>The agency said Peloton's treadmills are designed differently than its peers, with "an unusual belt design that uses individual rigid rubberized slats or treads that are interlocked and ride on a rail." That's instead of a thinner, continuous belt. There is also a large gap between the floor and the belt of the Tread+, leaving room for things to wiggle their way under.
The commission in April simultaneously released a graphic video, captured by a home security camera, of a young boy being pulled under one of the Tread+ machines and struggling to free himself.
But Peloton pushed back on the recommended recall at the time, telling customers there was no reason to stop using its treadmills, so long as children and pets were kept out of the area while in use. The company had also recommended a key be used to lock the device after each workout.
The fight club defence.
Narrator:
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Business woman on plane:
Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
Narrator:
You wouldn't believe.
Business woman on plane:
Which car company do you work for?
That's a calculation, not a defense. For it to be a comparable explanation of how the car is totally safe, there would have to be a really inconvenient way to avoid the problem, like "if you always put your first passenger in the back right seat, then the differential won't lock up".
Does anyone have any thoughts on that? I imagine that small cars are the most dangerous to be in, since they will stop more abruptly if they hit something, as opposed to something like a bus which will demolish almost anything in its way.
Note even that article isn't saying the Pinto didn't have a defect; just that its American competitors were equally as compromised. The 70s were a real nadir for American auto manufacturing, as the Big 3 (Ford, Chrysler, GM) had been caught flat-footed by competition from Japanese imports. In much the same way as you still see today in any industry, they set aggressive goals to cargo-cult what they saw as their competitors' advantages (weight, fuel economy, price) without understanding the real consumer perception issues (quality, longevity, driving experience) that they faced.
This is like the opposite of the 1982 Tylenol recall[1]. Deny the problem. Minimize the impact. Until the outrage reaches such a level that you have to do the recall anyway and your reputation is now dirt.
Depends on the agency. Nobody is going to not buy a Tesla because Musk angered the SEC, because the SEC protects an abstract public good. It’s a wildly different case when you get into a fight with an agency that protects public safety in an easy to understand way; even if you win the legal fight consumers might decide that your product is dangerous and to be avoided, a Pyrrhic victory.
Someone else here mentioned Tylenol, which is a good counter example. Aggressive and transparent moves in the direction of consumer safety can both save a company in a PR crisis, and actually turn it into a boon for brand good will and loyalty.
He also blatantly defied Alameda County covid shutdown orders to reopen a Tesla factory.
Tesla promised workers that they could stay home if they didn't feel comfortable breaking the law. Workers who stayed home then received termination notices.
Hundreds of people who returned to work at Tesla were then sickened by the disease.
Honestly, I don't have strong feelings about fighting over the covid shutdown (telling employees they could stay home and then firing them is bad though, and significantly worse than ignoring the county order). IMHO, fighting with the SEC over stupid shit reflects poorly on Elon and the board who refuse to supervise him, but not so much on the company.
Fighting with the NTSB has a bad look. Throwing shade on people who died using your product, is also a bad look.
> Workers who stayed home then received termination notices.
2 people received notices. 10,000 people work at the plant.
This might be the single most shockingly and blatantly manipulative article I've read in a long time. Let me list the number of ways that The Post tried to obfuscate the truth.
1. They publish an article in June 2020 titled "Tesla gave workers permission to stay home rather than risk getting covid-19. Then it sent termination notices." The title is entirely disconnected from the body of the article - in the body they specify they are talking about 2 out of 10,000 people, but the title doesn't reflect that even in the slightest.
2. In March 2020, they publish another negative article about Tesla, in which they once again use a more outrageous and misleading language, citing their previous article but not linking to it so that nobody can actually catch the fact that we're talking about 2 out of 10,000 people.
Let me remind you that The Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, who is a sworn enemy of Elon Musk. And then the media complains that there's so much push back on their reporting?
Consumers are for the most part ignorant of or indifferent to worker abuses. "This may kill you" is both an easier story to sell in the media and more compelling to consumers.
hundreds of people who didn’t work at tesla were also “sickened by the disease” - was there a difference in the rate of infection between tesla workers and other people in the community?
I refuse to buy Tesla cars because of Elon and his background of profiting from the mining of emeralds in apartheid Zambia. Elon has worked hard to erase his origin from the minds of potential customers but I could never forget. Elon is also the reason no company will buy Tesla. Elon would have to be all the way out of the picture.
Apartheid was a political ideology that did not happen in Zambia. The very existence of a place called “Zambia” only came about after their colonial independence. “Apartheid Zambia” is not and was not a thing and is a stupid phrase to anyone who knows the history of the area.
Furthermore, Musk fled South Africa in order to avoid being conscripted into the apartheid SA army.
He’s a person with rough edges, but tieing him in with apartheid is a bit much.
Social apartheid is de facto segregation, no laws are strictly necessary, but often support it. It’s most prominent aspect is seen in the division of white/black capital. Zambia is very much a country with vastly wealthier white demographic.
“ On the eve of independence in 1964, 2 percent of Zambia’s 3.5 million people were white, but they controlled everything in a system resembling apartheid.”
The point is that Zambia is a place white colonizers have been exploiting forever and the Musk family certainly has been doing business in south east Africa for some time.
It’s absolutely apples to apples. Don’t back track now. You proposed to treat the man differently due to his line of ancestry. That’s racist.
I’ve personally experienced this line of “ethnic expectations.” All it does is to put the target in a box marked “probably racist” for no other reason than the conditions of their birth.
Everyone comes from a lineage that committed great violence in the competition for resources vis-a-vis other groups. If your ancestors did not do that, you would not be alive today.
Let us not forget the Zambians, themselves foreign Bantu invaders who genocided the native Khoison population (but perhaps the Khoisons genocided who was there before them).
In fact, the Xhosa tribe (a Bantu tribe famous for the clicks in their language, and for producing Nelson Mandela) got those clicks from the Khoisan tribes (the original clickers) by committing a massive genocide and taking all their land. The linguist John McWhorter gives an explanation of how this happens in his Great Courses series.
I've seen this "Elon comes from stolen emerald money" story a lot, but as best I can tell, the following is true:
- Elon's father claims in the mid-80s he bought a partial stake in an emerald mine in Zambia. There is no paper trail of this ownership, so we are taking his dad at his word here.
- Zambia was already independent at the time and in no way an apartheid state. The ruling party was ideologically socialist and African nationalist.
- This partial ownership of the mine obviously did not make Elon a super wealthy kid, as he moved to Canada for university, gradudated with $100K in student debt, and according to roommates and friends at the time, he was notoriously frugal.
So it seems like even if Elon's father is telling the truth here and the mine even existed, that wealth didn't seem to be significant enough to give Elon a huge boost when he came to North America.
