Regulators urge safety recall of Peloton treadmill after child dies

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/04/16/peloton-treadmill-injuries-death-cpsc/

by joering2 • 5 years ago

275 280 5 years ago

rgbrenner3• 5 years ago

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.

Edit: confirmed (warning: video shows a child being injured): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onXNnlCYJ4Y

WORMS_EAT_WORMS• 5 years ago

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.

PurpleFoxy7• 5 years ago

If the user slips up they will pull the safety cutoff which is attached to their clothing which stops the treadmill.

ajb2• 5 years ago

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.

mhh__5• 5 years ago

Move fast and break limbs

thathndude2• 5 years ago

Yeah. I can’t believe they’re opposing this. How can you defend your design after seeing this video.

Animats3• 5 years ago

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."

[1] https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1e...

[2] https://youtu.be/0JQbeCAlF6s?t=82

thedrbrian• 5 years ago

Kinda surprised they didn’t add a weight sensor on the legs so that when something is pulled under and it lifts the base it cuts the power.

stickfigure• 5 years ago

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.

tzs2• 5 years ago

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.

apple4ever• 5 years ago

I don't understand how there is no sensor to shut off the motor when it detects a jam. That's like basic safety protocol there.

amiga• 5 years ago

George was sucked under those treadmills as well.

throwaway3169435• 5 years ago

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.

social_quotient• 5 years ago

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.

MarkusWandel• 5 years ago

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.

sgpl• 5 years ago

Warning for others clicking on the link, it's pretty graphic and appears to be a video of an actual incident with the treadmill.

I was expecting it to be a product demo video or something.

TaylorAlexander• 5 years ago

Yes thankfully I clicked away but that really needs a warning.

smnrchrds2• 5 years ago

For the people who stopped watching halfway through: thankfully the child survives at the end.

rgbrenner3• 5 years ago

Sorry. I added a warning.

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.

dkdk82834• 5 years ago

Aren’t we past the era of warnings? Everything is NSFW now.

foepys• 5 years ago

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.

11235813212• 5 years ago

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.

rconti4• 5 years ago

I'm not sure how this speculation adds to the conversation, though.

baybal2• 5 years ago

Any treadmill I've seen had a sensor which shuts down the mill if the tread gets jammed.

soneil• 5 years ago

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.

avianlyric4• 5 years ago

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.

userbinator• 5 years ago

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.

js27• 5 years ago

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:

https://www.landice.com/sites/default/files/90%20SERIES_SERV...

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.

Landice L7 and L8:

https://cdn.sweatband.com/Landice_L9_Club_Pro_Sports_Trainer...

Peloton Tread+:

https://g.foolcdn.com/image/?url=https:%2F%2Fg.foolcdn.com%2...

HenryBemis4• 5 years ago

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.

trhway• 5 years ago

on the page 90 there is visible a crossbar which prevents from pulling in under. You can also see it here https://www.treadmillreviews.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/...

Most threadmills have it, and it is hard to imagine why a one wouldn't have it.

rconti4• 5 years ago

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.

avianlyric4• 5 years ago

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.

thathndude2• 5 years ago

Holy sh!t. This is indefensible.

That Peloton is even trying to defend itself is asinine. They need to pull this product ASAP.

avianlyric4• 5 years ago

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.

herpderperator• 5 years ago

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.

koheripbal3• 5 years ago

The good news with this is that they can deploy software updates with their treadmills, so they'll likely fix this.

ljm• 5 years ago

Treadmills aren't child-friendly machines either, so why is this video showing two children messing around with the machine without any supervision?

js27• 5 years ago

I just watched the video.

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:

https://youtu.be/McgwmLkYJPc

bikeshaving• 5 years ago

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.

koheripbal3• 5 years ago

These treadmills also have safety keys. The mom in these cases, is leaving them in.

Definitely some changes Peloton can make though.

BrissyCoder• 5 years ago

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.

anfilt• 5 years ago

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.

throwaway189262• 5 years ago

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

benatkin• 5 years ago

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.

yuliyp• 5 years ago

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"

ohazi2• 5 years ago

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.

philjohn• 5 years ago

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.

FPGAhacker• 5 years ago

It seems far more likely to me that their Apple Watch support shenanigans are caused by Apple trying to lock out a competitor in streaming fitness.

JohnTHaller• 5 years ago

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.

dom96• 5 years ago

My view of the company has been messed up since their silly 2019 ad.

alisonkisk3• 5 years ago

Peloton is a status symbol for rich people who don't need our sympathy, but their children are innocent.

ohazi2• 5 years ago

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?

whatshisface• 5 years ago

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?

oivey• 5 years ago

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.

azernik• 5 years ago

Of course most people aren't that Machiavellian.

That's why you hire professional PR people, who a "spokesperson" presumably is. Their job is to be that cool cucumber when things go wrong.

rriepe3• 5 years ago

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.

alisonkisk3• 5 years ago

Blaming parents of the kid who your machine just killed, while mentioning that you know this happens from time to time, is worse than "no comment".

ncallaway2• 5 years ago

Dunno about this.

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.

eli4• 5 years ago

correct answer is to apologize, acknowledge the problem, and outline a solution.

whimsicalism2• 5 years ago

Not in a world with lawyers it isn’t

PurpleFoxy7• 5 years ago

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.

fmakunbound• 5 years ago

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.

tigershark• 5 years ago

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?

phnofive• 5 years ago

The children were playing with it unsupervised - presumably this is why there was a camera trained on them, but no one was actually watching.

bdibs2• 5 years ago

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.

roland35• 5 years ago

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.

mapt• 5 years ago

I'm finding an ASTM spec - https://www.astm.org/Standards/F2115.htm

And an ISO spec - https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:20957:-6:ed-1:v1:en

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?

jsmith452• 5 years ago

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.

moneytide12• 5 years ago

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.

