period than required to fire the airbag. So if the firmware went off into the weeds the watchdog would fire before the air bag.
> Looks like Pelotron wanted a nice clean look, so they left the guards off.
But...the guards are usually on the bottom, maybe an inch or two from the edge. For anyone standing or sitting near the treadmill they either won't be visible or will only be a little visible--and in the latter case you can still make them hard to spot by making them the same color as the belt.
Only people who lying down on the floor or who are standing or sitting far away in a big room should see them (and again, coloring them the same as the belt can make them harder to notice).
Unless I'm misunderstanding the geometry (I've never seen a Peloton treadmill in person), I don't see how wanting a clean look would lead them to leave off guards.
Photoelectric safety switch between the back legs would’ve also worked (like a garage door beam), depending on how sturdy those legs are mounted for alignment.
As someone who has accidentally removed part of their finger by getting it trapped in the pinch point of a belt sander, ouch. Yes, this is exactly the same arrangement, and I can see it causing very severe injuries very quickly.
I don’t think this is exactly the same arrangement - the belt goes “all the way around” on this where the pinch point is between the belt and the ground rather than the belt and the internals of the sander.
Here the force is the weight of the peloton unit, rather than the motor pulling you into a fixed width gap.
That was my point, applying pressure to the object held against a belt sander is how you remove material. Those slats probably have some kind of tread on them which makes this a 500W, couple hundred pound belt sander capable of flaying small pets and children. If you have a strong stomach you can look up “belt sander injuries” to get an idea of what I’m talking about.
I was thinking this as well. For how much tech this thing seems to have, and for such a high price tag, they could easily justify putting, I don't know, two or three IR sensors down there.
Maybe but this is rarely the option we pick in the world. Thousands of children could be saved yearly by lowering the speed limits on roads but we don’t do it.
Thousands of non functional products can ruin the company while this event could be explained with “Don’t allow children around running and dangerous equipment.” You wouldn’t allow small children around a running lawn mower or car and a treadmill requires the same level of respect.
All the lawn mowers I've seen at least have a safety mechanism where they stop as soon as you let go of the handle. And the dangerous parts are shielded on all sides during normal operation.
The peloton in the video has no protection to prevent dragging something underneath it, and just kept going as it dragged the kid under it. The motor stalled, locking the kid, then started dragging again as soon as the kid managed to almost get free.
This won’t work if your tall. On fast runs my ankles routinely left the back of the treadmill. Keeping your torso tracked in the “middle” is harder the more fatigued you get. A sudden e-stop will fuck you up if your running at 8mph.
I'd expect that they would just cut power to the motor, so it would not be an instantaneous stop. It would take a second or two. That probably wouldn't fuck you up.
Remember that on a treadmill you are running in place. You don't actually have any forward momentum, so you don't have to worry about slamming into the console at 8 mph. It's not like if you were running outdoors and someone suddenly put an obstacle a few feet in front of you.
You should just have maybe a little stumble, at most requiring that you use the rails to steady yourself.
Here's a video of someone running when power was cut to their gym [1]. The power goes out at 1:07.
It's probably worth actually testing this at various speeds working up to your normal maximum speed. I've done that (although I just do fast walks, not running) because one of the reasons I might be on the treadmill instead of outside is bad weather, which is sometimes accompanied by power failures, and I wanted to know if I should avoid the treadmill during those times.
It wasn't that. It was the torque and incessant "gotta go" programming in the motor. If the speed is stuck at zero mph and the motor tried more than 5 seconds without changing the belt speed CUTOFF immediately.
More than that, they could put multiple weight sensors on the platform to make sure an adult is on it in order for it to start and continue operating. As an added benefit, it could use the signals from the sensors to detect roughly where the user is stepping, how hard they're hitting it, how frequently, etc. That would be useful for gait analysis and other fitness-related stuff.
Additionally, a sensor on the motor could detect a sudden increase in power required to keep the belt spinning at a particular speed (such as something getting under it). This would trigger an emergency stop and possibly an audible alarm.
It's not very clear, but from the last two descriptions it sounds to me like it has a shutoff sensor that can engage by accident or leave a child under the "off" machine.
But how do you make a pinch point completely safe? Especially with a slatted belt that doesn't have a continuous smooth surface? Where it goes under the guard is still a pinch point. Much as I prefer inherent passive safety to active safety, an optical beam or two would work here - machine does an emergency stop as soon as the beam is interrupted.
Yikes. Sounds like they just didn't do a safety review.
Given that they are also apparently "opposing" the recall, I wouldn't trust them with a 10 foot pole now. They've put themselves in the same category as the Schlitterbahn, whose water slide decapitated a 10-year-old.
What I find most amazing in that video is that the treadmill stalls, detects an error condition, reverses for a second, then immediately goes full pelt forward again.
It’s crazy to think the treadmill has the ability to detect a potentially dangerous situation (the belt is completely jammed). But instead of shutting down, it does everything it can to keep operating and doing as much damage as possible.
Peloton didn’t need to add extra guards or sensors, they just needed someone to program the damn thing to shutdown when it jams. Rather than programming it with some dangerous and stupid auto-unjam sequence.
> Peloton didn't need to add extra guards or sensors, they just needed...
This is a very naive comment. Substantial damage can be caused prior to the system detecting an error condition; this is no excuse for not having guards.
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not, but software should never be used to compensate for unsafe hardware. That lesson should have become standard knowledge after the Therac-25 disaster, which happened as a result of replacing a hardware interlock with a software one.
Software is used to make hardware safe all the time. Look in any factory with automation and you’ll find hundreds Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) running safety critical operations, and acting as interlocks.
Look inside a car, and you can find a dozen software based systems designed to make the hardware safer. E.g. Traction control, body stability systems, ABS breaking, software that decides which airbags fire in a collision, lane departure computer vision systems, air pressure alerts, engine control systems that look for unsafe operating conditions etc etc
Ultimately software can be made safe. Long and rigorous software development processes and audit process are what makes it safe.
Ultimately there’s nothing inherently safer about hardware safety systems, they’re engineered and suffer from human error.
Proper risk assessments are always required, and safety systems should be built to match the risk. There’s no one size fits all’s. In Pelotons case, they clearly failed to assess and address the risk properly.
I agree with all of your points here, but I think there is an important distinction to be made between passive and active safety features. All of the examples you give are active features, which means they require continuous error-free sensing to remain functional. Passive safety has inherent advantages.
Every treadmill I’m familiar with has a safety key attached to a lanyard that the runner is supposed to attach to their waist band that immediacy pulls the key and deactivates the treadmill if the runner falls.
I don’t know how this treadmill is still operating after the older child gets off. Maybe the key was left in place and the treadmill left turned on but that’s really f’ing dangerous. A modern treadmill should reset itself after a period of non-use and require the key to be removed and re-inserted. That’s in addition to a physical safety guard under the belt this treadmill clearly should have (see my post elsewhere in this thread comparing the size of the Peloton to another premium residential brand).
This Peloton is a death machine. I didn’t realize the CSPC doesn’t have the regulatory authority to force a recall.
ETA: just learned yet another thing. It’s really hard to physically reach the switch to turn it off. The switch is located under the treadmill. Wtf. See the 8 minute mark of this video:
I was a child once. I have distinct memories of playing with treadmills. Turning them on while sitting on them. Running Hot Wheels Cars on them while they’re running. The design of these treadmills is pure negligence regardless of safety keys or kill switches.
There are advantages to large rollers, a high deck and a heavy chassis. But these are all things that make this a more dangerous machine that other residential treadmills. Peloton should reduce that risk with a physical barrier under the deck. But even with that, this treadmill should still have a safety key and an accessible (for an adult) physical on/off switch.
My True 500 had nothing to prevent something from being pulled under it. Landice makes high end residential treadmills and their models don’t appear to either:
However, compared to those treadmills, the Peloton Tread+ has much larger diameter rollers and step-up height. It's also much heavier (455 lbs vs 340 lbs). It looks uniquely dangerous to me among residential treadmills.
Thank you for sharing these pictures. They clearly show the difference in height.
