Most treadmills have a guard or plastic covering on the bottom that stops the tread from pulling something underneath it. From pictures, the peloton treadmill doesnt have this... so I would guess if anything gets between the back of the device and the floor, it'll pull it under the machine.
That's what it looks like to me, too. That's a terrible design. It's just the right height to suck a small pet under the machine and crush the animal.[1] Or a foot. Looks like Pelotron wanted a nice clean look, so they left the guards off. That looked nice in the Jetsons series in 1962.[1] But not in real life.
In industry, this is called an unguarded pinch point. Classic cause of injuries and amputations. It's an OSHA violation in an industrial operation.
Every other treadmill I've ever seen had substantial guarding around the pinch points.
OSHA: "1910.211(d)(44): 'Pinch point' means any point other than the point of operation at which it is possible for a part of the body to be caught between the moving parts of a press or auxiliary equipment, or between moving and stationary parts of a press or auxiliary equipment or between the material and moving part or parts of the press or auxiliary equipment."
Yikes. Sounds like they just didn't do a safety review.
Given that they are also apparently "opposing" the recall, I wouldn't trust them with a 10 foot pole now. They've put themselves in the same category as the Schlitterbahn, whose water slide decapitated a 10-year-old.
What I find most amazing in that video is that the treadmill stalls, detects an error condition, reverses for a second, then immediately goes full pelt forward again.
It’s crazy to think the treadmill has the ability to detect a potentially dangerous situation (the belt is completely jammed). But instead of shutting down, it does everything it can to keep operating and doing as much damage as possible.
Peloton didn’t need to add extra guards or sensors, they just needed someone to program the damn thing to shutdown when it jams. Rather than programming it with some dangerous and stupid auto-unjam sequence.
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:
My True 500 had nothing to prevent something from being pulled under it. Landice makes high end residential treadmills and their models don’t appear to either:
However, compared to those treadmills, the Peloton Tread+ has much larger diameter rollers and step-up height. It's also much heavier (455 lbs vs 340 lbs). It looks uniquely dangerous to me among residential treadmills.
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.
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.
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.
I have seen lots of trade mills without a guard there. Just googling image shows quite a few that don't have a guard there.
If the issue is the guard it's more than just peloton that then needs to revise their design.
What I do find more interesting is how the treadmill is still running even after the other kid gets off. There is a reason a lot treadmills have lanyard that shuts it off.
I don't understand how they released it like that. When my mom told me about kids getting stuck I immediately said "yeah under the back right?" And I've only seen Peloton in ads.
What a stupid design. They deserve to get sued into oblivion
Perhaps "most" is an exaggeration, since I have one which doesn't and the comments here and images found online suggest that many others don't.
IMHO that video shows negligence on the part of the parents. There was a camera there but no physical presence. Exercise equipment is dangerous if not used correctly, and although I'm one who doesn't believe in "helicopter parenting", I certainly wouldn't let my kid play with a treadmill with only a camera watching.
Yes, the video confirms what I expected from the description. And yeah, the video is a bit gruesome but apparently he was okay.
We have a Peloton Treadmill (now called the Tread+, but the original one is the same as the Tread+), in fact my wife is running on it right now.
If you do a Google Image Search for "treadmill", you will see most treadmills are belt-style, and often have a metal bar underneath the back, a few inches in. NOT a cover on the back -- the plastic cover is typically on the FRONT of most treadmills, which won't help with things getting sucked underneath at the back, which is where this would happen.
The Tread+ is a "slat style" treadmill similar to something really high end like a $10k+ Woodway, but other brands also sell slatted style treadmills.
It's definitely obvious how something can get sucked under the back of the tread, however I'm not sure how much better having a protective bar is; I really wouldn't want an arm to get sucked between the belt and a protective bar underneath, which is usually at least a few inches from the underside of the belt.
And of course the Tread+ is something like 450lbs; the heavier the treadmill, the more problematic something like this is likely to be.
Having it shut off when something goes under it does't really help; I'm not sure I'd want my kid to get crushed by a stationary treadmill either.
Like most treadmills, the Tread has a safety key which you're supposed to wear (but not everyone does, and of course kids playing on it are not going to). Actually, I just realized the obvious answer is, if you have kids, take the safety key off when you're not using it. But, mistakes happen, and of course something can also get sucked under when a properly trained adult is using the device as well. (One of our cats took a serious blow to the head from the swinging arm of our elliptical, but he was fine; cat.) I definitely wouldn't want anything going under the pedals of our Peloton bike either; metal pedal plus speed plus flywheel mass would be a REALLY bad time.