There are definitely a ton of things to criticize Elon for, but I am not sure the emeralds is one of them.
Here's what the head of the CPSC has to say about that. "But CPSC faces a nearly insurmountable hurdle each and every time the agency wants to warn the public about a hazardous product.Under the gag order of Section6(b)of our statute,the agency must negotiate with companies—often for weeks—before issuing any kind of safety warning."[1]
The CPSC can issue a mandatory recall, but that's subject to challenge in court. They rarely do that. But if they do, it looks really bad for the seller. For one thing, it means the recall notice comes from the U.S. Government, not the seller, which looks really bad.
Even taking every potential legal/regulatory consequence out of the equation I think it was a terrible strategy. Their target market is healthy, wealthy millennial/Gen X people who don’t have a lot of free time. Parents don’t have a lot of free time and wealthy people who aren’t parents usually have pets. I would venture to guess 95% of their customers have a child, a pet, or both. To risk being seen as a company that plays fast and loose with the one thing their customers love more than anything else in the world is foolish.
Hard disagree. US agencies don’t have the resources to pursue many actions, so they are very conservative and really only go after slam-dunks. By the time you get contacted you’re already fucked and need to get with the new program - fast.
>And it pays off to fight with them. Look at Elon Musk and his companies.
What benefit has Musk or Tesla received from fighting with regulators? Whether it is spats over securities, unions, or safety it doesn't appear that any punishments handed to Musk or Tesla are lenient when compared with what others have received in similar circumstances. Meanwhile these fights have been a consistent drag on his and Tesla's public reputations. Like with most things Tesla, odds are the company would have been better off if Musk knew when to keep his mouth shut.
> What benefit has Musk or Tesla received from fighting with regulators?
Same as Peloton.
Let's say there are two kinds of people. People who open Robinhood and buy shares at ask, and everyone else. As long as there are more of the former than the latter, and as long as those Robinhood users like spats, then obviously giant company CEOs will keep getting into them.
Buying at ask is as direct as it gets! You don't need this some complicated socioeconomic mechanical theory. It's so frustrating to hear about these indirect effects - how the news might cause an analyst to write something negative months later, that maybe some institution may trade on one month, that goes through a big committee... If many Robinhood users read Elon Musk tweets, open Robinhood, buy at ask, price goes up!
Like this is the same energy that got a lot of politicians elected these last few elections. The same energy that's making TikTok personalities real celebrities. VIPs have their hands almost directly on the levers of popularity contests nowadays, through social media and direct to consumer finance, e-commerce and subscription apps.
If your theory about regulation and capitalism and economics or whatever does not incorporate "more guys buy at ask than guys sell in spread," nowadays, it might not be wrong, but it's mediocre.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say in relation to my question. I wasn't asking for the benefit that Musk received in relation to his actions like Tweeting about Tesla's stock price, busting unions, etc. That benefit is obvious. I was asking what benefit he received from fighting with regulators about whether he committed those actions, whether they deserved punishment, and whether the regulators have jurisdiction, etc.
Are you just saying that "there is no such thing as bad publicity" and that anytime Musk is in the news is good for the stock price? Because the original point from justapassenger was that "it pays off to fight with [regulators]" and not "it pays off to commit securities fraud".
> what benefit he received from fighting with regulators... whether he committed those actions... and that anytime Musk is in the news is good for the stock price?
The direct answer to your question is, since Robinhood users like those n-th order fights, he still got a benefit through the rising Tesla prices those Robinhood users caused.
But you're doing the thing where you're trying to make a model or a theory that starts stepping away from the direct mechanisms of action these people have now to affect stock prices.
I'm saying that a tweet from the Peloton CEO that just said "regulators are big doodoo heads" - if there are more Robinhood users who buy Peloton at ask than everyone else, and they like this tweet, the price will rise because that's how prices rise.
That's why you don't need a lawyer, you don't need the professional advice or the experts, if you're Elon Musk and your goal is to make stock prices rise.
What you're really trying to ask is, "When do smart people decide to stop being intellectually honest?" The answer is, as long as the intellectually honest text is longer than a short, simpler, stock-raising tweet with verisimilitude, people will choose short and high in verisimilitude over longer but true.
I don't know, your comment seems to be overcomplicating an argument that appears to boil down to "there is no such thing as bad publicity" and we should know that isn't true in terms of stock prices or else they would never go down based off bad news.
Can you Eli5 why buy at ask is the wrong thing to do if you want to buy shares? What is the alternative? Do you mean you should wait/ time buying based on price?
I rarely submit market orders (which is what "buy at ask" translate to), even for securities that I know I want to buy. Only in extremely deep markets am I prone to use a market order.
What are the alternatives? Limit orders set close to the current range or selling near-the-money puts over and over until you're eventually assigned.
The SEC is the only financial regulatory body that is a real public institution. Isn't everything else just private corporations who only give the impression that they're public regulatory bodies?
Given Wall Street's lobbying power, the regulatory bodies for Wall Street has always been weak. I don't foresee this changing for the same reason.
Why do people think this? Because Elon Musk can tweets dumb memes? The size and scope of regulatory agencies has vastly increased over the years. And fines paid out are gigantic. Take banks for instance:
> Financial institutions have been hit with $10.4 billion in global fines and penalties related to anti-money laundering (AML), know your customer (KYC), data privacy, and MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) regulations in 2020, bringing the total to $46.4 billion for those types of breaches since 2008.
That's across the whole globe, in the US it was only $4.3B, and it's a record year because of the 1MDB settlement. This is the government clawing back dimes on the dollar from banks that profited massively by aiding illegal enterprises.
For the size and scope of regulatory agencies to increase, their budgets would have to increase faster than inflation of wages in their relevant markets. We don't see that in finance (SEC) nor in technology (FCC). The regulators are paid comparative peanuts.
Hard to tell if you're arguing in good faith with a heritage foundation link, but the stats there are fine.
A 82% budget increase from 2008-2018. But only a 31% increase in employees since 2004. Markets have gotten much larger with many more trades over the same time period. Certainly technology helps handle the increase but there is an orders of magnitude difference between a 2004 market and a 2021 market.
Crypto is a good example. It didn't used to exist. SEC is the only US regulatory body for it.
> Hard to tell if you're arguing in good faith with a heritage foundation link, but the stats there are fine.
I don't know what you mean by this. I googled SEC spending over time and found this well sourced article about spending. I understand that Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank but why does citing something from there mean I'm not arguing in good faith? I'm missing something....
> A 82% budget increase from 2008-2018. But only a 31% increase in employees since 2004. Markets have gotten much larger with many more trades over the same time period. Certainly technology helps handle the increase but there is an orders of magnitude difference between a 2004 market and a 2021 market.