The Landice can be a threat for a pet or can grab/scratch a foot. The Peloton clearly/visible is higher and a small child can sneak or can be pulled under it.
Landice calls them deck slats and they are structural members that hold the two halves of the treadmill together. You can see that clearly on page 4 here:
(Aside, but I love that Landice puts their excellent technical documentation online.)
If they also serve a safety purpose, great. (My True has these too, but there's about 2-3" between the horizontal bar and the belt.)
The Peloton Tread+ must have the horizontal structural cross-members inside the belt. They'd have to make the side rails taller to accommodate a safety bar:
This is a different incident than the one mentioned in the article though. In that incident, the child was "discovered trapped under the machine and not breathing" and was hospitalized with a brain injury.. In this video, the child does get out from under the machine and walks away. Although the only difference between the two incidents is probably the ending... this child could have also easily become trapped.
Yeah, looks like the ball was what kept the machine propped up so that there was enough space for him to walk away. So basically an amazing lucky coincidence for him.
What? You can't really faze me with porn but I genuinely don't like watching videos of people getting injured.
This is why people who miss WPD on reddit kind of worry me a little. I understand the philosophical side to the argument and all that but it's probably the only stuff online that really sets my caveman-alarm off.
I dunno if removing WPD is really doing any good though. It wouldn't surprise me if it had a chilling effect on the NSFL label. Besides how are we going to figure out what level of warning is appropriate if we can't find anyone willing to see it?
My first instinct was to assume this to be parents doing a blame-game at Peloton for their own negligence.
But this actually makes sense.
A child or pet gets in there it really is game over. I can imagine even if an adult somehow slips up that it would be insanely painful and difficult to free yourself -- especially at a running pace.
They don’t really get to complain that the machine didn’t stop when they fell if they didn’t wear the clip specifically made to stop that event. You can’t sue the bike company because you didn’t wear your helmet.
Of course you can sue the bike company, and if your foot got caught because there was no chain guard, causing you to crash and be injured in an accident, you might even win. Even if you weren't wearing a helmet.
This is truly terrible design and I hope the machines are recalled... but there is more than a little onus on the parents here (at least in case of the linked video - can't speak to the other incidents). If you are responsible for children that age you should be actively evaluating your home for these types of risks. Letting them play on a piece of machinery like that unsupervised is neglect imo. From the time the little girl notices something is wrong (and is presumably and making a lot of noise) there is still no adult visible after a full 35 seconds has elapsed.
I think that's really the damning bit - in the video shown, you can see ripples in the belt still moving towards the kid just after the sister runs off. The belt's jammed, the user's dismounted, and it's still trying to win.
At some point the treadmill actually spits the kid out. It reverses the speed for like one, two seconds when the kid was jammed and everything had stopped, but then it starts going back in its original direction and the kid gets sucked back in before he has time to get clear.
Yeah the Peloton does detect itself getting jammed. You can see it automatically start running backwards to unjam itself in the video, then start running forward again.
Crazy to think that someone thought that was a good idea.
This looks like a typical startup disruption approach where they wanted to build the hardware from the ground up and didn't ask industry experts why something is done the way it is.
Reviewing profiles of Peloton mechanical engineers suggests they employ experts, including from heavily regulated industries. It seems unlikely that this was built without discussion or research. However, it’s true that they misjudged the risk here.
In this case wouldn't it be a cultural thing for the management rather than the engineers? They're both human, but if the boss says get it done or get out, the standard is set from the top.
Certainly. It would be comforting, as an engineer myself, to think that management must not have considered the problem. However, the truth is that management, design and engineering are all quite capable of trying to avoid problems, potentially to great lengths, and failing anyway.
I have seen lots of trade mills without a guard there. Just googling image shows quite a few that don't have a guard there.
If the issue is the guard it's more than just peloton that then needs to revise their design.
What I do find more interesting is how the treadmill is still running even after the other kid gets off. There is a reason a lot treadmills have lanyard that shuts it off.
I don't understand how they released it like that. When my mom told me about kids getting stuck I immediately said "yeah under the back right?" And I've only seen Peloton in ads.
What a stupid design. They deserve to get sued into oblivion
Perhaps "most" is an exaggeration, since I have one which doesn't and the comments here and images found online suggest that many others don't.
IMHO that video shows negligence on the part of the parents. There was a camera there but no physical presence. Exercise equipment is dangerous if not used correctly, and although I'm one who doesn't believe in "helicopter parenting", I certainly wouldn't let my kid play with a treadmill with only a camera watching.
Yes, the video confirms what I expected from the description. And yeah, the video is a bit gruesome but apparently he was okay.
We have a Peloton Treadmill (now called the Tread+, but the original one is the same as the Tread+), in fact my wife is running on it right now.
If you do a Google Image Search for "treadmill", you will see most treadmills are belt-style, and often have a metal bar underneath the back, a few inches in. NOT a cover on the back -- the plastic cover is typically on the FRONT of most treadmills, which won't help with things getting sucked underneath at the back, which is where this would happen.
The Tread+ is a "slat style" treadmill similar to something really high end like a $10k+ Woodway, but other brands also sell slatted style treadmills.
It's definitely obvious how something can get sucked under the back of the tread, however I'm not sure how much better having a protective bar is; I really wouldn't want an arm to get sucked between the belt and a protective bar underneath, which is usually at least a few inches from the underside of the belt.
And of course the Tread+ is something like 450lbs; the heavier the treadmill, the more problematic something like this is likely to be.
Having it shut off when something goes under it does't really help; I'm not sure I'd want my kid to get crushed by a stationary treadmill either.
Like most treadmills, the Tread has a safety key which you're supposed to wear (but not everyone does, and of course kids playing on it are not going to). Actually, I just realized the obvious answer is, if you have kids, take the safety key off when you're not using it. But, mistakes happen, and of course something can also get sucked under when a properly trained adult is using the device as well. (One of our cats took a serious blow to the head from the swinging arm of our elliptical, but he was fine; cat.) I definitely wouldn't want anything going under the pedals of our Peloton bike either; metal pedal plus speed plus flywheel mass would be a REALLY bad time.
Back to the Tread, the belt stops if there's no weight on it for "a while" but I'm not sure how long; certainly it takes more than 10 seconds. And, again, you'd be left with a kid trapped under a STOPPED treadmill which is not much better.
There's no particular safety for turning it on. Typically I select my profile on the touchscreen but the knobs on the side to start the belt are active before starting a class. I think they might even be active when the tablet is "on" (tap the power button on the cross bar first) but before choosing a profile.
I suppose a workaround would be to require a login before turning it on, but of course this is a step most other treadmills don't have either.
Someone trapped under a stopped treadmill is much better than some trapped under a running treadmill.
At least with a stopped treadmill you’re not fighting with the treadmill the escape, and if the belt enters a free running mode when off, then it’ll make it easier to escape.
If you watch the video you can see the kid get trapped by the treadmill and completely stalls the belt. But rather than shutting downs, the treadmill just keeps trying to run forwards. There’s even a moment where the belt runs backwards for a second before it start running forwards again, re-trapping the kid.
Well, depending on the design, it might be possible to "come out the other side" .. but yeah, that's probably a bit like hoping to be thrown clear in a car accident. You MIGHT be better off, but statistically the average person will not, so wear a seatbelt.
> Asked for a response, a spokesperson for Peloton, Jessica Kleiman, told Insider that the company was "disappointed that CPSC is mischaracterizing the situation."
The hubris...
The only correct response would have been something along the lines of "we have no comment at this time."
The job is to communicate that you are aware of an issue, that you are investigating, and/or that you are cooperating. If you want to lobby for favorable treatment from regulators, hire an external lobbying firm to do it quietly, don't get into a public flame war with the CPSC.
How are PR/spokespeople for high profile companies still making these kind of amateur hour mistakes in 2021? Isn't the public record absolutely littered with comments like these that just made the company look worse?
Sure, it's also a choice for companies not to donate millions of dollars to buy malaria nets in Africa.
Admitting responsibility in as litigatious an environment as the US is essentially throwing away money, with less public benefit than the malaria nets.
