http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/354415/appl ... aring-loss

Crank up those crappy white ear buds!

Surely, if Apple were responsible for hearing damage, it would have been called iDeafness???!

iCan'tHearYou.

UK ones have a volume limiter, USA ones don't

Should be the other way round, people in the states need the nannying

Isn't that blindness?

There was a lot of handwringing over the Sony Walkman, it’s clones, and possible deafness in the 1980’s. Nothing new, and I don’t think the music carrying generation is any more or less hard of hearing as a result.

What?

Pardon?

Hmm, I don't think we'll see the problem until statistics are compiled ten or twenty years down the line that show how many people report hearing damage and what the causes are likely to be.

The RNID has been running a campaign called "Don't lose the music" for some years now, aimed at young people who regularly visit clubs and concerts. They're trying to warn about the risks that may not be apparent now, but may manifest down the line.

Still, human nature being what it is, you can warn until you're blue in the face but folk will still ignore you because they know better.

Hilarious. If we're talking about dangerous noise levels when will HMG/the European Commission be tackling noise from trains, planes and automobiles?

If you're unfortunate enough to live near a main road or an airport your hearing is also at risk from normal ambient noise levels, never mind anything you might do yourself.

Its the idiots who walk around on the streets etc plugged into their own world of sound and cannot hear any warning sounds and just aren't aware of what is happening around them that should be shot IMHO.

The poor sod who knocks over and kills one and has to live with it even though its not their fault I feel sorry for. </rant>

If a driver is stupid enough to knock someone over then they are not driving with due care and attention. 20/30/40 MPH is the LIMIT, NOT a target, if there are pedestrians about then you adjust your speed accordingly.

As far as I'm concerned pedestrians are gods and if they step out into the road then drivers should have prepared for that possibility and adjusted their speed accordingly. But no, as it stands drivers will even go through a red at a pedestrian crossing if they think they can get away with it </rant>.

I'm not even going there, except to say that everyone using a street is responsible for their actions. If someone steps off the kerb and hasn't looked to make sure there's not a bus heading their way should not blame the bus driver if they get knocked down.

If pedestrians are not paying due care and attention and step out into the road ( where they have no particular right to be ) its at their own risk. Pavements are for pedestrians, roads are for vehicles. There are designated crossing points where pedestrians have the right of way NOT elsewhere on the road. </rant>

There are, of course, known stopping distances at any speed under ideal conditions. They're on the back of the highway code. They are essentially calculated as the distance required at any given speed for good brakes to mechanically stop an average vehicle (let's call that distance 'A'), plus the distance the car travels during normal human reaction time (which we'll call 'B', and is on average roughly 200ms).

Therefore, if you step out into a road where traffic is travelling at a given speed and there is a vehicle closer than (A+B) away from you, you have put yourself at risk and, on average, the vehicle will be unable to stop before it hits you. If you step into the road as there is a vehicle less than distance A away from you, there is nothing the driver of that vehicle can do to stop the car hitting you. He may be able to minimise the force with which it does so but that's about it.

The idea that a car must always be able to stop is simply bizarre. The only way for that to be true is for cars not to travel at all. Any other time they are essentially under the control of newtonian physics as much as they are the drivers and if a pedestrian chooses to pick a fight with the laws of momentum and intertia they're going to lose and it's only their fault.

That's why a generation of children were taught The Green Cross Code. That was simply a scheme to ensure that people didn't put themselves in situations where they woudl inevitably be hurt and nobody could do anything about it.

I have to admit I have been in exactly thgis situation myself. I walked out of work, put my headphones on, went to cross the road and woke up in casualty four hours later. Did I blame the driver of the vehicle that hit me? Of course not. I am primarily responsible for my own wellbeing . I am responsible for the wellbeing of those around me only in so far as my physical abilities allow. If someone jumps into the road less than the car's stopping distance away from me, he or she is going to have to shoulder some of the responsibilty for the result.