[HN Gopher] Regulators urge safety recall of Peloton treadmill a... ___________________________________________________________________ Regulators urge safety recall of Peloton treadmill after child dies Author : joering2 Score : 123 points Date : 2021-04-17 19:09 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com) | jdavis703 wrote: | What I'm not understanding, how is a Peloton more dangerous than | a regular treadmill? | gruez wrote: | from an earlier thread: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26846861 | dkdk8283 wrote: | 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. | formerly_proven wrote: | > 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. | jimbob45 wrote: | 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. | bdibs wrote: | "Move fast and break things." | ohazi wrote: | > 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? | [deleted] | whatshisface wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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. | [deleted] | rriepe wrote: | 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. | eli wrote: | correct answer is to apologize, acknowledge the problem, and | outline a solution. | whimsicalism wrote: | Not in a world with lawyers it isn't | eli wrote: | Letting the lawyers make strategic decisions is a choice. | whimsicalism wrote: | Sure, it's also a choice for companies not to donate | millions of dollars to buy malaria nets in Africa. | | Admitting responsibility in as litigatious an environment | as the US is essentially throwing away money, with less | public benefit than the malaria nets. | treeman79 wrote: | 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. | roland35 wrote: | 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. | moneytide1 wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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. | rgbrenner wrote: | 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 | ajb wrote: | 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. | loonster wrote: | The level of risk is magnitudes more with the waterslide. | | Allowing children to use exercise equipment is a Darwin award | for the parents. It is just below allowing them to use power | tools unsupervised | scoopertrooper wrote: | Because children are famous for obeying rules. | | You can lock power tools in a cupboard or toolbox. The same | cannot be said for a treadmill. | ihumanable wrote: | Go read the actual urgent warning from the CPSC | https://www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/News-Releases/2021/CPSC- | Warns-... | | > It is believed that at least one incident occurred while | a parent was running on the treadmill, suggesting that the | hazard cannot be avoided simply by locking the device when | not in use. | | This isn't a case of user-negligence, this is an inherently | unsafe design where Peloton decided not to put a guard on | the back of the machine. | loonster wrote: | In my mind, it is in the same category as a power tool. A | parent would be an idiot to use a circular saw near a | young child. Using a treadmill near children is stupid. | Bad things happen when people do stupid stuff. | happytoexplain wrote: | Others have pointed out the fundamental and pragmatic | differences between treadmills and power tools. E.g. it's | unrealistic (excluding the long term) to keep people from | putting a treadmill in their living space. Of course we | could debate each difference, but then we're just | discussing the differences between treadmills and power | tools. Analogies are usually a lazy tool in the field of | debate - you can state them easily, but they provide | nothing of substance to anybody who doesn't _already_ | agree with you, unless you 're using them for a much more | specific point than "X is like Y, therefore they should | be treated the same". | | Make your argument _about treadmills_ , not about power | tools. Also note that power tools are _highly regulated_ | and have many safety features. | wpietri wrote: | Nah. The key difference is that power tools are supposed | to reshape matter. Like knives, circular saws are | inherently dangerous. This is more like a fan: some | designs are very dangerous, but it's possible to design | versions that are both effective and reasonably safe. | loonster wrote: | Its essentially a giant belt sander. Some belt Sanders | are more dangerous than others. | | I have a toddler in my household. Even thinking of them | playing around any treadmill gives me an anxiety attack. | | If you want a household item, it's like a stand mixer. | Something that could break bones if not worse. | michaelmrose wrote: | Blame is infinitely divisible the fact that parents share | some blame doesn't reduce the companies fault one iota. | | Effectively both share the full sum of blame and we ought | to both educate parents and force companies to make safer | goods. | jacquesm wrote: | People will routinely set these up in their living rooms. | [deleted] | rgbrenner wrote: | I think this is the incident that section refers to (at | 42 seconds): https://abcnews.go.com/WNN/video/child-dies- | peloton-treadmil... | | It shows a yoga ball being pulled under the machine while | the woman is running on it. | jacquesm wrote: | That is one spectacularly bad design. | happytoexplain wrote: | When the obsession with personal responsibility results in | the suggestion that we, as a society with legal mechanisms, | should not avoid traumatically harming children in some | scenario where it can be practically and realistically | addressed if only there was will, it makes me sick. If a | product or service causes harm and it can be reasonably | mitigated, it must be mitigated, regardless of whether | those people were "stupid" or "deserved their | consequences", or some other psychopathic rationalization. | ajb wrote: | 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 paed 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. | [deleted] | Animats wrote: | 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 | narrator wrote: | I saw the video of this thing on the peloton website. IMHO, | it's so needlessly dangerous and stupid to design it like | that. It's the cult of Apple "rethink everything" design I | guess. | | I hear Apple wants to get into the car business. I bet they | won't have seatbelts because, after all, it's just another | unnecessary button to confuse the user. | thedrbrian wrote: | 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. | jacquesm wrote: | Not enough. There is a ton of inertia in that system. | bmcahren wrote: | It wasn't that. It was the torque and incessant "gotta | go" programming in the motor. If the speed is stuck at | zero mph and the motor tried more than 5 seconds without | changing the belt speed CUTOFF immediately. | toomuchtodo wrote: | Photoelectric