Acknowledging the problem means a very very costly recall when it’s easier and not entirely unrealistic to just instruct the customers to keep their kids away from the product while it’s in use.
You're off here by millions and millions of dollars. This case is worth much, much more in the court of public opinion to Peloton than in actual court. People generally agree with the first version of the story they hear. In 2021, saying "no comment" (instead of this equally say-nothing statement that at least shapes the narrative) is just handing that opportunity away.
Thirty years ago, "no comment" could buy you some time and you could present your case later in primetime (or whatever you could land) to lots of first-time impressions. In 2021, it's almost always a stupid thing to say from a PR standpoint (I'm sure some lawyers would still love it) because everything is always-on and there's almost no element of timing aside from burying stories on Friday.
If they had said they were concerned about the issue, and investigating the matter I'd be happy to consider their brand again.
Getting into a public fight with the CPSC completely taints my view of their brand. Peloton is pretty much entirely crossed off my list of products I would consider because of their response.
I mean, they _did_ get their denial into my first read of the story, but they did it in a way that seems far more brand damaging than a noncommittal expression of concern.
Peloton is now, to me, the brand that doesn't really care if they kill children.
I'm not normally one to stand in the way of vitriolic hyperbole, but we were talking about "no comment" vs what was actually said. I am on the "no comment would have been worse" team. Please don't sign me up for any other teams, especially not the child-killers, thanks.
Sure, and I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong in your take on what is a better PR move. I'm certainly not a PR expert.
I'm just speaking as a brand consumer, and the tone of the response (public fight with CPSC vs statement of concern and a promise to investigate) speaks loudly to me about how much they care about the underlying issue.
Of course, the actions matter more to me in the long run. Regardless of what they say today, what they do over the next 6-18 weeks matters the most.
But as far as statements go, I feel like an expression of sympathy, concern, and a desire to investigate the issue would be better in my book.
Boom, now they’ve eliminated “toxic customer” critical of the brand out of the equation.
This is such a horrible line of thought, but if their founders and investors don’t go actually personally financially and/or physically punished from being morally corrupt, that is only a good thing for the company!
A treadmill is a dangerous piece of equipment. Almost all of them have ways a child could seriously hurt themselves on while it’s running. Parents should be expected to keep their kids out of the room while it’s in use.
Exactly. The only thing that's different now is it's a dangerous piece of equipment with a popular brand name. The people who are upset about this are going to be really upset when they find out treadmills have regularly been killing a few people a year for decades. And they're one of the less deadly pieces of workout equipment!
Most people aren't as Machiavellian as your typical armchair industry analyst would suppose. If you accuse a board that their product is killing children, would you expect them to think "we better make sure our PR department covers this up as effectively as possible," or would you expect indignation and denial?
I would expect “we’re investigating this issue and/or taking corrective action” because that’s the actually empathetic thing to do when a child has died and others have been injured. No PR department should be putting out knee jerk reactions. It’s their job not to. That their reaction is to deflect blame doesn’t bode well for them making an effort to address the problem. Peloton is not even just deflecting blame here. They are accusing the government of basically lying.
> we’re investigating this issue and/or taking corrective action
Who says they haven't? I mean, isn't that the exact claim they're making when they say the CPSC has mischaracterized the situation? That they've investigated the issue and determined that the CPSC's stance is incorrect?
They want to avoid a re-call and installation of a $100 unit with an extra $100 labour cost (because bye-bye profit margin).
Also, the second they (themselves - Peloton) admit that "our product killed a kid and we knew of this risk, and we chose risk acceptance and when with it anyway - because you know.. profit margin" their company is dead. They got one chance, to prove that "everyone else is crazy, and please buy more Pelotons with pathetic ads".
They can take the high-road that has a 50-50 (?) chance to doom them, or make them the top responsible company. What we can do is stop buying their products, until they either make them safer, or see them go bust (and spend the extra $50-100-200 and buy safer products).
It must be pretty hard to make that choice for an employee of the company. Lie about the death of the kid or not?
Another reminder that we need to make space for using ethics at work, and not just doing whatever the company thinks is best. A company as a legal person is basically a sociopath (if it were a person).
> The boy was not breathing and had no pulse and survived with significant brain injuries, the report said. Peloton said the boy was expected to fully recover, according to the report.
The PR machine is in full "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" mode.
When my parents were children, everyone heated their houses with an open fire, and if you did something wrong on any day it would kill you. When I was a child, we had a boiler which was perfectly safe so long as you paid someone to service it once a year. Pretty much all the things my parents grew up with had no safety features, pretty much all the things I grew up with did.
We have moved to a society where things are expected to be safe except for a number of well known exceptions, and this is good:
"It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. " Alfred North Whitehead
As technologists it is our business to know and understand the consequences of the mechanisms we build. We value greater understanding and perception. But it is a mistake to project this value system onto society as a whole, since, as the quote shows, the worth of what we build is precisely to allow others to avoid this burden. That applies in safety as much as anything else. As technologists we can see that if a device has a 500W motor in it , it bears thinking about whether there are any safety issues. But consumers rightly expect any safety issues to be pointed out to them.
What worries me is when companies are run by people who don't understand that all our safety is the result of a lot of work, and so don't realise the amount of diligence required.
Peleton should redesign the treadmill. It is needlessly hazardous, and a few small changes could easily remedy the problem without compromising the envelope of functionality for the device.
But: I absolutely hate modern appliances with egregious safety buffers, as to reduce their functional envelope down to precisely what the designers imagined, and nothing more.
Also, and I realize this is an unpopular stance: Danger is important for children.
I'm not suggesting that we need to start giving kids industrial metal saws or machine guns as soon as they can walk, but we do need to stop hiding them from the world. Kids need to learn how to live their lives, and that means getting hurt and learning from it.
Our job as engineers is, within the above limits, to try and keep those lessons from being lethal, disfiguring, or crippling.
This is very, very true. I didn't use safety gates on my carpeted stairs when my kids were babies, and they learned to navigate stairs almost as soon as they could walk. I let them use scissors when they were really little too, and by the age of three they were expert little paper crafters.
That said, I sure as shit wouldn't let them play around a running treadmill, even if I was in the room.
I agree with you, the difference is what are perceivable dangers and what not. The problem about the treadmill is that for a child (and an adult) the treadmill is not immediately dangerous, in particular the danger of being sucked under.
Modern playground design is actually taking this into consideration by designing with manageable dangers (climbing up high ladders etc.) but removing things that are not obviously dangerous, like for example gaps where heads can get stuck
There's a selection bias here. Parents whose children killed or mutilated themselves as toddlers are too busy or too aggrieved to be posting anecdotes on HN.
The Fremen Mirage (named after Dune's Fremen) is the myth that harder conditions produce harder/tougher peoples. Dr. Deveraux goes into very extensive depth as to why this is a myth with a lot of historical evidence.
Though the series of articles is focused on war, I feel that the Fremen Mirage is also one that can be pointed toward safety culture as well.
Thank you very much for the Whitehead quote, I'll be saving that one.
I am very much a self-sufficient, independent, think-for-yourself kind of person that scowls at stories like this Peloton one (and the stove, and the boiler) where I tend to think "don't touch the stove".
Your comment here is making me re-evaluate that, specifically the Whitehead quote. I think we can strive for both, but I never realized I was biased one way or the other until it was pointed out this way. Thanks!
> We have moved to a society where things are expected to be safe except for a number of well known exceptions, and this is good
I disagree. All we're doing is creating a false sense of security, propped up by a government which is mostly incompetent and often abjectly corrupt when deciding what is "safe". For reference see the absolute littany of chemicals with which we have been poisoned for the last half-century, and the outragously scandalous conduct of our governemnt in failing to protect us from them.
When people know that there's no assurance that the things they put into their homes and give their children are "safe", and that they bear total responsibiltiy for outcomes, they tend to be a lot more careful. This is a good thing. We want thoughtful careful individuals making decisions and shaping markets. We want to encourage people to think more, not less. We want people who think to succeed, and poeple who don't to fail, and to bear full and total responsibility for their failures. Otherwise there is no progress.
