Safety
Pools present a significant risk of infant and toddler death due to drowning. In regions where residential pools are common, drowning is a major cause of childhood fatalities. As a precaution, many municipalities have by-laws that require that residential pools be enclosed with fencing to restrict unauthorized access. The Virginia Graeme Baker Pool And Spa Safety Act regulates pools to reduce the risk of entrapment. Diving in the shallow end can also lead to significant head and neck injuries; diving, especially head-first diving, should be done in the deepest point of the pool, minimally 8 feet (2.4 m), but desirably 12 feet (3.7 m), deeper if the distance between the water and the board is great.
Many products exist, such as removable baby fences, floating alarms and window/door alarms. Some pools are equipped with computer-aided drowning prevention or other forms of electronic safety and security systems.
Suspended ceilings in indoor swimming pools are safety-relevant components. The selection of materials under tension should be done with care. Especially the selection of unsuitable stainless steels can cause problems with stress corrosion cracking.
Read more about this topic: Swimming Pool
Famous quotes containing the word safety:
“For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman;... but what beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Firm, united, let us be,
Rallying round our Liberty;
As a band of brothers joined,
Peace and safety we shall find.”
—Joseph Hopkinson (1770–1842)
“Can we not teach children, even as we protect them from victimization, that for them to become victimizers constitutes the greatest peril of all, specifically the sacrifice—physical or psychological—of the well-being of other people? And that destroying the life or safety of other people, through teasing, bullying, hitting or otherwise, “putting them down,” is as destructive to themselves as to their victims.”
—Lewis P. Lipsitt (20th century)