Tumble dryer safety alerts

The safety of white goods generally over the last 20 years has been very much influenced by the effectiveness of public and private sector fire investigation. We have learned a great deal.
Insurers have greater expert resources with which to pursue and win recovery of claims.
But the white goods industry is an unwieldy beast. As is common now with so many consumer products there are many different badges to the exact same product and the ultimate parent company and manufacturer can be very large and also remote from the Country of sale.
This makes customer relations and communication difficult.

A friend of mine recently found he was one of many unfortunate owners of a tumble dryer from a very well known brand (or badge) that had been proven to be of unsafe design and consequently a fire risk. The manufacturer (no doubt very reluctantly) accepted the design fault to be proven and took action to trace existing owners to rectify the problem.

And how did they do that?
They wrote to known owners (and let's not forget that this will in practice be only a fraction of all those actually in possession) and informed them that they would be sending an engineer to rectify the problem (to make it safe!). The visit by the engineer may take up to 9 months. Yes, 9 months!
In the meantime my friend was told he may continue using the (defective) machine but not to leave it unattended.
However if he wished to purchase a new machine then it could be delivered and fitted the next day!
How kind and thoughtful of them. It is quite apparent that if there is a sale to be made then this company can respond instantly with full resources. But if a consumer's safety, goods and chattels are at risk well.....

As a safety professional I am fully aware that a service engineer is not the same as a fitter but the perception to my friend was very clearly that this company has very twisted morals. He is highly unlikely to ever purchase anything from that company again. He is also likely to relay his tale to other friends and relatives who may contemplate buying a new machine.

But also as a safety professional I consider this apparent risk assessment taken by the company to be either a very brave or a very stupid decision. They have chosen to risk lay persons knowingly using an unsafe appliance until repairs can be made. The defect remains. Merely being present will not prevent any fire. Being present does not mean sitting by the appliance with a fire extinguisher at the ready.

They have taken the gamble that the number of fire incidents compared to the numbers of machines produced was very low and the losses were not particularly high. Thus the likelihood of a further fire occurring before the fault is rectified is low and any loss will be lower because the fire will be discovered early. It is a simple numbers game. That is the way of big business and safety. The most famous of such risk assessments years ago was the Ford Pinto disgrace where the company chose to take the hit and did not inform anyone. In this case the company are at least being upfront about it.

Nevertheless when a fire occurs that is proved to have been by the known defect I look forward to be the expert who is assigned to investigate.