Back to the Tread, the belt stops if there's no weight on it for "a while" but I'm not sure how long; certainly it takes more than 10 seconds. And, again, you'd be left with a kid trapped under a STOPPED treadmill which is not much better.
There's no particular safety for turning it on. Typically I select my profile on the touchscreen but the knobs on the side to start the belt are active before starting a class. I think they might even be active when the tablet is "on" (tap the power button on the cross bar first) but before choosing a profile.
I suppose a workaround would be to require a login before turning it on, but of course this is a step most other treadmills don't have either.
> 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?
When my parents were children, everyone heated their houses with an open fire, and if you did something wrong on any day it would kill you. When I was a child, we had a boiler which was perfectly safe so long as you paid someone to service it once a year. Pretty much all the things my parents grew up with had no safety features, pretty much all the things I grew up with did.
We have moved to a society where things are expected to be safe except for a number of well known exceptions, and this is good:
"It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. " Alfred North Whitehead
As technologists it is our business to know and understand the consequences of the mechanisms we build. We value greater understanding and perception. But it is a mistake to project this value system onto society as a whole, since, as the quote shows, the worth of what we build is precisely to allow others to avoid this burden. That applies in safety as much as anything else. As technologists we can see that if a device has a 500W motor in it , it bears thinking about whether there are any safety issues. But consumers rightly expect any safety issues to be pointed out to them.
What worries me is when companies are run by people who don't understand that all our safety is the result of a lot of work, and so don't realise the amount of diligence required.
Peleton should redesign the treadmill. It is needlessly hazardous, and a few small changes could easily remedy the problem without compromising the envelope of functionality for the device.
But: I absolutely hate modern appliances with egregious safety buffers, as to reduce their functional envelope down to precisely what the designers imagined, and nothing more.
Also, and I realize this is an unpopular stance: Danger is important for children.
I'm not suggesting that we need to start giving kids industrial metal saws or machine guns as soon as they can walk, but we do need to stop hiding them from the world. Kids need to learn how to live their lives, and that means getting hurt and learning from it.
Our job as engineers is, within the above limits, to try and keep those lessons from being lethal, disfiguring, or crippling.
The Fremen Mirage (named after Dune's Fremen) is the myth that harder conditions produce harder/tougher peoples. Dr. Deveraux goes into very extensive depth as to why this is a myth with a lot of historical evidence.
Though the series of articles is focused on war, I feel that the Fremen Mirage is also one that can be pointed toward safety culture as well.
Thank you very much for the Whitehead quote, I'll be saving that one.
I am very much a self-sufficient, independent, think-for-yourself kind of person that scowls at stories like this Peloton one (and the stove, and the boiler) where I tend to think "don't touch the stove".
Your comment here is making me re-evaluate that, specifically the Whitehead quote. I think we can strive for both, but I never realized I was biased one way or the other until it was pointed out this way. Thanks!
> We have moved to a society where things are expected to be safe except for a number of well known exceptions, and this is good
I disagree. All we're doing is creating a false sense of security, propped up by a government which is mostly incompetent and often abjectly corrupt when deciding what is "safe". For reference see the absolute littany of chemicals with which we have been poisoned for the last half-century, and the outragously scandalous conduct of our governemnt in failing to protect us from them.
When people know that there's no assurance that the things they put into their homes and give their children are "safe", and that they bear total responsibiltiy for outcomes, they tend to be a lot more careful. This is a good thing. We want thoughtful careful individuals making decisions and shaping markets. We want to encourage people to think more, not less. We want people who think to succeed, and poeple who don't to fail, and to bear full and total responsibility for their failures. Otherwise there is no progress.
This messes up my view of the whole company, as well as my afternoon. I was just starting to get interested in Peloton but since I hadn't gotten into it, it's easy to drop the idea.
I hope their reasoning isn't that a child shouldn't have used it. Kids love video games. They need to figure out how to minimize the risk in addition to doing all they can to prevent kids from using it.
Sued a competitor into submission, allegedly dropping Apple Watch support because they're launching their own smartwatch ... they don't seem like a great company all around tbf.
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"
Pelotron's previous fiasco: pedal breakage on exercise bikes.[1] 120 pedal breaks reported to the CDC, 16 leg injuries. That's embarrassing. Pedal breakage is rare on real bikes, where weight reduction matters. Having them break on an expensive exercise bike, where neither weight nor cost matters, is a bit much.
