Someone Decided

Somewhere this week, a child a little under four years old is handed a bottle and a stopwatch starts. The push-and-turn cap on your medicine was never drawn by Congress. It is whatever shape passes a test: enough preschoolers can't open it, and enough 'normal adults' can. Owen and producer Felix follow that test from a Windsor, Ontario paediatrician who was tired of pumping children's stomachs to the 1970 Poison Prevention Packaging Act, a 1986 study of real caps from real poisonings, and a 1995 vote about who counts as a normal adult.

The people the test left out were older adults, who take the most pills and struggled most with the caps. Their workarounds became a way in for their grandchildren. Today more than half of children's prescription-drug exposures involve medicine that has already left the bottle, and as far as our sources show, nobody has measured whether the 1995 fix worked.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_Prevention_Packaging_Act_of_1970

https://www.chpa.org/public-policy-regulatory/regulation/regulation-otc-medicines/child-resistant-packaging

https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Education/FAQ?p=3061&tid%5B3069%5D=3069

https://childresistant.com/product-types-protocols-regulations/

https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/child-resistant-packaging-pesticides

https://ypcglass.com/child-resistant-caps-explained-push-turn-vs-squeeze-vs-snap/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Breault

https://fresh-lock.com/blog/history-and-future-of-child-resistant-packaging

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000884.htm

https://www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/News-Releases/1995/CPSC-Issues-Rule-To-Make-Packaging-Child-Resistant-Easy-To-Open

https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/prn-96-2-changes-child-resistant-packaging-crp-testing-requirements

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1995-07-21/html/95-17436.htm

https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/151693

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10935586/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10919934/

https://www.consumerreports.org/drug-safety/protect-kids-from-accidental-drug-overdoses/

https://poisonhelp.hrsa.gov/what-you-can-do/up-away-campaign

Supported by SagaSeal.

Road lines glow at night because they are full of tiny glass beads, and each one sends your headlights back toward you. On a wet night, water floods those beads and the line all but disappears. In a 2009 night-time test in Texas, drivers often never saw an ordinary line in simulated rain. The US now has a federal minimum for how bright lane lines must be. Agencies had until September 2026 to comply, and the rule is written for dry pavement only.

Owen and producer Felix follow the line from the optics of one glass bead to the fight over how hard it should rain in a lab test, the long road to the 2022 rule, the awkward evidence that clearer lines can make people drive faster, and the lane-keeping cameras that now read the same paint we do. Who is the line for now?

Sources:

https://mutcd-dr.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2009r1r2/part3/part3a.htm

https://highways.dot.gov/safety/other/visibility/pavement-markings-regulations-standards

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-08-05/html/2022-16781.htm

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/road-safety-us/resources/road-transportation-safety-center-blog/full-story/~/road-signs-retroreflectivity/?storyid=328c8880-941b-4adc-a9f9-46a1cd79e637

https://saemobilus.sae.org/papers/effects-wet-retroreflectivity-luminance-pavement-markings-lane-departure-warning-nighttime-continuous-rain-without-glare-sources-2019-01-1014

https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/19652

https://doi.org/10.3141/2107-07

https://highways.dot.gov/safety/other/visibility/synthesis-pavement-marking-research/chapter-5-wet-pavement-marking

https://doi.org/10.3141/2015-10

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/03081/summary.cfm

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0968090X15004179

http://ntlsearch.bts.gov/ntl/md.do?id=74516

https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/me-cive-fac-pubs/29

http://hdl.handle.net/10092/5291

https://www.lexfed.com/federal-register/2022-16781

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/15065/001.cfm

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/15065/009.cfm

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/15065/007.cfm

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/15065/index.cfm

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/15083/index.cfm

Supported by STELQ.

In 1954 two de Havilland Comets, the world's first jet airliners, broke up in the air. The popular lesson is square windows. The investigators traced something smaller: fatigue cracks starting at fastener holes, one beside a little radio aerial window in the cabin roof and one beside an escape hatch. Owen and producer Felix follow a piece of roof brought up from the sea off Elba, go through the Court of Inquiry's paragraphs, and look at a test that went further than the rules asked.

That extra care is the twist. The fuselage section de Havilland fatigue-tested had first been squeezed harder than any airliner in service ever was. That very likely made the stand-in tougher than the aircraft carrying passengers. This episode is about who designs a test and what the test is able to show.