Your original claim was that they're underpaid or underfunded, which is just wrong. Their budgets have increased by more than the inflation rate. And you still don't provide any data to back up any of your other claims, instead you attack me for arguing in bad faith and claim it's not a big enough increase because you think it should be bigger because you know, crypto.
I didn't attack you. The SEC was underfunded in 2008, and was still underfunded in 2018. A good source showing that their budget has increased by 82% over those 10 years doesn't change, or even challenge that. My original points were:
- These fines are dimes on the dollar compared to profits gained
- Regulators are comparatively underpaid, with the comparison point being workers in the regulated sector.
Goldman Sachs is a single firm that made $9.5B in profit in 2020 who has to pay a $2.9B fine over $1.6B in bribes paid with $2.7B of "misappropriated funds". A single firm paid nearly the entire SEC's budget ($1.75B 2020) just in bribes to foreign officials.
But sure, since the SEC's budget has increased by 82% since the housing market failed, they have all of the funds they need. Clearly we have a value difference here. The issue is not the facts at hand, it is our opinions on what they mean.
Honest question, how much did they make in profits from illegal activities that led to the fine of $10 billion? I have no idea if it was millions or trillions. My hunch is they paid much less than they made, although I hope to be wrong on this.
Imagine how many students would cheat on tests if the penalty was not a failing grade, but only a “wrong answer” counted for every question they could somehow prove you cheated on. Ooh, and you’d get to bring in experts to argue with them on your behalf about it for a few years while having the grade you got through cheating stand on the records for all that time.
But both could be true: agencies getting weaker but corporations becoming more instrumental in rule breaking and accepting fines as cost of business. Perhaps the behaviour is getting worse?
Im going on a tangent here, but I’m surprised he hasn’t resigned. I’m more than convinced the company knew the reality when they put out their original statement. Now they’re back tracking, but the lack of ethics is just jarring.
I get that treadmills can be somewhat dangerous, you are basically building a moving road, but surely we’ve ironed out most of the safety kinks by now, right? Treadmills are an old, understood technology. At this point we really should only be seeing injuries from people who purposefully misuse them, not during normal operation.
It’s particularly galling for Peloton, because their gear is already overpriced. Shouldn’t some of that cost go into making sure that it doesn’t rattle itself apart?
Well, it is amazing to me, after watching the videos of what the Peloton was actually doing, how actually dangerous it looked. The deck is high and the rollers are much larger than normal giving it a lot of torque to suck kids underneath of it. It apparently has no sort of resistance sensors for when the motor is jammed, which kind of blew my mind. In the video where the kid wasn't seriously injured, the treadmill slowly ate the child until the treadmill wedged entirely on top of a large exercise ball, which was enough for the kid to get some space and escape. If that ball had not been there, the treadmill would have climbed on top of them and crushed them. It is ridiculous to me you can't build in a basic safety sensor or fusing mechanism that will blow when the motor hits a certain load at a certain speed or whatever.
You would think for such an expensive device, but then again... Guess they spent all their money on software? Most of the best treadmills I've seen have a disappearing belt with a deck wrapped around the end. Having the belt wrap around the outside seems nuts. Anything could get in there! What's worse is I've seen some other companies trying to follow this example.
Maybe the designers decided all the safety junk was too ugly?
I really don't understand at all. A 1st year mechanical engineering student with a moderate understanding of 3d CAD could had designed a cover that would have completely eliminated thei possibility of this. I think someone at the company probably did and some executive poo-poo'd it. I only have 3d cad for basic modeling skill and an EE and I could have designed it
> the rollers are much larger than normal giving it a lot of torque
Excuse the pedantry, but I think this is the incorrect physical explanation. Larger rollers mean that the linear speed at the rim is larger, and the roller impart in fact less force (e.g. conservation of energy).
Does not mean it is less dangerous. It's just dangerous for different reasons than you state.
It’s ok, technically correct is good around here as long as we are using good HN etiquette:)
My thought is the larger roller surface area just made it better at grabbing stuff and sucking it under the unusually high deck height. Dunno if torque is the correct term.
A treadmill design using large rollers would have a chosen motor and gearing combination to accomodate the large rollers, likewise for one with small rollers. They would likely be able to impart the same force at the roller (or at least which one would be stronger is unknown and a function of other design variables).
I saw that video as well and what struck me was that the treadmill detected a jam, reversed direction briefly (almost completely freeing the kid) and then resumed normal running (sucking the kid back in). In what world is it reasonable to have that sequence happen on a treadmill a person is running on with no human input?
> In the video where the kid wasn't seriously injured, the treadmill slowly ate the child until the treadmill wedged entirely on top of a large exercise ball, which was enough for the kid to get some space and escape.
I just watched a video that matches this description, and holy shit. The thing that unsettled me the most was the first moment, before the treadmill reversed direction for a second only to suck the kid back in. In that initial capture, the treadmill wedged itself against that kid's throat. Hard to tell for sure from the video, but if not for that momentary spin reversal, the kid would likely suffocate.
As a father of a similarly-aged kid, I can't stop shaking after seeing this.
Fortunately the child was able to escape in this case, but it's pretty easy to see how people, and children in particular, could be injured or worse by these treadmills.
Violence isn't the answer, but fear is, and the tendency to want violence in this case is due to company leaders involved in malicious activities have nothing to fear.
The rollers and torque aren't the issue here, dude. The lack of safe design is. An end cap on the design to eliminate the possibility of something getting sucked in is all it would have taken. I'm sure some "aesthetic minded" executive or product designed poo poo'd the idea to "maintain a certain Peloton look"
We have ironed out the kinks, it's just that Peloton decided to remove some of the safety features (IE, a guard at the bottom to stop feet from getting stuck under) to make it look sleeker.
Although there have been some reports of loose touchscreens, that has nothing to do with the event that led to this recall. A child got sucked under the device and crushed to death (they weigh in excess of 500 pounds). This isn't due to poor manufacturing, but rather misguided design.
I think the issue is not that they're old technology, but that gym equipment should not be shared in household rooms with children or pets. Really the entire category is just heavy as hell by design. Peloton’s whole shtick is normalizing gym equipment at home and they're doing it via silicon valley "move fast and break things" strategy, and here we are.
"The treadmill shouldn't be where kids can get to it" isn't enough of a barrier - as it is not OBVIOUSLY dangerous in the way that power tools or guns are.
Same way that kids shouldn't be playing on a stove or dishwasher but it's still required to mount them so that if they DO it doesn't tip and crush them. Especially since the hazard isn't necessary for the operation of the device (such as spinning blades are necessary for table saws, etc).
gym equipment should not be shared in household rooms with children or pets.
That sounds completely impractical - good luck keeping a child out of a room. Perhaps the devices should be safer, rather than passing the buck from the company to the individuals?
