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Thread: UK Laser Pointer Safety Video

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    244

    Default UK Laser Pointer Safety Video

    As with many countries around the world, Government has in recent years become increasingly concerned about the availability of of high-power lasers to the public. Following a call for evidence, recently they have have prepared a video to help educate users that pointers are not toys. Preaching to the converted on here I know, but it has some interesting statistics on it too. I've put a some notes and a link to the video here https://www.facebook.com/LaserSafety/

    James
    Laser Safety
    https://www.lvroptical.com
    https://www.facebook.com/LaserSafety

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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Mesa, AZ
    Posts
    1,277

    Default

    But lasers can be toys. They're given away as SWAG. They're sold widely to play with cats. They're included in construction type toy kits. They're sold with diffractive optic tips to allow play. They're the subject of a hobby, essentially play toys for adults. Lasers are toys, like it or not. Potentially dangerous toys, like a BB gun or a baseball bat, but "play" is certainly an application of the laser.
    Last edited by Eidetic; 09-17-2019 at 07:30.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Charleston, SC
    Posts
    2,147,489,446

    Default

    I felt the video was a bit heavy-handed and misrepresented the issue. When talking about the dangers of laser pointers the video always references "high power" laser pointers which may have "fake labels". Why is there no mention of safe, legal, low power (Class 3A) laser pointers? By lumping all pointers together, and especially considering the stated course of action: "throw them away", this video leaves no middle ground for responsible people to experiment with and enjoy laser pointers that are legal.

    Another issue I have is with the video clips themselves. When talking about dangerous, illegal, high-power laser pointers they show clips of someone in a dark hallway shining what appears to be a very low power red laser pointer at the camera. In reality a dangerous, illegal, high-power laser pointer is almost certainly going to be either green or blue, and will appear to be quite bright when viewed head-on as in the hallway example. High power red pointers are far less common.

    I realize that it's hard to convey nuance in a short video, but honestly with a 4 minute run time this video had more than enough time to at least mention that some lasers are legal and direct viewers to other resources for more information. Instead, all we hear is "laser pointers are bad", "you can go to jail", and "throw them away". That's not going to resonate very well with the general public.

    In my opinion a bad message is worse than no message at all, because it teaches people to ignore videos like this in the future.

    Adam

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