Bancakes• 5 years ago

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.

mhh__5• 5 years ago

Is the treadmill not bad for your knees? (Obviously not as bad as concrete I guess but you get the point).

I think rowing is some of the best cardio you can get, although I may be biased as a former rower

jlund-molfese• 5 years ago

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.

matkoniecz• 5 years ago

Not everyone lives in place where running outside is feasible (for many reasons).

nemothekid• 5 years ago

You won't believe how much people pay to sit in place like a potato.

varispeed• 5 years ago

If this was a small company, wouldn't regulator simply shut it down?

jdavis703• 5 years ago

What I’m not understanding, how is a Peloton more dangerous than a regular treadmill?

gruez• 5 years ago

from an earlier thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26846861

dkdk82834• 5 years ago

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.

jimbob45• 5 years ago

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.

formerly_proven• 5 years ago

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.

woah2• 5 years ago

There is no guard on the back of the treadmill, so that the belt can easily pull children under it.

dang• 5 years ago

Url changed from https://www.businessinsider.com/regulators-urge-safety-recal..., which points to this.

treeman79• 5 years ago

Was like 12. Speed was set via a dial.

One would think a treadmill needed ramp up time to get to 15mph.

Life lessons were learned after being tossed into a filing cabinet.

jamiek88• 5 years ago

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.

christophilus2• 5 years ago

As a relatively new dad, you just gave me heart palpitations.

ajb2• 5 years ago

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.

donw2• 5 years ago

Yes and no.

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.

nate_meurer3• 5 years ago

Danger is important for children.

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.

thegrimmest6• 5 years ago

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.

mLuby• 5 years ago

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.

127• 5 years ago

The main difference here is that perfectly functional, working as intended boiler won't suddenly suck you in and kill you.

The actual comparison here is industrial lathes. And you are welcome to read what can happen with those when safety is lax.

machello13• 5 years ago

You’re missing the forest for the trees. The post is about the philosophy of engineering safety, not what the best analogy is.

Balgair• 5 years ago

https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...

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.

lolsal• 5 years ago

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!

wruza• 5 years ago

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.

aaron695• 5 years ago

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?

dragonwriter3• 5 years ago

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.

bigmattystyles• 5 years ago

If all they can do is urge a recall, I don’t know if they should be called regulators.

dragonwriter3• 5 years ago

They are called regulators because they can, among other mandatory powers, establish mandatory standards for products and ban product categories.

Outside of the areas where they can and have done that, they also can recommend recalls that are voluntary, and publish consumer guidance.

jsmith452• 5 years ago

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.

AmericanChopper• 5 years ago

Seems everybody who reads this headline instantaneously becomes an expert in the safe design of exercise equipment.

wdn• 5 years ago

Probably not popular opinion:

Where were the parents in the video?

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.

dragonwriter3• 5 years ago

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.

https://www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/News-Releases/2021/CPSC-Warns-...

js27• 5 years ago

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.

js27• 5 years ago

I can't edit my comment above at this point, but it does have a safety key/lanyard:

https://support.onepeloton.com/hc/en-us/article_attachments/...

andrew_v44• 5 years ago

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

wil421• 5 years ago

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.

xyzzyz2• 5 years ago

Don’t put the gym equipment where vulnerable kids can access them, then. That’s what I do.

anonymfus• 5 years ago

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.

andrew_v44• 5 years ago

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.

[0] https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/exercise-equipmen...

romwell2• 5 years ago

There are many treadmills out there.

And those treadmills don't tell to pull people underneath them, like this device did.

Let's not be facetious here, Peloton didn't get CPSC's attention because it is a treadmill -- it got that attention because it is an unsafe treadmill.

As far as treadmills go, preventing being pulled underneath has been a solved problem.

EDIT: compare and contrast: what Peloton does [1] vs. a $700 treadmill design [2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onXNnlCYJ4Y

[2] https://www.walmart.com/ip/3-0HP-APP-Bluetooth-Control-Incli...

ghusbands2• 5 years ago

A majority of the google image results for "treadmill" don't have an obvious guard, so the Peloton one doesn't seem uniquely dangerous.

slver• 5 years ago

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.

wirrbel• 5 years ago

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.

andrew_v44• 5 years ago

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.

matwood2• 5 years ago

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.

hagy• 5 years ago

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.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onXNnlCYJ4Y

[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/product-safety/peloton-plus-...

kepler1• 5 years ago

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?

morpheuskafka• 5 years ago

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.

eximius2• 5 years ago

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.

krisoft• 5 years ago

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.

eximius2• 5 years ago

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.

_huayra_3• 5 years ago

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.

0x5f3759df-i• 5 years ago

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.

_huayra_3• 5 years ago

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).

intricatedetail• 5 years ago

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...

matwood2• 5 years ago

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.

kkarakk• 5 years ago

it's personalised spin classes at home in a time where covid restricts movement or atleast it's annoying running around with a mask on.

i HAVE had people tell me off for running without a mask in an empty park which is really annoying

Animats3• 5 years ago

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.

[1] https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2020/peloton-recalls-pr70p-bike...

lancewiggs• 5 years ago

The biggest issue is that Peloton is resisting fast changes and instant communication to prevent further injuries. They do not deserve our trust.

And given that Peloton execs clearly know about this issue, they do deserve federal and civil legal action.

steelframe• 5 years ago

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.

illustriousbear• 5 years ago

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.

reedf1• 5 years ago

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.

georgemcbay• 5 years ago

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.

casualrandomcom• 5 years ago

For how much the idea of a dead toddler hurts, this is such a First World Problem.

Regulators urge safety recall of Peloton treadmill after child dies

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