It's not just children. The design is inherently unsafe. 72 injuries, 29 of them actual treadmill users (presumably adult) sustaining broken bones and cuts. That's just the total reported to regulators.
It can be made safe. Lots of treadmills are relatively safe, barring slight pinch injuries. Peloton just made it this way for aesthetics and economics.
The technology is well understood, what's not understood is how to use less items on the bill of materials and/or less expensive items on the bill of materials, or to remove items from the well-understood technology until it is cheaper to produce, but also fails in new ways.
The push to the bottom impacts every single product/process, doesn't matter if the technology is well understood, there's always another penny to shave off the cost so manufacturer can make more profit.
Sadly price is an unreliable indicator of quality, because the consumer in general has no idea how much of that price went into build quality and how much went into profit, waste, employees’ salaries, taxes, suppliers, ...
It takes institutional knowledge and experience to make a safe and reliable product. Even if you had a whole team dedicated to it, it's not much use if the rest of the company doesn't care or do their part.
It also takes money. But why bother protecting the consumer or even the company if you're not legally or financially liable yourself?
There's little incentive to do things right. And when there is, most people will only ever learn the hard way.
> It takes institutional knowledge and experience to make a safe and reliable product.
Sorry no. This implies that reviewing the negligent faults in this Design was a difficult task.
A basic Hazard and Risk analysis would have flagged this.
Even if we ignore the lack of safety guards, I struggle to believe that it is legal to release a consumer product with this much torque without some form of overcurrent/stall/speed detection and safety cut-off.
I really don't see why you think we need to regulate this sort of thing. It should be legal to release any sort of consumer product you want, and we clearly sell much more dangerous things at a hardware store. We shouldn't try to taxonomize consumer goods and regulate each category arbitrarily. We should just let producers and consumers make their own decisions. If I want to sell a treadmill with circular saw blades on each corner, and someone else wants to buy it, who are you to tell me that's wrong? If my hyper-dangerous fitness equipment company becomes wildly successful, how is that any different?
That's just how consumer protection and liability law works pretty much everywhere in the world. I don't make the rules. But they do exist for a good reason.
I'm re-reading what I wrote, but I still can't see how you inferred that implication.
I agree that a hazard analysis should have identified it. But whether it did or didn't, there are still many possible reasons why it wasn't addressed effectively. Hence, a systemic failure.
I have no idea if it's legal, but any punishment would probably be on the company rather than the individuals.
I read it as if you were implying that identifying this was only attainable with very senior staff, which I disagree. But indeed perhaps I read too much into your comment.
If anything, it's the opposite. Even if engineering advocates for doing more about the problem, it only takes one manager screw it up. Either everyone has to want an ethical product, or there have to be formal processes to make everyone do the right thing whether they want to or not. Ideally both.
The optics on stalling on safety when affluent people's kids are getting maimed and killed while they jog off their corporate stress... I can't imagine a hollower place.
The problems came from the touchscreens loosening, detaching and falling, which I would assume is a fairly new problem in the history of treadmill safety.
Edit: main safety issue doesn't seem to be the touchscreens actually
I do not believe that Peloton is the first treadmill to use a touchscreen, nor are they the first company to install a touchscreen in a high vibration environment.
These guys blew it. They should've sent guys to add guards to these things. It would've been cheaper than the recall and the lawsuits they might have to deal with now.
These fucking things could suck up a small dog and mangle the shit out if it if not downright spit back out pieces.
Imagine overpaying for a treadmill to begin with and it has a huge, possibly deadly design flaw.
Seriously, WTF.
Stick with your Precor treadmills people. Proven, cheaper and every bit as good.
Seriously; I love my Peloton bike because I’m a data junkie and the weather isn’t always nice for riding, but for running you can just download the peloton app to an iPad and use a non-peloton treadmill. I only have the peloton because I bought it used off a friend who just wanted it out of her house.
Think of a treadmill as a tank tread, just kept off the ground. If the treadmill touches something in the back, it get's traction and will will try to "ride" that arm/hand/person/dog, pushing the treadmill backwards and even more onto the item stuck underneath. Most treadmills have a sort of bar/slat that prevents larger objects from being sucked too deeply under the treadmill. This means that while you can totally get your hand or arm stuck, the whole treadmill isn't going to be able to suck you under because you're going to get jammed up against that bar/slat eventually. You'd have to go under that bar (which is basically at floor level) to get into the same situation that happens 3 inches off the floor on a Peloton treadmill.
Google treadmills and find a shot from behind the treadmill like you're walking up to use it. You'll be able to see the bar. Look at the Peloton treadmill and there isn't any bar. I can say that some cheap treadmills don't have this, but they lack the elevation and power a Peloton treadmill will have. Looking at the design, I can almost promise you they left it off for aesthetics, lots of treadmills are "boxy" because they provide a guard at floor level all the way around. Peloton's looks like an elevated tank tread, which is cool, but... no guards.
My wife is a runner, and she says that runners really like the feel of the Peloton, that it's easier to run on than a regular belt. I couldn't tell you exactly why though, maybe it's got some give to it, like a thick rubber mat instead of a thin one?
Seems like the sort of case where they should have a "child safety" package at no cost (of course it would be built into the price of all units sold). Kind of like there are non-childproof medicine bottles.
Anyway, their stock is down 10% but I think that's silly; I don't think anyone who was considering a PTON is going to not, now. Maybe their earnings will take a hit, but does retail even care about that anymore?
I wonder if companies that do a recall because their product killed someone are more likely to intentionally make future product recalls about minor things so that the public will associated "brand + recall" with something less morbid.
I only speculate but yes I think companies and other public figures use "PR hacking" just like this to try to shake associations with bad press. This case is slightly different to me, though, because Ikea just had a huge reckoning with the falling dressers. They definitely don't want another blow to their reputation on product safety.
I don’t think including a rear guard is a child safety specific issue. All in all you’d probably prefer not having your leg sucked under your treadmill, even if you don’t have kids.
They're refunding every affected treadmill and they can't sell treadmills until they design a new model. It doesn't matter what "anyone considering a PTON" thinks.
About 125,000 units at $4,000 each plus the overhead costs of dealing with the whole issue. So $500 million just on the recall, not to mention the liability on any suits for existing injuries and deaths, the brand damage, the delay before they can sell a new product, the loss of content subscriptions from people who no longer have a unit... Those subscriptions are really where they planned on making money.
It's a good chunk of change. It's on the order of a six months to a year of revenue. Any company that suddenly loses a year of revenue is going to see a big hit.
One of the 70 reported incidents happened at my house three days ago. A 4-year-old child got sucked under the treadmill and he got rather severe facial abrasions.
Before the accident, we were very happy with both the bike and the treadmill. Now it's scary to think how dangerous they are given what we witnessed first-hand.