> When people know that there's no assurance that the things…are "safe", … they tend to be a lot more careful. This is a good thing.
No, it's not. I shouldn't have to check the piping of my gas heating system for leaks, or the wiring of my lights for shorts, or my car not to fall apart on the highway, or the food I bought to poison me. If I, and everyone else, had to do those things, I wouldn't have time to do anything else, so I wouldn't bother with those things and I'd live in a stone hut.
You could argue that safety standards aren't strict enough, or aren't enforced (yes, we should address that litany of chemicals!), but there's no question that safety standards significantly improve our collective quality of life.
P.S. Add "computer security" to that list of things I shouldn't need to care about.
Regulatory capture is a big problem here. Safety standards become outdated and even harmful but companies that have already implemented them will lobby to keep them to make things more difficult for competitors.
The absence of specific regulation doesn't mean that you'd have to check everything yourself (however "trust but verify" is a saying for a reason). It would rather mean that the companies providing these services would be competing to most convincingly prove to you that their products are safe for your home and guaranteed to function.
This competition would bear out in your heating or electric company guaranteeing their installation and agreeing to be liable for any damages caused by faults in their product. Your car already has such guarantees and warranties, and they are the result of market pressure.
Computer security functions similarly - top companies would complete to provide guarantees of security by offering to cover losses that result from breaches. This already happens too. It's not as bleak as you make it out to be.
Also we would all be much healthier if we lived in stone huts.
> This competition would bear out in your heating or electric company guaranteeing their installation and agreeing to be liable for any damages caused by faults in their product.
That sound nice, but it doesn't work in reality. In reality, companies facing liability can, and often do, respond by simply dissolving, and the liability disappears. This is why I have a concrete tile roof that's falling off the house, with a worthless 30-year guarantee made by a company that no longer exists.
And yes, a failing concrete tile roof is as dangerous as it sounds.
There are many roofing companies over 50 years old that have stood by their guarantees. The choices are there in the market - you can buy a service from an upstart with no reputation and take a risk (but usually save some cash) or you can buy from an established provider with a reputation and pay a premium.
This used to just be the way the world worked before we regulated it. I don't see what was wrong with it exactly.
> There are many roofing companies over 50 years old that have stood by their guarantees.
Name one. There are many, many more that haven't. I don't know how to find a company that is guaranteed to be around in even 20 years to honor a warranty, and neither do you.
> The choices are there in the market - you can buy a service from an upstart with no reputation and take a risk (but usually save some cash) or you can buy from an established provider with a reputation and pay a premium.
It doesn't matter how "established" or "reputable" the company is. There is nothing naturally permanent about any company. Companies shut down all the time for perfectly legitimate and benign reasons, like when the owners retire. How many contractors do you think pass on their businesses to their kids? I'll give you a hint if you need it. And if a company is facing liability, or even the possibility of liability, there is nothing preventing them from shedding some or all of their liability in bankruptcy.
The company that installed my roof was big, established, and reputable. They installed concrete tile roofs on two dozen houses in our neighborhood. The owners retired over a decade ago, long before the problems with our roofs became evident.
There was no negligence or massive incompetence, no scam of any kind. The company just didn't install the battens correctly, which was very common in the 90's. Most concrete tile roofs were installed incorrectly back then, and there is now a rash of failing roofs around our state.
Nobody except the most naive outsider would rely on the promise of warrantees lasting decades to do anything to help this situation.
> This used to just be the way the world worked before we regulated it.
Citation please. Give me an historic "pre-regulation" example of what you're claiming.
So where does the information how dangerous something is comes from? Are companies allowed to lie about other companies, because the first thing I would do as a competitor would be set up a "website" that propagates how dangerous other companies products are.
This myth that somehow competition will sort things out really needs to disappear, it has been disproven again and again.
This messes up my view of the whole company, as well as my afternoon. I was just starting to get interested in Peloton but since I hadn't gotten into it, it's easy to drop the idea.
I hope their reasoning isn't that a child shouldn't have used it. Kids love video games. They need to figure out how to minimize the risk in addition to doing all they can to prevent kids from using it.
Sued a competitor into submission, allegedly dropping Apple Watch support because they're launching their own smartwatch ... they don't seem like a great company all around tbf.
They're not dropping Apple Watch support. They support it in classes but dropped support for it in their mixed mode workout routines. Apparently the Apple Watch is kinda bad at tracking mixed mode workouts.
Sadly that's exactly their reasoning: "The Peloton Tread+ is safe for use at home when operated as directed and in accordance with our warnings and safety instructions"
One of the lessons you're eventually supposed to learn when designing consumer products is that you don't get to decide what "used correctly" means.
If, in actual use, some people are leaving the key in the treadmill, then just having the key and two sentences in the manual isn't going to be considered an adequate substitute for having a tread guard.
"But they didn't read the manual!" isn't going to absolve them of liability either.
I think the question of “should the design have prevented this?” Would factor in. If someone doesn’t clip the safety cord to themselves and then trips and the machine keeps running and injures them, the only possible way to stop this kind of event is with a safety clip which was already provided and the user chose to not use.
If you do a google images search for "running treadmill" you'll see most of them have some design aspect that would prevent the accident shown in the video, most commonly a bar or guard of some sort that would stop a child or large object being dragged under.
Pelotron's previous fiasco: pedal breakage on exercise bikes.[1] 120 pedal breaks reported to the CDC, 16 leg injuries. That's embarrassing. Pedal breakage is rare on real bikes, where weight reduction matters. Having them break on an expensive exercise bike, where neither weight nor cost matters, is a bit much.
Is it an American thing to vigorously defend corporations from accountability to the public?
Twitter and even here seem full of people defending Peloton when clearly there have been enough incidents to warrant some design changes.
It seems like a lot of people want to advocate returning to a time where businesses had little responsibility when it came to the dangerous products they churned out.
There are plenty of developing countries where this is still the case and lots of people/children unnecessarily die as a result. I imagine it would be hell to live in a place where many innocuous products are dangerous and people reguarly lose their kids. I don't want to live in that world.
I think a lot of it is a kind of weird virtue signaling.
Blame the parent instead of the company to show that they know what good parenting is, that sort of thing.
Though also some companies/people (eg. Elon Musk) do also get a weird cult of personality thing going on that is separate from this that also tends to cause some subset of people to just blindly defend them.
There will be people who will come to the defence of just about anything nowadays. I often hear people criticize the USA for its litigiousness, so I think the worry is a little overblown.
I've read a lot of the comments here condemning Peloton, and I don't think I completely agree.
A treadmill is a big fast moving piece of gym equipment. It is definitely dangerous to kids, as are all treadmills. And what about like freeweights or those universal gyms with the plates that go up and down?
What about power tools? Or vacuum cleaners? Or plastic bags, or cleaning products, or whatever? Lots of stuff is dangerous for kids. This is not something for kids or suitable for use around kids, and it's hard to believe anyone thinks it would be. What happened is horrible, but I don't see why it should mean peloton cant make their product
The guards are often just a bit tucked in under it for the clean look but without cutting corners.
Edit: Pelotons are really heavy as well starting at about 300 lbs. Most of the ones in that weight class seem to have safety bars? The difference in a child getting a fraction of a 200 vs a fraction of a 300+ lbs treadmill from getting pulled under is massive.
> A majority of the google image results for "treadmill" don't have an obvious guard, so the Peloton one doesn't seem uniquely dangerous.
Seem being the key word.
Please look at the consumer report[1], section "Unique Hazards".
The TL;DR is that height off the ground, belt design, and other factors form a uniquely unsafe combination that results in Peloton causing injuries that other treadmills don't cause.
I think both Peloton and the parents share in the responsibility. It sounds like Peloton can do some things to make the Tread safer, and they should. But, that doesn't change that things like treadmills, exercise bikes, even free weights are dangerous for kids to be around unsupervised.
An exercise bike is another item that can easily hurt a child or pet if they get under the pedal when riding. Because of the flywheel, there is a lot of weighted momentum at the pedal when riding and it does not just stop if someone gets under it. I've seen videos of kids pushing something under the pedal while the parent is riding and the bike flips over. Now imagine a kids or pets head...