Sources:

https://www.key.aero/forum/historic-aviation/64571-comet-metal-fatigue

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/archive-exhibitions/comet-the-worlds-first-jet-airliner/comet-failure/

https://www.dh-aircraft.co.uk/aircraft/dh106/comet1/inquiry/

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/comet-accidents.htm

https://www.faa.gov/lessons_learned/transport_airplane/accidents/G-ALYV

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/week-focus-comet-passed-its-fatigue-test-ross-kudwitt-gftxc

https://simpleflying.com/boeing-747-pioneer-quadjet-travel-jet-did/

https://anyflip.com/kmvx/kpvf/basic

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/59627/why-weren-t-the-comet-s-overhead-adf-windows-roundified-along-with-its-passenger

https://historicalrfa.uk/1954-operation-elba-isle/

https://alchetron.com/BOAC-Flight-781

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/neither-money-nor-manpower-the-story-of-the-de-havilland-comet-and-the-crash-of-boac-flight-781-36db2a3435ce

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Airways_Flight_201

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/low/dates/stories/october/19/newsid_3112000/3112466.stm

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-50585312

https://vintageaviationnews.com/aviation-museum-news/last-surviving-short-fuselage-de-havilland-comet-1xb-transferred-from-raf-museum-midlands-to-south-wales-aviation-museum.html

Supported by Lynqly.

In November 2022 Budapest retired its last high-floor Ikarus buses: the bendy accordion buses that carried half a continent, with a floor more than ninety centimetres above the road. This episode is about why the floor sat that high. It follows the trail from a 1963 COMECON agreement to two production managers who had no money for two sets of tools, a designer refused a university place in writing, and a low-floor city bus that was built in 1967 and never made.

Owen and producer Felix read the 1966 planning study that started the Ikarus 200 family, follow the bus through the collapse of the transferable rouble, and ask who notices the people a good-enough design leaves at the bottom of the steps.

Sources:

https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finta_L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3

https://epa.oszk.hu/02400/02460/00014/pdf/EPA02460_hungarian_historical_review_2015_4_964-989.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikarus_280

https://busztipusok.hu/280/280.htm

https://www.origo.hu/auto/2016/11/ikarus-280-15-1980-bemutato

https://retrobuszozas.hu/ikarus-280/

https://hirado.hu/belfold/kozelet/cikk/2018/10/03/eletre-kelnek-a-buszlegendak-matyasfoldon

https://repozitorium.omikk.bme.hu/server/api/core/bitstreams/f3642ba6-cdd1-4149-9bbb-53c32b961716/content

https://alapjarat.hu/veteran/az-ikarus-200-tipuscsalad-1993-ban-keszult-200-ezredik-darabja-ott-volt-volanbusz

http://unipub.lib.uni-corvinus.hu/5542/1/VT_1995n2p20.pdf

https://index.hu/gazdasag/magyar/ikaro071210/

https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transzfer%C3%A1bilis_rubel

https://www.csmonitor.com/1991/1016/16141.html

https://www.lesechos.fr/1999/11/ikarus-un-dinosaure-rechappe-de-la-faillite-1049455

https://24.hu/belfold/2003/08/11/bezar_szekesfehervari_ikarus_irisbus/

https://magyarbusz.info/2025/12/11/tizennyolc-eve-gordultek-ki-az-utolso-ikarus-eag-autobuszok-a-matyasfoldi-gyarkapun/

https://www.busworldblog.com/post/ik200bkv3

https://zugloonline.hu/garazsmenet-bucsu-az-ikarus-280-tol/

https://www.busworldblog.com/post/ap_ik_csuklos

https://www.busworldblog.com/post/ik412bp

https://www.gazetametro.ru/articles/muzej-transporta-moskvy-zavershil-restavratsiju-unikalnogo-avtobusa-ikarus-280-16-04-2026

http://www.gruzovikpress.ru/article/9528-peredelka-sochlenennyh-ikarus-280-v-bespritsepnoy-260-37-pri-remonte-na-svarze-ikarus-260-nenastoyashchiy/

https://lenta.ru/articles/2019/07/21/soviet_transport/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown-Ikarus_286

http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/373

https://www.autoszektor.hu/hu/content/finta-laszlo-aki-rekorder-ikarust-tervezte

https://oldikarus.hu/200-1/

https://omnibusz.blog.hu/2020/04/14/a_varosi_200-as_ikarusok_osei

https://www.bkv.hu/en/content/bkv-renovated-a-50yearold-firstseries-ikarus-280

Supported by STELQ.