The fix seems so simple: a guard at the end of the tread that prevents things from being sucked under it. Kind of mind-numbing that this simple feature isn't included in such a high-end product.
Peloton keeps referencing a 'key' that should be preventing this. Is this like a lanyard on a jetski or other devices that you attach to yourself in case you fall which activates a kill switch? If so, does this mean that people are leaving them in during these incidents?
(I'm not going for a 'blame the victim' attempt, I'm just trying to figure out what it is that Peloton was first trying to use as their defense before caving)
I’m sorry, but what was a 4-year old child doing near a switched-on Peloton? I cannot visualize a chain of events that leads to this scenario happening.
It was the child of a guest at a BBQ that I was hosting. The parents were socializing with other adults while some of the children were playing. They didn't see that the kids had gone into the gym.
I've had the bike for four years. Cost both one time and recurring is pretty high, but the product is of high quality. I've taken thousands of spin classes IRL and several hundred on the Peloton. Peloton is superior both in the hardware/software and instruction. Classes are taught by extremely well compensated instructors (I've heard $300K) so they are the best available. The best part for me is the library. There are thousands of archived classes starting with classes that ended ten minutes ago back several years. And not just cycling or running. The full body warmup classes have transformed my lifting routine and the yoga classes are now integral to my fitness program.
It's about $40 a month, which covers our family. My wife and I are fitness enthusiasts and this is more than offset by not having a gym membership or having to drive to exercise. We do have about $5K total in our home gym (rubber flooring, cable machine, dumbbells and benches etc.) For us being able to get quality classes and workout on our schedule offsets any added cost.
Nice, that home gym sounds like a great set up. I've built one at home, focused around a rowing machine (one of the best workouts in my opinion) + weights. I use YouTube row along videos for motivation.
I don't know if the live classes would provide much value to me (I struggle to enjoy in person fitness classes too), but judging by the comments on here, I guess a lot of people do value them a great deal.
Gym quality delivered to your house. Weighs A LOT so only buy if you're pretty committed to your current domicile. It is solid and smooth. With Cosco, you get a bench included in the price that is less than other retailers for the exact same machine.
Another vote for a power rack and barbell. I think people like machines because they're scared of getting hurt by falling weights but they make super nice safety straps now. You can train the squat and bench press to failure in almost complete safety now. Here's a picture of my basement setup, you can google instructions to build the platform.
Nice setup! I'm jealous. (That's a Rogue rack, right? I recognize the pin spacings.)
I surmise the injury rate using machines at comparable weights is almost certainly higher than with free weights. (Injury rates from free weight training is extremely low regardless, lower than almost any other sport.) The resulting adaptation is also, of course, far superior.
I've never taken a spin class, but what does an instructor do in one? Isn't this just a matter of "go faster, go slower" like with typical preset options on cardio machines? Are these people really getting paid this much to hype up participants, and why doesn't a prerecorded video work just as well?
Pay the $20 and take a spin class sometime. Crossfit also has some similarities. There is a group aspect that motivates, pushes and pulls people along.
The instructors are 1 part DJ, 1 part program designer, 1 part hype person, 1 part personality, 1 part community leader, etc...
Recorded videos work fine, all (I think) Peloton classes are available in the back catalog.
I'm pretty self motivated (I power lifted for years, which is a huge grind), but my cardio work has always been more intense and effective when instructor led.
Never done Peloton, but I think the instructors will call out people by name to say they're doing great or "congrats on your 100th ride", stuff like that. I imagine that kind of live feedback can be very motivating. Even if you aren't personally being addressed, just knowing that the instructor can see you and is working out along with you is a very different feeling than watching a recording, and feelings are all that matter if you're looking for motivation.
Also, hyping people up is hard, and building a dedicated audience is harder. They pay a lot because if the popular instructors leave, so will the users.
I think the instructors will call out people by name to say they're doing great or "congrats on your 100th ride"
While I find that works well in a private class setting "Great job Brenda! You're really improving!" since hundreds, even thousands of people take Peloton classes, you have a very low chance of acknowledgement and the teacher spends a lot of time reading off "Congrats on the 100 rides spf100! Thanks for coming to my class WineGirl21231! 1000 rides for Luv2RideMan12!"
I have always asked myself why a prerecorded video doesn't work just as well, it sure seems like it should, especially in these 1:10000 classes. Personally, and apparently for many others, it just doesn't. I really have no idea why, I can pontificate that it has to do with being on a schedule, or when they say your name or encourage you directly, but in the moment those things don't seem valuable. That being said it does certainly seem to nudge me to more action, which in exercise seems worth it if you can afford the price.
I don't own a Peloton, but I do spin classes, live online yoga classes and run and bike on my own. I will probably buy a Peloton if prices come down on the secondary market as the pandemic ends.
A significant portion of Peloton's appeal is that all the live classes are recorded. I personally haven't taken a single live class. But the thing about even the recorded content is that there has always been at least 3-4 people also doing the class at the same time, and the ability to see.their.progress vs your own and the ability to high five are both pretty motivational,.and you are always able to see.your previous PR, and power output. The other.thing about the Peloton recorded courses is that because they were recorded live, they still feel live when you are taking it at a later period.
I was skeptical too at first, now you'll have to pry my Peloton bike from my dead cold hands. It's been a game changer for me.in terms of fitness.
Fitness instructors at the Peleton level are influencers who draw their own audiences. It’s actually kinda nuts; one of their top instructors used to be one of my regular instructors at the local spin gym I used to go to. I didn’t think she was anything special but apparently she has like a million followers on Instagram. This is just one hustle for someone making a career as a fitness guru.
That, plus DJ, motivational speaker, and (for in-person classes) often a friend.
At Peloton's scale, I imagine recordings would work just as well. But, the instructor does the same things. For live classes with smaller groups, there can be a lot of 1-on-1 interaction.
You summed up the experience well. Many hotels have Pelotons in their fitness rooms now so I was able to try one before buying. It is the closest thing to an in person spin class I have tried, plus the Peloton bike and stat tracking is much better.
The cost seems high to a typical gym membership, but Peloton is competing with spin studios which are stupid expensive. If one considers the cost to be split between at least 2 family members, it's relatively cheap.
You touched on it, but the other types of classes are also very good. I've canceled my normal gym membership and am just slowly building out my home gym now.
If you don't like being tied to a single subscription service, the Keiser m3i is also a high quality bike, price for the bike is close to that of the Peloton.
I don't understand why anyone would pay that kind of money to get stuck in a proprietary ecosystem with a monthly fee. I guess it's aimed at the gym going spinning crowd and not the cycling crowd, but there are plenty of options if you look at what cyclists, both pros and regular enthusiasts, use.