Finally, many say that Peloton and Apple are similar (Apple was rumored to be buying Peloton for a long time) because of their product design and rabid fan base. Now we can add another item, Peloton gets clicks on a news story. If this had been about any other equipment manufacture we likely wouldn't have even heard about it.
I assume you don't have kids. Most other products have warnings or safety features. Like guards covering circular saws or miter saws. A kid couldn't put a drill bit on a drill. My reciprocating saw could be used by a child but it's like 8 pounds. A child would never be able to put the blade on and you keep it off. If a kid started a saw everyone would come running. Treadmills are quiet.
Treadmills are dangerous and they only require a couple finger presses to operate. Kids would be in a room with one unlike power tools. Kids are not meant to be in an area with tools, gas, paint, lawn equipment etc.
That seems like an opinion given from a privileged position, wherein you own a large enough dwelling to have a dedicated gym area you can prevent children entering.
Equipment should be safe enough to have in non-optimal circumstances, rather than basing things on rarely obtained ideals held by a privileged few.
Are you saying that all "equipment" sold should be in the category that it can safely be installed in a multi-use area of a home with kids in it? I get the idea that there is demand for such products, but it's pretty backward to mandate that a product can't exist that requires a dedicated area to house it. As a concrete example, everywhere I have lived requires your pool to be fenced off from the rest of your yard, because of the danger to kids (which would dwarf that of a treadmill). Should we ban pools because you need to have dedicated space for a pool in order to have one?
> Are you saying that all "equipment" sold should be in the category that it can safely be installed in a multi-use area of a home with kids in it?
No. I was pointing out the non-ideal reality. People commonly use gym equipment in multi-use area with children, if that gym equipment can suck up a child or pet, and won't stop even as it jams on them, that is a safety concern. Basing product safety on a rare ideal instead of reality is a recipe for further tragedy.
But why is it that every time tradgedy occurs we're looking for a systemic casuse that we can regulate away? Why not leave this to parental negligence and stop calling for more regulation everytime a child gets injured or killed?
The penalty for momentary negligence should not be death, especially when there are simple, cheap safeguards to mitigate the risk. No one is asking them to ship light fences with the thing. Moreover, having the treadmill standing up in a living room is exactly how they advertise it. It's hard to argue that's somehow unintended and unforeseeable usage.
It's not the penalty, it's just a natural consequence. Momentary negligence does frequently result in death. Taking your eyes off of two small children could kill them in many situations. It's easy - just watch your kids. My living room is perfectly safe for me and other adults, but I could come up with 5 ways those two kids could seriously harm themselves if I left them there alone for 5 minutes. The world is dangerous. The responsibility for protecting your children from harm ends with you.
>That seems like an opinion given from a privileged position
Well, the Peloton is a $4,300 device, so it goes without saying anyone who owns one is in a privileged position. Of course it doesn't mean owners have an extra room. In situations like this, there is probably at least comparative negligence.
People who live inside New York City could be in that income bracket while lacking the space you assume they have. There are multiple areas of the country with that cross-section of high property costs and high income.
Sure, and if they lack space, some things simply are not an option. These folks in tight NYC spaces wouldn’t install a table saw and a router table in their living room either.
I guess the real issue here is that many people simply do not understand how dangerous gym equipment can be. Small kids simply should not be allowed around it, no matter if there is some plastic guard part around it or not.
The peloton treadmill is uniquely, unnecessarily, gratuitously dangerous. Peloton could have spent $5 on a guard over the back, but they didn’t, probably because they wanted it to look cool.
> The peloton treadmill is uniquely, unnecessarily, gratuitously dangerous.
This is not an absolute fact, but just your opinion. People are allowed to disagree with what degree of design compromise constitues "unnecessarily dangerous". Furthermore, they are allowed to object when some people try to impose their ideas of what's right and wrong onto others.
Personally I think Peloton should be able to sell treadmills with circular saw blades at each corner if people want to buy them. Who are you to decide what's right and wrong for other people?
"Personally I think Peloton should be able to sell treadmills with circular saw blades at each corner if people want to buy them. Who are you to decide what's right and wrong for other people?"
We allow companies to sell dangerous items all the time. People are mad at Peloton because treadmills are not generally thought of as unsafe.
The treadmills at many gyms lack a guard like other commenters suggest it should have. I can buy one for my home if I want.
I don't think this is the point the commenter above was making, but if it had circular saw blades on the corners, the pitchforks and torches would be out for the parents who let their kids near it; or even had one in a house with small children at all.
We, in fact, have added more regulation in that area. Outlets installed below 5.5 feet are required by code to be tamper-resistant so that they aren't dangerous to children.
The regulations should be based on how people actually use things, not on how they supposed to use them. If these treadmills cause more deadly incidents than other appliances then comparably more effort should be spent on making them safer.
I agree that's fair (normalized for any past regulatory overreach). Products that are death traps compared with others in their category should definitely be called out. I did a google search and the first link [0] says about 3 treadmill deaths per year and 24k (!) injuries is typical in the US (well, those are the numbers the article quotes).
That's not enough information, but certainly not a smoking gun showing that peloton is dangerous vs others in its category.
I agree. The CPSC graphic video [0], graphically demonstrates the "safety failure" of a Pelton treadmill with two young children playing on an active treadmill unsupervised. While I certainly agree Pelton and other manufactures should attempt to mitigate the dangers of such a negligent situation, I was astonished that parents would allow this to happen. Imagine the same video, but replace the treadmill with a loaded bench press.
Pelton highlights that there is a safety key required to operate the machine and that parents are instructed to store it in a secure location inaccessible to children. [1] No treadmill manufacturer can ever fully eliminate the dangers of an active treadmill to young children and pets, and therefore I think this safety key is the essential piece. I find this similar to locking power tools away from curious young hands.
I don't want this to lead to additional regulation and compliance. Such regulation could even mislead consumers as to the danger of a treadmill. E.g., requiring some autodetection of a stuck belt to stop the motor. A foolproof mechanism would be not only expensive, but require regular inspection and maintenance to guarantee it performs this function. One could trust this mechanism while neglecting maintenance and therefore be further negligent in not securing the safety key away from children.
Thats not how SAFETY in engineering works. You cannot declare that certain situations that are likely to come up (children around a product that is in apparment / homes) are out-of-scope.
Source: Have worked in product development for devices.
Safety engineering is a matching between user expectations of safety and actual safety. If there's evidence that this treadmill is disproportionately dangerous for it's category, that's one thing. But if it's just "dangerous" without qualification, that's not a reason in itself to be especially concerned about it.
Most treadmills don't have this problem, they have a basic plastic guard below so it can't suck up toddlers and pets and kill them. It's not expensive, it's not hard.
Your argument is buy this flawed treadmill, which is almost exclusively intended for home use, and never have children and pets in your home. Ever.
I don't think you informed yourself well on the issue.
The CPSC can initiate Involuntary recalls, but they always try to negotiate voluntary recalls first. Involuntary recalls always get right leaning individuals to start screening about governmental overreach, and to start looking at how to kill off the the CPSC. So it is very much preferred to try to get companies to agree to voluntary recalls.
As a result of that, and the additional red tape needed to issue an involuntary recall, the latter are very infrequent.
Normally, this is in the company’s interests too, since refusing to issue a suggested recall can make the company look bad too, since it can look like the company not taking safety seriously.
On the pure regulatory side, the CPSC can issue safety standards, but basically has to give industry a chance to first develop voluntary safety standards. If the industry does so, and the CPSC believes compliance will be high enough, then it cannot create its own standard.
Thieve is an implication that if the industry created standard is good enough, but companies don’t comply, the CPSC should create a mandatory standard that requires products provide safety equivalent or better then said voluntary standard.
Only when industry refuses to create standards sufficient to address safety concerns is the CPSC supposed to create its own out of whole cloth. Obviously, just the threat of doing so frequently gets the industry to create or update its own voluntary standards.
I would deffo have died as a kid if our treadmill had this design.