safety switch between the back legs would've | also worked (like a garage door beam), depending on how | sturdy those legs are mounted for alignment. | jturpin wrote: | I was thinking this as well. For how much tech this thing | seems to have, and for such a high price tag, they could | easily justify putting, I don't know, two or three IR | sensors down there. | dkdk8283 wrote: | This won't work if your tall. On fast runs my ankles | routinely left the back of the treadmill. Keeping your | torso tracked in the "middle" is harder the more fatigued | you get. A sudden e-stop will fuck you up if your running | at 8mph. | ryukafalz wrote: | The back legs are below the treadmill, not behind it, so | I don't think this would be an issue? | foolmeonce wrote: | It's not very clear, but from the last two descriptions it | sounds to me like it has a shutoff sensor that can engage | by accident or leave a child under the "off" machine. | stickfigure wrote: | 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. | stefan_ wrote: | I mean, there is no regulation for it, but it seems like an | incredibly risky design for the manufacturer. Quick release | forks famously have "lawyer lips" that make sure the wheel | doesn't fall out in case you are riding the bike without | actually closing the quick release. | dkdk8283 wrote: | My treadmill doesn't have a guard either. It does monitor | the motor and if it suddenly stops it shuts down. I have | observed an accident at a commercial gym where it also shut | down on jam. | | It's poor software. | Larrikin wrote: | I checked my treadmill and it doesn't as well. I also | googled trying to see what they look like. They seem to be | used on treadmills that sit higher off the ground. | | My guess is that the Peloton design is more dangerous due | to the treads, the thickness overall and how to high it | sits off the ground. Perfect design for sucking things | under. | rconti wrote: | Yeah, it's certainly not uncommon on either treadmills, | but I think the height of the Peloton unit perhaps makes | it more problematic than most. | tzs wrote: | > 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 wrote: | 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. | js2 wrote: | 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... | HenryBemis wrote: | 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. | rconti wrote: | 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. | sgpl wrote: | 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 wrote: | Yes thankfully I clicked away but that really needs a | warning. | smnrchrds wrote: | The video has a warning. | rgbrenner wrote: | I believe he posted this right before I updated the post | to add the warning. Thanks to everyone that pointed it | out. | [deleted] | crooked-v wrote: | It has a warning now. It didn't at first. | robtaylor wrote: | the first five seconds of the video has warning text | dkdk8283 wrote: | Aren't we past the era of warnings? Everything is NSFW now. | smnrchrds wrote: | For the people who stopped watching halfway through: | thankfully the child survives at the end. | faeyanpiraat wrote: | The ball made all the difference. | | He was lucky. | rgbrenner wrote: | 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. | jurassic wrote: | Probably that ball is what saved the kid's life. | Hamuko wrote: | Yeah, looks like the ball was what kept the machine | propped up so that there was enough space for him to walk | away. So basically an amazing lucky coincidence for him. | baybal2 wrote: | Any treadmill I've seen had a sensor which shuts down the mill | if the tread gets jammed. | soneil wrote: | 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. | Hamuko wrote: | At some point the treadmill actually spits the kid out. It | reverses the speed for like one, two seconds when the kid | was jammed and everything had stopped, but then it starts | going back in its original direction and the kid gets | sucked back in before he has time to get clear. | foepys wrote: | 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. | 1123581321 wrote: | 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. | rconti wrote: | I'm not sure how this speculation adds to the conversation, | though. | WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: | 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. | richwater wrote: | Why are you letting your children operate a machine with | absolutely no supervision? | WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: | Huh? I'm not doing anything. | | Ultimately -- yes -- those parents are responsible for | their kid's death here. I agree. Horrible accident. | | But who cares? This isn't a political boxing match. | | The machine should be safer. Both can be true. Go outside.. | ironmagma wrote: | What is with this obsessive victim-blaming attitude? Safety | regulations are a technology, we invented them for a | reason. | trhway wrote: | you don't get it - this machine is inherently dangerous | even with full supervision. Check the Animats comment | above. | userbinator wrote: | 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. | benatkin wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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" | ohazi wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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. | dom96 wrote: | My view of the company has been messed up since their silly | 2019 ad. | fmakunbound wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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 wrote: | The children were playing with it unsupervised - presumably | this is why there was a camera trained on them, but no one | was actually watching. | slantyyz wrote: | Substitute the girl using the treadmill with one of the | parents. The kid with the ball still gets caught, although | the treadmill could get stopped sooner. | | Unless supervision means the child never gets further away | from the supervising adult's arm's reach, I think the only | thing you can do is fence off the treadmill to keep free | range kids and pets away. | g00gler wrote: | > Substitute the girl using the treadmill with one of the | parents. The kid with the ball still gets caught, | although the treadmill could get stopped sooner. | | Doesn't seem likely. His parent would either fall because | the treadmill slowed down, running into him and injuring | them both or they would have told them to stop it because | it's clearly dangerous | bdibs wrote: | 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. | dang wrote: | Url changed from https://www.businessinsider.com/regulators-urge- | safety-recal..., which points to this. | varispeed wrote: | If this was a small company, wouldn't regulator simply shut it | down? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-04-17 23:00 UTC)