There are different hardware options like a regular bike on a trainer [0], or a smart bike like the Wattbike or Wahoo Kickr bike [1]. These use open standards and let you use different software, and if you use a regular bike on a trainer you can even use it outside when the weather permits.
The most popular cycling training software is Zwift, it's basically the de facto standard just like Strava by this point. But you don't have to use it.
> I don't understand why anyone would pay that kind of money to get stuck in a proprietary ecosystem with a monthly fee.
Because they believe they are getting value through the some combination of equipment, exercise, leadership and community. It has worked for a long time, most recently with BeachBody, Peleton, and now Apple Fitness+.
When you take a minute to understand why it works, you can quibble about the cost, but there's no denying that the customers are happy with what they are buying. Nobody is bamboozled into these business models.
Some people like to pay extra so they don't have to spend free time to tinker. Look at the pages you listed and all the research you have to do to vet these options.
When I was younger and had more free time, I would tinker, too, content with my saving $20 there or $200 here, ignoring that the savings were a wash considering the time involved to find these discounts. These days sometimes I just pay extra knowing I'm not getting the best deal, but I'm getting something that works out of the box without me fiddling or having to spend my precious free time outside of work reading about the exciting exercise bike industry of all things.
It all boils down to what benefit you get out of the ecosystem. One could make the same argument about buying a Apple devices or a Tesla, or even Le Creuset pans. And yet, all of those are highly successful businesses that built a loyal consumer base.
The bike and the instructors are best-in-class. All of the accessories (shoes, weights, apparel, etc) that I've picked up have been cheap (but expensive) and underwhelming. Can't speak to the treadmill, but this recall article says a lot. The bike is one of my favorites possessions though and I'd be devastated if that ever went away.
Totally agree with everything you said! Why are their Peloton brand Heart monitors so unbelievably shitty? And can you recommend a better shoe that works with the bike? I didn't come from the world of cycling so I didn't know anything about bikes before Peleton.
This is spot on - and the pedals. OMG the f-ing pedals. I've never used the Peloton ones (went straight to SPDs as are on our MTBs), but the Facebook groups are full of pedal complaints. It's the butterfly keyboard of Peloton.
Edit:
Regarding shoe/pedal combinations. Sidi shoes if they will fit you otherwise I'd go with Specialized. The BOA fasteners are really good - crazy durable, easy, they stay, can be replaced etc. no downside except upfront cost maybe. I really like SPD pedals - Shimano XT in particular. The lower models have a plastic part that will wear and the bearings go sooner. XTR pedals cost a fortune for no durability gain and it's a spin bike so not going anywhere.
Whenever I've used a Peloton in a hotel they have SPD pedals. It's almost like they use Deltas to push people to buy their shoes.
But yeah, my wife and I already had SPD shoes from doing spin together for awhile, so I bought pedals and never used the ones that came with the Peloton.
Cycling shoes run the gamut of price, features and preferences.
Top three brands off the top of my head:
1. Bontrager: Owned by Trek, and is the most common type of spin shoe used in studios. Will have something for all price ranges, and have been around for a while.
2. Specialized: More ubiquitous in the cycling world, a slight amount of paying for the brand, but will also have everything you need. Most popular cycling brand, especially on the high end.
3. Fizik: Personal favorite because they are better for high arches out of the box. Unlike the other two, these guys don't make bikes, just shoes and seats. And they do both extremely well.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND going to a bike shop to buy the shoes and have the cleats fitted to your shoe in-person. This prevents injuries and improves results on the bike.
Pay for in-store once, take a silver sharpie, outline where the cleat is placed on the bottom of the shoe. Now you can replace the cleats for $20, and have a good idea of where to place them if/when you need a new pair of shoes.
The standard pedals use Look Delta cleats. You can use any shoe that is compatible with those cleats. I can't recommend any ones in particular - it's a bit like running shoes in that you want to try them on if possible.
I have a Bike+, and it's incredible. It's well worth the money. It's the best marriage of software and hardware product design that I have ever seen in this space.
I would never buy any treadmill. They aren't super safe in general, and Peloton's treadmills are less safe than your average one.
I would definitely by a future weight machine or rower from them, but I have no interest in one of their treads.
So there are two routes you can take if you want some sort of gamified fitness bike at home. First one is the Peloton or one of the similar bikes that focus on the spin style classes. The other option, for those that are more into cycling, are some form of smart cycling trainer (like the Wahoo Kickr) or even Peloton like bike (WattBike) that actually gives you real power readings. This integrates with platforms like Zwift, TrainerRoad, or Sufferfest to provide more cycling focused fitness.
Peloton is great if you want the "spinning" experience, but not as great if you're just a cardio junkie looking at getting a "riding your bike" experience, but indoors.
Peloton just announced that they are making significant investments in their just ride the bike offerings. I don't know if it will get to the level of zwift or those others, but they recognize that there is an opportunity there to improve their offerings.
Peloton is my most frequently used streaming service. I use it for meditation, short 10 min workouts at my desk, longer bike workouts & cardio. I probably do several a day.
Very much worth the price, even without the bike. The instructors are all great, and I don't stress about the quality of any class -> I just jump into one. They all are great.
I _do_ miss having feedback on my form from an in person instructor. But post pandemic I can do this sporadically and make peloton my everyday.
I love the bike. I ride (or take one of the strength classes, or yoga, or even just stretching) nearly every day, and have for a few months now. Before getting it my workouts were spotty..I'd be strict about working out for a week or two at a time and then fall off for a few weeks, rinse and repeat. I've actually lost close to 20lbs since getting it, though part of that is because I've cut down on drinking a bit.
I feel the social aspect is both the reason why I continue to ride but also really lacking. I have a group chat with friends who also have a Peloton and more often than not there's one or two that want to ride, so it's easy motivation to be like ok I'll jump on too. But also..it's difficult to actually follow friends and their progress as there's no real feed of any sort, just individual pages that you have to jump through a couple of menus to get to.
After trying various “spin bikes”, all others feel cheap compared to a Peloton. The production values and instructors are also the best, and IMO is one of the big selling points.
Having tried the Tread+, it was easily one of the best treadmills I’ve ever used that feels most like natural running.
Yes by far. I've got the bike. It's well engineered, the software is good, the classes are good, and even though it's expensive, it's still cheaper than a gym membership for my wife and I. Would buy again.
I personally don't find them to be worth it. The 'community' and 'social' aspects are vastly overblown. It's hard for me to even know when my friends are doing a workout so I can encourage them or compete with them, for example. So the network effects that I expected from such a product simply aren't there. The app also feels surprisingly low in features for how long they've been around. Their Android app is also far behind their iOS app.