I was forever fucking around with it including the flung into the China cabinet lesson.
Ever seen what happens if you throw a medicine ball onto a running treadmill at 15 mph with max incline?
Well what happens is the ball nearly decapitates your little brother before exploding through a window and then your arse gets tanned by your dads belt.
Same happens if you decide to see what’s inside your etch a sketch with an axe.
At the kitchen table.
I’m amazed I neither killed myself nor was killed by my parents.
My $600 treadmill has a magnet on a string with a clip on the other end, and the magnet has to stay stuck to a surface continually or the motors don't run. I attach the clip to my clothing so if I slip and fall while using the treadmill, it yanks the magnet away and immediately disables the machine. I keep the magnet up high enough that young kids can't get to it. Seems like that can be a reasonable way to greatly reduce the risk of injury.
Has anyone purchased a Peloton and found it useful?
I'm not sure what it provides compared to a similar bike plus a tablet to watch the myriad videos on YouTube.
Is it some sort of exercise status symbol to show off to their peer group (e.g. like people posting their workouts on strava)?
These bikes and treadmills seem to be double the price of a similar quality machine from existing manufacturers + an ipad, so I don't understand what the draw is for these.
I have a DIY Peloton that I love. $500 Echelon connect sport from Walmart plus a $14 a month Peloton digital subscription (vs $40 a month if you pay more for their bike). I have to use a conversion chart for the resistance but that hardly seems worth an extra $1000 + $26 a month.
Peloton really does have the best instructors but especially for the hacker new audience, you can put something together that works 95% as well for a much lower price.
Does this still give you the "stats" aspects of Peloton (i.e. is there some power meter on that bike that connects via the Peloton digital thing)?
I'm intrigued by Peloton, but after they basically said "we'll start air-freighting our incredibly heavy bikes to deal with the shipping backups", that seemed to be code for "our product has such fat margins that we can quintuple the shipping cost and still make money". This Echelon-based DIY solution seems to be good (especially for one's wallet).
It's a nice bike. Probably the closest to a spin studio bike I've have ridden outside a spin studio. The instructors are top notch, and the stat tracking is a big draw. It's also easy and time efficient to use. You can go from not working to working out in a couple of minutes.
I don't post my workouts anywhere, but my friends can see them. We end up chasing each others ghosts (if your friend already did the ride you can see and chase their stats as if they are real time), and it has pushed all of us quite a lot.
The monthly sub is high ($40) for a single person, but it includes up to 5 accounts on the same bike. So, if you're married or have roommates it's not bad.
TLDR;
Peloton is the closest thing to a spin studio experience at home.
As I understand the main goal is to be able to watch other people using it while you are using it yourself as it has a camera. I don't know I find this thing totally creepy for some reason...
> The Consumer Product Safety Commission this week took the unusual step of issuing an administrative subpoena to require Peloton to disclose the name of the child who died and the family’s contact information
Can't believe the company sent out an email to all of its customers announcing that incident in the first place. That kind of thing never should have left the legal department.
I have a hard time believing that there aren't very specific regulations for threadmills that address hazards. When I worked on a consumer robotics project we had to follow IEC standards which defined exactly how far a hand could reach to moving parts, how big a stop button must be, etc.
But no indication if anybody's bothered to regulate that with force of law.
I know we regulate safety in some areas pre-emptively, like transportation law through SAE standards, but also that the US relies a lot more on after-the-fact liability precedents and "self-regulation" than somewhere like the EU, which has preemptive standards like CE marking.
You'll note the headline language: "Regulators urge recall". I don't know that this would even be a thing in a lot of places - the company has an option?
The company has the option of doing it voluntarily, or the regulator can start the process of forcing a recall.
Obviously there is less red tape required to formally ask a company to consider a recall then there is in issuing an involuntary one.
And yeah, there frequently are not legally binding regulations in many areas of product safety, because the CPSC is required to defer to industry creating its own voluntary standards. Only if the industry refuses to create good enough voluntary standards, or too many companies fail to comply and create safety issues can the CPSC create mandatory standards.
Other regulators may not be as constrained here, but there is still a general culture of “government telling us what to do”=bad, so better for industries to get together and tell themselves what to do. Industry created standards can often update faster to changes in the risk landscape than bureaucrats can anyway.
Normal treadmills have a safety limit switch that disengages the motor when it senses an obstruction.
Many years ago I was at the gym and a exercise ball got loose, jammed it up, and the guy fell off. After removing the ball the treadmill didn’t resume operation.
You can see in the video the peloton jogs the motor in an attempt to free the obstruction. I presume the initial feature is to unjam a off track belt.
> You can see in the video the peloton jogs the motor in an attempt to free the obstruction. I presume the initial feature is to unjam a off track belt.
Which seems like an incredible misfeature to me. You can see how quickly it gets going from a standstill two or three times in the video - even _if_ someone were on the treadmill (and not under it), that's exactly not the behavior you want.
Is that not required by law? Surely the engineers thought about this scenario and advised management to include a safety limit switch. Did management just ignore the engineers?
This seems like another Ford Pinto where the company decided it was cheaper to settle the lawsuits than fix the product.
I fear that some engineer(s) probably said at some point: what if a puppy/toddler is grabbed/pinched/pulled underneath?
At which moment the product director got a mini heart-attack, sensed his/her bonus was at stake, and immediately asked the engineer(s) to be transferred to other projects.
Edit: I didn’t mean to offend, or to be morbid. I was making a point about how that particular mindset often doesn’t lead to products that care about “boring” things like safety or long term reliability.
This is an adult gym equipment and it is not a toy. Why would regulator recall this?
For example, I am helping my son with weight training. I spot him. I never allow him to do it himself as he simply unable to control his strength yet. If he get hurt doing bench press himself for using too much weight without a spotter, is this the manufacturer’s problem or is it my problem? Of course it is my own negligence problem.
Other brands of residential treadmill do not cause injuries at the same rate and are not nearly as dangerous. I am a runner and have a lot of experience with treadmills. This treadmill has some features that make it uniquely dangerous:
- Large rollers (2x to 4x the diameter of other residential treadmills).
- Higher deck height.
- An inconvenient to access physical on/off switch, increasing the likelihood it will be left on.
- Apparently no safety lanyard.
- No guard under the belt. This is not common to residential treadmills in my experience, but is not as necessary without the larger rollers and higher deck height.
The comparison to free weights is not apt. This treadmill can easily be made safer with better design decisions.
If the bench broke under your son due to negligent design, I wouldn't hold you responsible, but rather the bench manufacturer.
> This is an adult gym equipment and it is not a toy. Why would regulator recall this?
Because there are indications that it is unnecessarily unsafe in hine use, particularly to children and potentially to users.
Also, the CPSC isn’t recalling it, though they are recommending that Peloton should. They are advising consumers not to use it in hones with children, or, if they must use it in those conditions, to take a set of risk mitigation measures.
When the obsession with personal responsibility results in the suggestion that we, as a society with legal mechanisms, should not avoid traumatically harming children in some scenario where it can be practically and realistically addressed if only there was will, it makes me sick. If a product or service causes harm and it can be reasonably mitigated, it must be mitigated, regardless of whether those people were "stupid" or "deserved their consequences", or some other psychopathic rationalization.
I wouldn't expect parents to be experts in mechanical safety. I would trust that the company, who should be hiring experts in mechanical safety, have done everything in their power to make sure their device is safe.
The parent failure here was letting the kids around it unsupervised with the key in. But I don't expect parents to be able to evaluate the mechanical safety of every device. They should be able to trust that every reasonable precaution has been taken by the company.
"We" as a society are harming no one. Collectives don't do things, individuals do. The whole point of personal responsbility is that it ends at the people responsible, in this case the parents who left their children unsupservised near a high powered electric device.
> If a product or service causes harm and it can be reasonably mitigated, it must be mitigated
The whole problem is that I don't recognize your right to decide for others what "causes harm" and what "reasonable mitigation" looks like. As was pointed out in another comment, most of our grandparents grew up with open fires in the house. When a child injured themselves or burnt their family home to the ground, it wasn't treated as a social problem, but an individaul one. The only people responsible for the saftey of children in the home are those children's guardians. In this case they have failed in that responsibility. Why not just leave it there and stop calling for social change every time a kid gets hurt?
