Photo courtesy of stuck&mandie at Flickr.com.
Gasoline powered lawnmowers are such wonderful cutting machines that it’s easy to get carried away while using them. Those high powered cutting blades can make short work of tall weeds, tree saplings, and all those extra fingers and toes. The New York Times has a great fear-mongering article about the dangers of using a lawnmower:
Last year, nearly 210,000 people were treated in clinics and emergency rooms for lawn mower-related injuries, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. About 16,200 of those accidents involved children.
When someone shouts out “Hey Dad! Watch this!” a trip to the emergency room is never very far off.
Thankfully, electric mowers and push mowers are much safer to use than gasoline mowers. Gas mowers can catch fire, explode, and cause severe cuts. Electric and push mowers have fewer parts that require maintenance, so they’re less likely to fail in spectacular fashion. They also have less torque, so when accidents do happen with electric or push mowers, the resulting injuries are less severe. Push reel mowers also stop when you stop moving – it’s impossible to leave them “running in idle”.
Here are a few tips to make your lawn mowing experience safer:
1) Read the instruction manual
If your lawn mower has any strange quirks, such as a tendency to throw rocks out of the right side, then the manual probably says something about that. In five languages. And with amusing stick figure art.
2) Mow when you’re alert
If you can’t keep your eyes open, it’s not a good idea to operate power machinery. On the other hand, people who are wide awake tend to keep all of their fingers.
3) Wear protective clothes
Some clothes are better suited for mowing in than others. Long pants and shoes with steel toes are a good idea, thongs and knee-length pigtails, not so much.
4) Mow across slopes and avoid slick areas
Lawnmowers, like cars, are easiest to control when they have good traction. When going up or down sharp slopes, through wet grass, or across smooth surfaces, lawnmowers can lose traction and slip. This is a bad thing, especially if they happen to slip across your feet.
5) Mow at a safe speed
Running as you push a lawn mower is not only exhausting, it’s also insanely dangerous. Pushing harder doesn’t really get the task finished any faster – it simply invites accidents and introduces sloppy mistakes into your mowing. If you really have a need for speed, sign up for a few laps with the US Lawn Mower Racing Association.
No matter how you cut the grass, mowers aren’t toys. Whenever you’re around spinning blades, it’s important to stay safe and avoid horsing around. Oh, and watch out for evil robotic mowers.
Photo courtesy of kentbrew at Flickr.com.
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