So if the network effects aren't there, what is the product? In my opinion it is a high quality, sturdy bike and recorded classes. But those aren't great differentiators anymore. Other brands like Nordictrack have high quality bikes as well, with cheaper subscriptions, some features Peloton doesn't have, and a better 'default' feature set if you turn off your subscription. Peloton may have a larger library of studio classes, but above a certain number having more classes does not really add any benefit. Peloton didn't seem to think the library size has much impact, when they casually removed many classes when they were sued for using music without rights (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/peloton-music-lawsuit-removing-...).
I know your comment is intended to be tounge-in-cheek but just to clarify: this recall is of Peloton's treadmill. The vast majority of Peloton users use their spin bike.
Did they even complete an FMEA on this product? When I first saw the headline a couple months back it was obvious from looking at product photos that they have a serious design flaw. The wrap around, unguarded track looks great. The safety issue could very well be mitigated with a light fence and a break.
Looking at the picture from the previous thread, it seems they don't even have to compromise the look by putting a guard. All they need to do is cover the bottom side of the belt - if it isn't exposed it can't pull anything under.
Not all of us live in California. In huge parts of North America there is ice and snow on the ground for 3-6 months of the year and it's objectively unsafe to jog outside.
Yep. It's one of the funny pranks of the Boston Marathon, America's premier marathon. To train for it in New England means training through the winter, far from ideal.
The second prank? It takes place in April, where the weather is unbelievably schizophrenic in Boston -- could be 60 and sunny, could be a blizzard, could be hailing sideways, could be pouring rain, could even be 80. Funnily enough 2020 and 2021 would have both been nice days.
A peloton isn't an event, it's the group of cyclists in any cycling race. Since the original concept behind it is you're joining a group (class) on your exercise bike, it's a pretty appropriate name.
Trademark infringement (what I'm guessing you're asking about) only applies to other companies operating in the same space. There's no reason someone can't name their product after a common noun. Or even name their company the same thing as another company, but operate in another space (e.g. Despite the existence of Apple Computers, I could open Apple Dry Cleaners).
damn. I know there was a discussion about this a month ago, but the the clearance from the floor to the bottom of the treadmill seems too low to actually engulf a child, unless the child somehow has a really small head, is an infant, or is sucked under feet-first, which would not cause asphyxiation but still be bad. The story about the death did not actually describe the cause, only that the kid died.
Did you watch the video that was widely circulated in the news? A child is playing with a ball (around 12" in diameter), it gets sucked under and traps his hands, then the treadmill pulls his entire body under as the treadmill itself (which weighs 300-450lb) moves on top of him. In this case the child was lucky that the ball didn't burst so he was able to climb back out.
And this seems like such an easy problem to prevent even without a guard. The moment the ball gets sucked under the treadmill the child's head actually stops the treadmill. But instead of stopping the motor in this obvious fault condition it just keeps applying force until it somehow manages to suck the entire child in. Something as simple as stopping the motor when the treadmill gets blocked (and starts drawing lots of power) could have avoided that whole situation.
With the hindsight they now have they probably also want to stop the treadmill as soon as it starts tilting. That requires a new sensor, but seems like a good case to catch.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission released a video of a child being sucked under the machine. The child was not injured in this instance, but the video is horrifying to watch.
The video shows a sequence of events I never would have predicted yet in hindsight seems inevitable: a child holds an inflatable ball to the back of the treadmill, causing the ball to get sucked underneath and boost the back end of the treadmill off the ground, creating clearance for the child to get dragged under as well. I'm surprised there haven't been more injuries as a result of this.
By the way, thanks for mentioning that the child wasn't injured. If I thought I was watching a child being hurt or killed, I don't think I could have watched it, but knowing beforehand that the children were not injured, I found it kind of hilarious.
Sure? But it couldn't have happened with any threadmill, just ones with that issue.
Also, for all I know, it's possible that those threadmills have some safety properties which the Peloton threadmills don't. Is the belt less grippy, so that it would be easier to get out? Do the motors stop spinning when they get stuck? I don't know, but it doesn't seem too unlikely. I'd be interested to know.
In a video shared in the discussion from a month ago, the back of the treadill "climbed" up the toddler that was being pulled under it; the rear was no longer touching the ground.
Seems like this could be fixed by adding sensors below the treadmill to detect anything that moves or gets sucked under it, along with sensors that stop the treadmill if it comes off the ground. There could probably be some sensors/software to detect that something other than the runner is causing resistance on the belt and do an emergency stop in that case as well.
The problem with a programmed emergency stop is that an emergency stop has to be gradual or it's going to slam the runner into the front of the treadmill as he continues running when the belt suddenly stops. Obviously that's better than sucking in a child, but false alarms can cause injury.
Compared to any of the cases that may require an emergency stop, I'm fairly sure a runner running themselves into the machine is the least harmfful outcome reasonably imaginable.
Are there better articles about this? I got a pop-up trying to sell me their stock tips. They blocked my back button to give another popup ad.
Anywho,
>While Peloton doesn’t break out sales of its treadmills, Cowen & Co. had previously estimated that the Tread+ would represent about 2.2% of unit sales in 2021. That’s out of about 1.63 million stationary bikes and treadmills combined, it said.
That's going to be an expensive recall. I wonder if they'll come out ahead on these ~~bikes~~treadmills or if it would have been worth it to design them more thoughtfully in the first place.
Based on these numbers I’m almost surprised they were resistant to regulators calling for a recall in the first place because it put them in a bad PR position over only 2% of their units.
I have a Tread+, I find the entire situation ridiculous. There should be no recall, there is nothing wrong with the treadmill. The only issue is lazy parents who refuse to remove the security key when it's not in use.
All of the cited accidents would be impossible if people had taken the 4 seconds required to remove the security key. It's tragic that children died, but entirely preventable.
There's a reason every treadmill on the planet that you can purchase has on the very first page of the manual that you need to keep children and animals away from it while it's in use, and to remove the security key when it's not in use.
I challenge those of you downvoting away to show me how this accident would have occurred if the parent(s) in question had removed the safety key.
I also challenge you to find me a treadmill that wouldn't react in the exact same fashion if you jammed an exercise ball into the back of it. Here's a hint: none of them stop. The force of you striking the treadmill while running is greater than the resistance of a treadmill pulling on that ball. I expected better than twitter reactionism out of HN.
Fail-safe's, especially fail-safe hardware, should operate in a safe fashion whether the user does what you want to or not.
You shouldn't get to excuse safety incidents with "well we wrote it in the manual, it's not our fault, it's on the user". If your users are not actually following the safety precautions you expect, then you clearly did not engineer your product for the real world (which, frankly, is part of the definition of engineering).
With any mass-produced product, you have to assume that your users will not all follow the exact directions. This is the difference between your theoretical user, and your real-world usage.