> The whole point of personal responsbility [sic] is that it ends at the people responsible, in this case the parents who left their children unsupservised [sic] near a high powered electric device.
That's an understandable view, but my view is that the individuals responsible are the ones who designed and approved the dangerous device. The courts should decide which of our views is right.
As a separate point, consider who is hurt more when this goes badly: the company that has some (bad) PR or even (gasp!) a recall, or the parents who enters the room to find their child dead.
> my view is that the individuals responsible are the ones who designed and approved the dangerous device.
That's not how that works though. Responsibility is only derived from action or negligence directly (not indirectly) resulting in harm. Lots of devices are dangerous - why do you get to decide what is "safe" and what isn't?
As for who is hurt most, I would say it's all of us. Increasing regulation of every aspect of our lives causes tremendous harm to, and increases the barrier to entry for pretty much everything.
Yes and we also let children work in factories, mines etc.. We also didn't have road rules for example. Also regarding your example of fireplaces, the fireplace was obviously dangerous, a treadmill standing somewhere is not obviously dangerous.
It's funny because the consequence of the argument around not expecting companies to build safe equipment is that parents should be constantly watching their children because something could be potentially dangerous. It achieves exactly the opposite of what how our grandparents grew up.
>The whole problem is that I don't recognize your right to decide for others what "causes harm" and what "reasonable mitigation" looks like.
Actually, that is the whole problem for you.
Improving product safety is a time tested, production proven high value add to our lives, and that is true whether you personally recognize that value or not.
We call for change when kids get hurt because kids getting hurt is very highly undesirable. Same goes for people in general.
Secondly, the product motive works great for cost reduction and margin. It does not work so great when we are discussing safety.
There are global, widely recognized standards for safety. They exist because when we do not do that the products end up unsafe because unsafe products are almost always cheaper and people, particularly given these economic times, will favor less expensive products.
Nearly all of them say the same things too:
"It won't happen to us"
"We can be more careful"
"We are careful, it will be fine"
And on it goes.
Fact is people get tired, they forget, they are not perfect, and shit happens.
Where the consequences being life changing, or ending can be avoided, the world is a better place.
And the vast majority are going to take the better world deal hands down.
That is reality.
For those of us who feel differently, there are options:
Remove the safeties and live how you want. Think it through. Personal responsibility right?
Build your own. Same deal, right?
Restore old gear.
Like it or not, business operates under license, and the terms include following the law, and that comes with liability.
It comes with that liability because there would be unbelievable carnage without it.
Why?
Because when we do not make it otherwise, making money is the priority, not safety, just money no matter what anyone actually says.
And that is just fine! We set a reasonable floor, and everyone gets after their share, and we do not harm untold numbers of people in the process.
By the way, one difference between an actual professional engineer and a designer is being unwilling to sign off on something like this.
Had that product been reviewed, it would very likely not been signed off. Or, who ever did just put their license on the line hard.
Designers do not have the same qualifications.
Where threat of harm is well known, we require engineering review and a lot of regulations.
This kind of thing is why. Too much of it happening with exercise equipment and it will end up required just like every other dangerous thing currently is.
For a great example of build your own, see experimental aircraft. If it is made for others, it is regulated as we all know. Build your own and you and yours you take off with experience personal responsibility directly.
> It is believed that at least one incident occurred while a parent was running on the treadmill, suggesting that the hazard cannot be avoided simply by locking the device when not in use.
This isn't a case of user-negligence, this is an inherently unsafe design where Peloton decided not to put a guard on the back of the machine.
Peloton's response was horrific. The CEO wrote a letter to a victim's parent making an excuse that very few people are killed by their treadmill, and blaming the victims for not being careful enough around their device that sucks in anything that touches it.
Such a sad situation. In addition, treadmills are many times more abusive to your joints that most other machines. Running fast on this at any weight of your body is like punching your joints with 80 pounds gloves. In 40 years you gonna see people walk with canes you will be moslty right if you assume they been heavy treadmill users.
If you want to stay in shape and lose weight, climbers are heaven comparing to treadmills. On a climber you can set low speed and because you support yourself with hands, your legs joint are not as heavily abused as on treadmill. Do and hour on the lowest speed and I guarantee you lose bunch of weight and also will stay in shape heart wise. Nobody does slow speed on treadmill. Thats boring. But also average climber is some $15,000 comparing it to much simpler design of a belt and two rolls aka treadmill. That’s why Peleton has chosen them. btw treadmills were banned as cruel and inhumane by 1900.
Row machines are my favorite. Only cardio machine that gets me out of breath faster than running. Deadlifting is probably faster. Large muscle groups taken to the limit need lots of O2. Nothing works calves as well as mid-foot running though. Maybe a bicycle?
I have never run out of breath on a rowing machine - not even close. It seems like a good exercise, don't get me wrong, but I can row and (talk, sing or whistle) at the same time with no problem. I set the "fan" on the highest level and row for 30 minutes at a time. I could row harder but I fear breaking the bicycle chain at the core of the machine. I could row longer but it really is boring.
But I have never met anyone else who rows like I do. The rowing machine quickly exhausts some individuals whom appear to be in outstanding health. I always wrote it off to their being out of shape, reformed smokers, recovery from illness, etc. But if you're normal then I may be somewhat unusual in my cardiovascular capacity.
I suspect you are simply rowing without proper resistance, it's similar to how you can ride a bike by simply barely resting your feet on the pedals.
Rowing machines generally work you out very well, because they engage so many muscle groups and the same time, thus requiring a lot of oxygen being delivered to them. In fact rowers typically have the highest lactate tolerance of most endurance athletes.
Next time on the rower try to row with 2:00/500m timing using a stroke rate of ~24. If you can do that for 30min without having rowed for quite a bit i would be seriously impressed.
The air resistance is at max. I move forward until my knees are bent almost as far as possible, my arms straight, elbows extended and then pull back until my legs are nearly straight, my hands at my chest, my biceps tight and the chain nearly at the limit.
I'll try what you suggest. Maybe all the machines I've used (about 6 of them) at various gyms are mistuned/broken in some way. These machines don't get the best of care in a gym setting.
I didn't say it wasn't a good workout or that it doesn't work me out well; in fact I said the contrary. But it doesn't challenge me in any particular way while it does seem to challenge some apparently healthy persons(i.e., trim, muscular shape, young, etc.).
I've read the machines' instructions, seen others use the machines, live and on videos, and, while rowing is not difficult for me, it does provide variety. But I was wondering why rowing wasn't more difficult.
Contrast with my recent return to swimming: I swam much of my life but left it about 15 years ago for other sports. I'm trying to get back in swim shape and, while my heart has no problems, I badly want more air faster! Rowing is graceful b/c air is readily available. But in swimming you have only a moment each stroke to breathe. And parts of swimming are anaerobic (sprints, first ~10 seconds of a race). So in swimming I see a clear personal limit to extend.
I bet swimming is good for vo2. I'm not that fit and I'm double fast twitch so endurance sports aren't my thing. I've just noticed that elliptical machines, climbers, and stationary bikes can make me sweat but not wheeze for breath like when I'm running or rowing.
He said he set the fan on its highest setting. I've never used that type. But I've also never worried about breaking it. I think if you don't come back forward as fast as you can, and don't fire in order, legs, back, shoulders, then arms, that you can get away using a very strong upper body to go kinda fast but without using lots of O2.
Concerningly, the treadmill appears to keep running for quite a while after after the woman gets off--does this model not have a magnetic safety key that you are supposed to attach to your body?
In my mind, it is in the same category as a power tool. A parent would be an idiot to use a circular saw near a young child. Using a treadmill near children is stupid. Bad things happen when people do stupid stuff.