Is it an American thing to vigorously defend corporations from accountability to the public?
Twitter and even here seem full of people defending Peloton when clearly there have been enough incidents to warrant some design changes.
It seems like a lot of people want to advocate returning to a time where businesses had little responsibility when it came to the dangerous products they churned out.
There are plenty of developing countries where this is still the case and lots of people/children unnecessarily die as a result. I imagine it would be hell to live in a place where many innocuous products are dangerous and people reguarly lose their kids. I don't want to live in that world.
I think a lot of it is a kind of weird virtue signaling.
Blame the parent instead of the company to show that they know what good parenting is, that sort of thing.
Though also some companies/people (eg. Elon Musk) do also get a weird cult of personality thing going on that is separate from this that also tends to cause some subset of people to just blindly defend them.
There will be people who will come to the defence of just about anything nowadays. I often hear people criticize the USA for its litigiousness, so I think the worry is a little overblown.
I've read a lot of the comments here condemning Peloton, and I don't think I completely agree.
A treadmill is a big fast moving piece of gym equipment. It is definitely dangerous to kids, as are all treadmills. And what about like freeweights or those universal gyms with the plates that go up and down?
What about power tools? Or vacuum cleaners? Or plastic bags, or cleaning products, or whatever? Lots of stuff is dangerous for kids. This is not something for kids or suitable for use around kids, and it's hard to believe anyone thinks it would be. What happened is horrible, but I don't see why it should mean peloton cant make their product
My $600 treadmill has a magnet on a string with a clip on the other end, and the magnet has to stay stuck to a surface continually or the motors don't run. I attach the clip to my clothing so if I slip and fall while using the treadmill, it yanks the magnet away and immediately disables the machine. I keep the magnet up high enough that young kids can't get to it. Seems like that can be a reasonable way to greatly reduce the risk of injury.
Has anyone purchased a Peloton and found it useful?
I'm not sure what it provides compared to a similar bike plus a tablet to watch the myriad videos on YouTube.
Is it some sort of exercise status symbol to show off to their peer group (e.g. like people posting their workouts on strava)?
These bikes and treadmills seem to be double the price of a similar quality machine from existing manufacturers + an ipad, so I don't understand what the draw is for these.
> The Consumer Product Safety Commission this week took the unusual step of issuing an administrative subpoena to require Peloton to disclose the name of the child who died and the family’s contact information
Can't believe the company sent out an email to all of its customers announcing that incident in the first place. That kind of thing never should have left the legal department.
I have a hard time believing that there aren't very specific regulations for threadmills that address hazards. When I worked on a consumer robotics project we had to follow IEC standards which defined exactly how far a hand could reach to moving parts, how big a stop button must be, etc.
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.
[+] [-] rgbrenner|4 years ago|reply
Edit: confirmed (warning: video shows a child being injured): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onXNnlCYJ4Y
[+] [-] Animats|4 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] ajb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avianlyric|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] js2|4 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] js2|4 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] sgpl|4 years ago|reply
I was expecting it to be a product demo video or something.
[+] [-] WORMS_EAT_WORMS|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] BrissyCoder|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baybal2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foepys|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ljm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anfilt|4 years ago|reply
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|4 years ago|reply
What a stupid design. They deserve to get sued into oblivion
[+] [-] userbinator|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rconti|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] thathndude|4 years ago|reply
That Peloton is even trying to defend itself is asinine. They need to pull this product ASAP.
[+] [-] ohazi|4 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] ajb|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] donw|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Balgair|4 years ago|reply
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|4 years ago|reply
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!
[+] [-] 127|4 years ago|reply
The actual comparison here is industrial lathes. And you are welcome to read what can happen with those when safety is lax.
[+] [-] thegrimmest|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] benatkin|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] philjohn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yuliyp|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dom96|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alisonkisk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|4 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2020/peloton-recalls-pr70p-bike...
[+] [-] illustriousbear|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] georgemcbay|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] reedf1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrew_v4|4 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] bigmattystyles|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] treeman79|4 years ago|reply
One would think a treadmill needed ramp up time to get to 15mph.
Life lessons were learned after being tossed into a filing cabinet.
[+] [-] steelframe|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _huayra_|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] morpheuskafka|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] roland35|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lancewiggs|4 years ago|reply
And given that Peloton execs clearly know about this issue, they do deserve federal and civil legal action.
[+] [-] jdavis703|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wdn|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] varispeed|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Proven|4 years ago|reply
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