As far as I know, it's not impossible to design a treadmill that would stop even if the "safety key" is still in. Maybe if it's facing significant resistance, but there is no downward weight on the device? Doesn't really seem like a valid situation for a treadmill, so it should stop. If you want to say "well it doesn't have sensors to detect that!", then maybe it should.
That is just the first thought off the top of my head; I am not a treadmill designer. I would expect people who are full-time treadmill designers to be able to come up with some better solutions.
> I also challenge you to find me a treadmill that wouldn't react in the exact same fashion
Your point may be valid here, but claiming "all treadmills are unsafe, so making unsafe treadmills is perfectly okay and we shouldn't expect any better from a $25B company" is a shitty attitude.
So what's your fix? All razorblades are unsafe, we still make razorblades. $25B companies haven't figured out a way to make a razorblade safe for a child to use.
So instead, we just don't let small children handle them, because that would be dangerous. Just like we make safety mechanisms for treadmills so children can't hurt themselves, but when adults refuse to use those safety mechanisms children can get hurt. And the list goes on:
Bathtubs. Wall outlets. Plastic bags. Guns. Large animals. Small magnets. Cleaning chemicals.
I assume you've got a fix for making all of those safe for children in a way that doesn't require an adult?
Now, they're still not things that you would give to a child, but the point is, we don't just throw our hands up and say 'razors will never be safe, why bother?' but instead, we try to make them safer. Doing nothing because we can never achieve perfect safety is reckless and uncaring.
we made safety razors because they're safer for the user's face, not because they're safer for children to play with. Both safety razors (or the replacement blades) and straight razors must be kept from children.
This is, with all due respect, an absolutely stupid comparison.
You are taking something that is fundamentally not-safe as a function of what it is, and the job it needs to perform. With out current level of technology, there is no practical way to make a single razor blade "safe" by your definition. There are fundamental, global safety issues (sharp things are sharp, corrosive chemicals are corrosive) that are impossible to avoid, because the safety-issue is tied directly to the fundamental function.
There is absolutely no fundamental function of a treadmill that requires the ability to kill a small child.
Are you claiming that it is fundamentally impossible to make a treadmill that is safer?
For what it's worth, there are attempts to make even-dangerous-things less dangerous, by limiting the danger. Instead of full-sized razors, you get little razors already embedded in a plastic casing. You engineer cleaning products that are household-acceptable and less-poisonous.
Just because there is some object out that there is not safe, does not mean that other things shouldn't be made safer when possible. Safety-precautions and safe engineering is not an all-or-nothing thing that has to be 100% across the whole world.
> So what's your fix?
You attempting to make solving all of the worlds safety problems my problem is bullshit. I explicitly stated that treadmill engineering is NOT my job.
---
PS. Don't even try to compare gun safety to treadmill safety. As far as I know there isn't a National Treadmill Association trying to make Treadmills as accessible as possible and actively pushing back against any safety initiatives.
This is the most bullshit, side-lining, "attempt to distract from the actual issue" argument that I've ever seen on this site. And that's saying something.
>You are taking something that is fundamentally not-safe as a function of what it is
A plastic bag is fundamentally not-safe?
>You attempting to make solving all of the worlds safety problems my problem is bullshit. I explicitly stated that treadmill engineering is NOT my job.
And yet you have no issue claiming despite the fact NO treadmill manufacturer has been able to come up with a fix, that they should be able to. So "this is an easy problem but I have no idea what the solution is".
It absolutely is not lazy parents and this victim blaming is ridiculous. I have no idea where the concept that parents have to be 100% attentive to everything their child does at all times, but it is completely unrealistic.
And for the record, the death happened while the treadmill was in proper use, so while it's true some of these accidents may have been prevented by removing the safety key, not all of them would have.
>It absolutely is not lazy parents and this victim blaming is ridiculous. I have no idea where the concept that parents have to be 100% attentive to everything their child does at all times, but it is completely unrealistic.
I have a child. I remove the safety key when I'm not using the treadmill. I am not 100% attentive at all times and I don't need to be. It is not ridiculous to expect a parent to take basic measure to protect their child from dangerous objects around the house. Knives are placed out of reach. Chemicals are in a locked cabinet. The treadmill has the safety key removed.
>And for the record, the death happened while the treadmill was in proper use, so while it's true some of these accidents may have been prevented by removing the safety key, not all of them would have.
Citation? The CSPC has yet to release any details that I've seen.
Have you watched the video? It’s pretty jarring. The treadmill doesn’t even stop when the kid caused the tread to stop because his body was so wedged underneath it. It just kept trying.
You know the interesting thing about treadmills designed for a gym? They aren't sold to people as a household appliance that has children around.
This goes right back to my "designing for the real world" point. If you are designing and selling a "at home" treadmill, you have different use cases, risks, concerns than designing one for a gym.
As I understand it the Peloton treadmill upon detecting a jam will reverse for a second and then run full speed forward in an attempt presumably to clear the jam. Except if the jam is a child it will just suck them in despite detecting a problem.
We wouldn't need seatbelts if people would just stop crashing their cars.
We wouldn't need warnings on coffee cups if people would just stop holding hot coffee in their lap.
And on and on. People make mistakes. People are lazy. People do unanticipated things that designers didn't consider. We shouldn't allow toddlers to die because people aren't perfect.
Fwiw, I agree (mostly) with you (and don't understand the tone of this comment section... at ... all.. ).
- Would either either a recall or an offer of free child-safety package be a nice brand-repairing option? yes.
- Should we regulate the industry for one company's lack thereof? no.
I must be getting old. All I could think when reading this thread was, "This is why we can't have nice things". What if you want to buy an aesthetically (maybe even functionally) pleasing, but unsafe-if-misused device? Why must we optimize for child safety, when a modicum of awareness/prevention and/or training would suffice?
A better comparison than razor blades: motorcycles. In most states, if a child isn't required to be in a safety seat, they aren't prohibited from being a motorcycle passenger - despite it being statistically less safe than any car.
The difference is because you have to make an active decision to put the child on the motorcycle. No parent is deciding to put their child under the any treadmill. And no other treadmills suffer from this issue. Also, there is no reason that this treadmill can't be safe and remain aesthetically pleasing, you produced a false dichotomy.
I posted two links to other treadmills that suffer from this exact issue. The fact you fail to acknowledge that just re-affirms my point that people are either intentionally or unintentionally being ignorant to the fact that ALL treadmills are dangerous for children and nothing about Peloton is unique beyond the fact they're a popular name so they get headlines.
The tread was released in 2019. The CSPC reported 30 deaths from 2017-2019 from treadmills, none of which we peloton (I've yet to be able to find details beyond that on those deaths) - so to say this is a Peloton problem is not accurate or even a little bit fair.
Safetyism is in vogue. The J&J vaccine pause is another recent example. We have collectively lost the ability to think about risk-reward trade-offs in a mature fashion.