Others have pointed out the fundamental and pragmatic differences between treadmills and power tools. E.g. it's unrealistic (excluding the long term) to keep people from putting a treadmill in their living space. Of course we could debate each difference, but then we're just discussing the differences between treadmills and power tools. Analogies are usually a lazy tool in the field of debate - you can state them easily, but they provide nothing of substance to anybody who doesn't already agree with you, unless you're using them for a much more specific point than "X is like Y, therefore they should be treated the same".
Make your argument about treadmills, not about power tools. Also note that power tools are highly regulated and have many safety features.
Should households with children have treadmills if they cannot put them in a seperate exercise room?
All treadmills are dangerous. I do not own one at all. I'm not going to tell someone that they are wrong because their level of acceptable risk is different than mine. I only ask that they accept the consequences of their decision.
Based on your comments here, you seem to have not read the actual article, which specifically states that this treadmill is much more dangerous than a regular treadmill.
Nah. The key difference is that power tools are supposed to reshape matter. Like knives, circular saws are inherently dangerous. This is more like a fan: some designs are very dangerous, but it's possible to design versions that are both effective and reasonably safe.
I can't imagine what a treadmill design that is safe for children the age of the those in the video -- my guess 3 for the boy and 5 for the girl? -- to play on would be. If for no other reason than they can turn it on to a speed which will chuck them off. Or stick their fingers in the belt, etc.
If you're saying kids shouldn't play on them unsupervised, I agree. But for those ages, the same thing is true of a bicycle. I'm just objecting to the notion that there's no difference between a bicycle or a treadmill and a circular saw as far as using them around children goes.
Or maybe companies shouldn't be allowed to release designs that don't include industry-standard safety features? A pool is a giant body of water, it can't help but be dangerous. Missing that safety guard causes this treadmill to unnecessarily pose a huge risk that most other treadmills have mitigated by fairly simple means.
Does it matter? Children will play in living rooms. If you make gear intended for living rooms you need to make it child safe and pet safe. That's just common sense.
I feel that. I lost half a thumb when i was a 7 years old because we went to an uncle's house for a dinner and the grown ups decided to leave me , my brother and my cousing (all less than 10) playing in a room that had a stationary bike in it.
I get your point, parents are stupid for leaving kids playing nearby. But it's not fair for kids to pay the price.
Don’t be so ignorant. We put covers on gear boxes and belt drives in power tools so adults don’t accidentally catch a sleeve in them what makes you think we shouldn’t do the same for home appliances?
Please make your substantive points without name-calling, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Your comment would be fine without the swipe at the beginning.
Most families in the world don't have a spare room that can keep locked all the time. It's nice for you that you apparently do, but are you seriously suggesting that treadmills should be restricted to people who can afford to have a dedicated exercise room?
I need a key to start my Sole, and you can attach the key to yourself while operating it (in case you fall off). A child getting mangled under the tread couldn’t have happened with that simple mechanism in place.
In the video that another user posted the treadmill was already running because the sister was using it and the little child was sucked inside.
How the key would have helped in this situation?
As soon as the girl got off instead of continuing to drag the child under it, it would have stopped. It probably wouldn't have completely stopped it from happening but it certainly would have improved the outcome.
Substitute the girl using the treadmill with one of the parents. The kid with the ball still gets caught, although the treadmill could get stopped sooner.
Unless supervision means the child never gets further away from the supervising adult's arm's reach, I think the only thing you can do is fence off the treadmill to keep free range kids and pets away.
> Substitute the girl using the treadmill with one of the parents. The kid with the ball still gets caught, although the treadmill could get stopped sooner.
Doesn’t seem likely. His parent would either fall because the treadmill slowed down, running into him and injuring them both or they would have told them to stop it because it’s clearly dangerous
Four IR sensors on a perimeter below the tread should do the job (interrupt the beam and it stops). Idk how companies come up with such non-safe products, even without regulation. It’s just a common sense to add some trivial safety to mechanisms.
It's more alarming that people are spending this amount of money (aka deploying factory labor, conveyor belts, induction motors, plastic molding, heart rate screens, grid electricity) for the ability to run in place like a hamster.
You get to run in a clean, climate controlled environment with near zero risk of body injury. Plus with all the covid lockdowns, this is one of the best cardio you can get.
"...treadmills were used as punishment devices for people sentenced to hard labor in prisons."[0]
To grind flour, hence mill. But that is the useful version of the concept. "Reverse treadmill" is what we should call the consumer product that cost emissions to produce&operate (simulate a "load" that needs to be pushed against by a citizen with no where to go).
Rowing is only slightly better for your knees than running. If you are worried about knees, swimming is the best cardio, because it puts almost no strain on your joints.
Rowing is a lot closer to swimming than running, primarily because the load on your joints is dictated by the output of your muscles, whereas in running the load is primarily impacted by each of the small "falls back to Earth" you do with each step.
That's not to say that improper rowing cannot cause injury, but the correct technique for rowing alleviates all of the injury-causing jolts to your joints that occur with each stride in running.
That's going to depend a lot on the design of the treadmill. Generally higher end models have some spring in them while the cheap stuff you can buy at Walmart is hard as a rock. For myself, I rarely run on the treadmill, I speed walk at an incline. It takes longer to get as good of a workout as running would but I usually watch videos while on it anyway which is more difficult when running due to more noise.
Treadmills make exercise a more viable option when it’s raining outside, you don’t want to worry about getting mugged at 11PM, or just don’t want to get dressed to go out.
People who exercise more are often healthier, and health has all sorts of benefits on society.
A recall seems excessive. My heart goes out to the families with injuries, but children shouldn't be playing on treadmills unsupervised. Adults get hurt on treadmills all the time, the danger wouldn't be less for a child.
Children get hurt on stuff. This is like those magnet toys that got banned because some kids ate them. Let's not, as a society, overreact to every little thing because the children.
> This is like those magnet toys that got banned because some kids ate them.
Tiny neodymium magnets are still readily available. You wont find them labeled as toys. The problem is not that some kids ate them (that will happen with any toy containing parts small enough to be eaten) The problem is that when eaten they cause horrible internal injuries. They can cause a kid to go from “fine”, to “has a tummy ache again” to “dying in front of your eyes” relatively quickly and you can’t even diagnose what is wrong without advanced medical imaging. This property is undesireable with something marketed as a toy.
How is this a societal overreaction? Let me reiterate, you are still able to buy the thing by the bucketloads they are just in the diy department not in the toy section.
So, then, how would one translate not labeling magnets as toys to these treadmills? They're already not toys. Do we recall them or change the 'label' that was already 'not for children, do not misuse'?
Perhaps there need to be better warnings in the box or something. That seems like a very fine response. Recalling the machines doesn't.
I think all bicycles should be recalled. They kill far more people, kids included, per year. And their design is ridiculous -- 2 wheels? How could such an inherently unstable device pass regulatory scrutiny?
I really hope most of the commentators here never get positions of responsibility.
Few comments are questioning why "Peloton" or are just making stuff up, like missing guards.
~3 people die a year from treadmills in the USA.
"In 2009, former boxer Mike Tyson’s daughter died when she got caught in a cord from a treadmill and accidentally hung herself"
> One of those fatalities involved a 5-year-old child, but it was not clear what occurred in that case
This is not hard to find - "Ashim Gurung died of compression of the neck, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office determined."
"at least 2,600 children a year land in the emergency room from treadmills alone, according to Kim Dulic"
" in 2001, 12 children in separate incidents in Philadelphia suffered injuries from treadmill accidents. Six of them got their hands caught in the belts and suffered abrasions and resulting scar tissue so severe that they required plastic surgery to just to be able to open their hands again."
So why Peloton other than it's hip to say bad things about Peloton? Is that the value of that child's life, not to learn, but to be hip?
> So why Peloton other than it's hip to say bad things about Peloton?
Because Peloton, unlike other treadmill manufacturers for which CPSC has recommended a recall and published safety guidance, opposes the recall and the safety guidance.
There have been lots of safety recalls for treadmills and similar fitness gear (which is probably an indicator that more up-front regulation is needed), but manufacturers publicly rejecting recalls and safety guidance after large groups of injuries (including a fatality) is a different story.
Edit: confirmed (warning: video shows a child being injured): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onXNnlCYJ4Y