Ah, but everyone ALSO knows that car crashes are a leading cause of death in the US, but TV and magazines promote children riding in cars. If you ride a car properly it's still not safe, but you probably wont get TOO roughed up if you know what you're doing. If you crank the thing to one-ten and weave in and out of traffic in the middle of a hailstorm, you're probably gonna get yourself killed.

How is this different?

I agree.

So you're saying all cars should be banned, too?

If you agree, then why should people be allowed to have cars but not kite tubes?

140 degrees will also burn you, although not as severely. She held the Styrofoam(?) or paper(?) cup by squeezing it between her legs. That's stupid. I doubt if it's possible to hold a full cup there, while using both hands to do other things, without spilling it? :headshake

just got this cookie:
I like my coffee extremely hot as do a lot of other people. If McDonalds starts serving it at a "safe" temperature (and what might that be?) I will drive through some other joint when I want a cup. What on earth gives anyone the right to tell McDonalds how hot it should serve its products? If they heated it to 500*F, trapped the resulting vapor in a titanium vacuum mug and labeled it "Cool, refreshing beverage. Drink quickly, or maybe bathe your privates with contents" then I would agree with an assessment of wrong-doing.
--Kevin Hemstreet (khemstre@syspac.com)

If you actually drank coffee at 180-190 degrees it would burn the skin off your tongue and throat - don't be an ass and claim you like it that way. Brewing and holding coffee at that temp saved McD's a few cents a pot. As soon as they were sued they dropped down to 158 degrees. The warning they print on cups now is pointless but they could have used one before they reduced the temp below the "causes disfiguring injuries" line. Just a little heads up you know.... warning: this shit is wayyy hotter than you think it is - don't balance it in your lap like you do with coffee from everywhere else.

I believe I read that this particular Mc Donald's kept their coffee hotter than the chain standard because a lot of customers picked up coffee on the way to work and bitched because it was cold when they got to work.
The chain told him to turn it down several times but every time he did the customers complained. But 158 deg will still take burn you pretty good.

I don't understand how keeping it hotter would save pennies....the other way 'round I should think. :confused:

Either way trying to hold a paper/foam cup of anything, between your legs, in a car, is dumb.

Someone should appoint an impartial Council of Idiocy to weed out lawsuits involving blatantly stupid people or decisions.

You could expect to be handsomely paid by major corporations should you be appointed to such an impartial position.

I think they made this claim, but apparently their own research then showed that people do drink their coffee in the car, they don't wait. I don't have a link to said research though, so I dunno...

Brewing that hot brings more flavor out of the grounds - high end coffee machines brew at higher temperatures. I read that McD's was able to use less coffee per pot, and cheaper quality grounds, and still get a decent cup of coffee if they brewed this hot. I don't know what the advantage to holding it at that temp was ( I guess its about flavor too though) - but they knew it was "unfit for human consumption" and served it up anyway.


The jury agreed, believing her to be 20% at fault.


more

You can't have that signature in this conversation!

I order them "extra hot" sometimes, if I want to drink them at my destination.
:blush:

Laughing out loud. What happened to our kite tube discussion - did we get bored and move on to hot coffee...?

we drew comparisons.

The focus was always on the idea of "product liability"...not drifty at all.

Except I don't think anyone is talking about banning the sale of coffee. Which is a good thing, else my lines of code written per day would go down by about 30% :)

And that's that, here's the recall:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thech..._recalled.html

Somebody ran the formula from Fight Club, didn't they?

No doubt :) Let's make up some numbers:

This thing came out last year, was widely advertised and won a boating product of the year award. I'm going to make a conservative estimate and say they sold 5,000 units. They retail for $599, but can be had for about $450 in some places, so let's say after materials, fabrication, shipping, marketing, etc. etc. they net $100 on each unit. That's a profit of $500k. One or two lawsuits, even if SportsStuff won, could eat up most of that in legal fees. And if they lost with any kind of settlement, well, game over Charlie. Not to mention the negative press that could impact their other product sales.

Now let's look at the press release for the recall. They claim 29 injuries requiring medical attention. We know from the press that two of those were deaths. Let's assume that about half of these were from people with excess testosterone (witness the internet video of the guy getting on the tube and telling the boat driver, "Just gun it, dude!"). So 15 injuries and one death affecting users following directions. That means, in a year of average use, you stand a 0.3% chance of being hurt seriously enough to require medical attention, or a 0.02% chance of death. (Given the estimate of number of units is correct).

<sarcasm>The system works.</sarcasm>

A triumph for dimwits everywhere, who will be protected from themselves in yet another way. Yet it's still true that in foolproof systems the fool is always stronger than the proof.

And now we can watch the resale value of used "kites of death" skyrocket.

Finally!
 

:dedhorse: Maybe now this kite tube string will end. I'm not trying to claim some kind of honor, but I think I might have started this whole thing with a post about how the National Park Service banned their use at Lake Powell about a month ago (can't remember exactly). I never thought it would go this far; the string became more about law and responsibility than the product, and now the latter is being recalled. What will we talk about next? Lawn Darts went off the shelves years ago.

Irwin Mainway...