The other night, I was in a 7 story hotel presumably full of guests, and the fire alarm went off at 4:00 am. I smelled smoke in the hallway so I got my party dress on and ran out of there with my husband but without underwear, purse, glasses etc. I take this sort of thing seriously! But only a dozen other guests went outside. It was a false alarm, and I guess someone had merely smoked in my hallway, but geez, why do people take chance with their lives?
2006-12-18 18:20:56 · 8 answers · asked by W Y 2 in Social Science ➔ Psychology
ITA Todvango. I will probably choose yours as best answer. Yes, good point, people hanging out of windows because they chose to ignore an alarms is sad in itself, but for them to hog resources away from people who REALLY need help during a fire (disabled, children, etc.) is horrible.
2006-12-19 14:05:04 · update #1
Fire alarms have a habit of sounding false alarms.
It's a problem that has plagued the industry since the introduction of "automatic" detection devices.
Like other answerers have mentioned, it is the "boy who cried wolf" scenario. People have dealt with false alarms so long that now they just assume that all alarms are false. A risky practice to be sure!
You were smart to treat the alarm as real! Imagine all of the people that would have been at risk had it been real? It would be another one of those news stories with people hanging out of windows waiting to be rescued.
The industry has been combating this issue for years. First, older systems that are prone to causing false alarms should be severely scrutinized. Letting a system "go" like that, creating false alarms every few days, is a dangerous practice because of the numbness people will naturally develop toward the alarm.
Newer systems can be equipped with alarm verification features and sensitivity settings that can help. Many systems in larger buildings and highrises are now equipped with voice and paging capabilities to help drive the point home when and if it actually is a real fire.
2006-12-19 02:39:29 · answer #1 · answered by todvango 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
well people are just LAZY! so when they notice sumthing false they just chance it becuz most likely its not a big deal for them to leave the hotel unless they hear the hotel staff force them out or even sirens and alarms that will get em goin, but other than that people just are lazy
2006-12-19 02:38:21 · answer #2 · answered by susu 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it is because everbody thinks it is a false alarm, in my house the smoke from the oven sets off the smoke detector so we just take out the battery because it ALWAYS is a false alarm ALWAYS.
2006-12-19 22:43:32 · answer #3 · answered by whoever you are I hate you 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We hear false alarms in our building every couple of days, unfortunately it became like the story called: The boy who cried wolf..
2006-12-19 02:26:42 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
I agree with the 'little boy that cried wolf', but there is also one other thing which plagues us, "oh yeh, it can happen, but not to me". like the young person who isn't going to get old, the soldier who is invincible, the crook who 'can't' get caught.
its an eery feeling to be in middle of fire, even more when 4yrold boy is missing. one guy in the middle of a entry was running around cursing how his clothes were all smoky and who would pay for it. he almost died [but I couldn't get to him through the crowd]
2006-12-19 02:35:00 · answer #5 · answered by free thinker 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Because, so many times the alarm is false. People just don't react from it.
2006-12-19 02:23:47 · answer #6 · answered by samaustinashlee_billiewjr 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋
COS IT WAS AT 4:00am people would be in bed
2014-08-29 14:22:03 · answer #7 · answered by AWESOME SIMON 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
idk, why they would, ma house burned to the ground last st patty's day
2006-12-19 02:22:28 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