Which small safety habits are worth picking up?

Twelve pages in this library are small safety habits, and one of them says of itself that it costs a second and asks for a reflex rather than vigilance. Put your foot through the strap and Take the wallet out before you sit down are about the bag on the floor and the wallet under one hip. Touch metal before you pump gas is one flat palm on the door frame. Treat every gun as loaded is for the day someone hands you one. Park a few spaces from the cart return is the car park. The birds are already telling you is the sound outside your window you have filed as weather. Say no through the closed door is the stranger selling alarms at your front door. Take the batteries out before you put it away is the torch in the drawer. Pull over before the gauge reaches red is the temperature needle on a hot day. Look before you go, even when the light is yours is the green light or the walk sign. Find out who your campus police are before you need them is a fact about your school you can look up today. Slow down and leave room when you pass a walker is for the rider coming up behind someone on a shared path. Each names where the habit stops and something else takes over.

Put your foot through the strap the moment you sit down, and take it out before you stand up. Put your foot through the strap says many people put a foot or a leg through a strap the moment they sit, or hold the bag between their legs, so that a quick grab has to move them too; many do the longer version, the strap looped round a chair leg or clipped to the table. Some people fell over forgetting the second half. One person says the habit’s real gift is not the thief but the forgetting: you cannot walk off and leave a bag that is attached to your ankle. Two lines sit above the habit: the page warns never to fight a group, and that in some places resisting a snatch ends in violence or in being dragged, so the strap is meant to stop a quick grab, not to win a fight, and a bag is replaceable where a foot or a face is not. If the bag is being pulled from you, the page’s own line is to let it go. It is not a lock either: some people warn that a strap cuts in a second, one person warns that a padlock on a zip is bypassed with a pen jammed into the teeth beside it, and some people hide the openings instead, zips turned inward against the body, the bag worn on the front in a crowd. Where it earns its keep is the train, the bus, the café and the library table; the airport is argued in discussions the page does not settle.

Take the wallet out of your back pocket before you sit down, and take the cards out of the wallet. Take the wallet out before you sit down says many people moved the wallet to a front pocket, a jacket pocket or a bag, and the reason nobody there argues about is theft: many people say the back pocket is where wallets are taken from, out of your sight and on skin that feels little, and the page checked that standard police advice says the same. The reason they do argue about is your back: many people say a thick wallet under one hip for hours tilts the pelvis and presses on the nerve and muscle in the buttock until the leg hurts, and the page checked the medical literature and says it describes that cause as real and uncommon; a physiotherapist says a couple of hundred grams cannot tilt a pelvis, some people say they have sat on a wallet for life without a twinge, and the discussion runs both ways, unsettled. The page says the habit does not need a winner, and many people say the second half is most of the cure for both problems: a wallet with three cards in it is neither a target nor a wedge. For trousers with no working front pocket, which many people say clothing sold to women often lacks, people’s options are a jacket, a small bag, or the habit in the title, out of the pocket and onto the desk when you sit. One line the page will not diagnose past: pain that runs down the back of a leg, or numbness, tingling or weakness in a leg or foot, is a question for a doctor or a physiotherapist, whatever you were sitting on.

Touch the metal of your car before you touch the nozzle. Touch metal before you pump gas is built from people who each carried the same habit, and one sentence of physics the page gives: a static spark can ignite gasoline vapour. Dry winter air lets the charge your clothes generate ride along instead of leaking away, and at a pump the space around the filler neck carries fuel vapour, which is what actually burns; a palm flat on the door frame before you reach for the nozzle lets the charge drain early, small and far from the fumes. Winter is when the risk peaks, and the people behind the habit do it year-round. Two companion habits from the same people finish the job: if you climb back into the car mid-fill, sliding across the seat rebuilds the charge, so touch metal again; and if a fire ever starts at the pump, leave the nozzle where it is and hit the station’s emergency stop rather than yanking the hose, because pulling a burning nozzle spreads the fuel.

Treat every gun as loaded, including the one just checked and the one in pieces. Treat every gun as loaded is for the uncle at the holidays, the friend at a range, the host on a hunting weekend, and the hands you were never taught what to do with. Many people give the first rule, that every gun is loaded regardless of what the owner says, regardless of the check you watched, regardless of whether it is in pieces on the table; many give the second, that the muzzle points only at something you would be content to destroy; many give the third, that the finger stays off the trigger and outside the guard until you mean to fire; and several some people give the fourth, know the target and what is behind it. Many people insist the first sentence is not a claim about the chamber, because a gun lying on a table does not fire on its own; it is a drill, practised on empty guns so that your hands already do the right thing on the day a gun is not empty. Some people say racking the slide is not clearing a gun: one person points out a damaged part can leave a round in place, and another says that with the magazine still in, racking loads a fresh one; clearing means removing the magazine, then looking into the chamber from the rear. The page warns that an untrained person should not be handed a gun at all, and the safest sentence a non-owner has is ‘I haven’t been taught — you keep it.’ For a child, some people give the rule several cautions insist is the whole of gun safety for a child: stop, do not touch it, leave the room, tell an adult, taught whether or not your own house has a gun. If anyone in the room has been drinking, the page warns that the guns are put away. The page says plainly it is four sentences and not a firearms course, and that the law on storage, carrying and liability is a gap it does not answer; if you live where guns are not present, the page’s reading is that it is for the day you travel or visit.

Park two or three spaces along from the cart return, not beside it. Park a few spaces from the cart return carries an argument that has run for years: many people recommend parking beside the return, so that returning the cart is a short job you actually do, and many say that is where the dents come from, because shoppers shove carts at the corral from a distance and miss, and some people who worked in retail agree. Some people do the arithmetic neither camp had: any spot between the door and the return is the same total walk, so the return spot saves you the empty-cart leg and nothing else. The synthesis the argument produces, which the page offers as its own: two or three spaces from the return, uphill if the lot slopes, with another car between you and the corral. Two lines sit above the argument, not inside it: never clip or balance an infant car seat on a shopping cart, some people call it unsafe and the page adds that the seat is not made for it; and never leave a child in the car while you walk a cart back, whatever the distance, because a closed car heats fast in warm weather and a caution says even a brief wait is risky on a very hot day. Unload the child last and the cart first. Many people from the American South and other hot places say the only rule that matters in summer is shade, and in snow or with a mobility limit the page says the nearest space to the door is right.

The signal is a change in the background sound, and it tells you something is there without telling you what. The birds are already telling you says the sound outside your window is a running commentary made by animals whose survival depends on knowing what has just walked into the garden, and that a fair amount of what it carries has been measured. Researchers presented black-capped chickadees with fifteen species of live predator and counted the dee notes on the call: the number went up for the smaller raptors, which the page says is the reverse of what anybody guesses and exactly right, because a small agile hawk in tight woodland is far more dangerous to a chickadee than a big slow one. Birds do not go silent for a hawk, the page corrects; they switch to a thin, steady, high note built to be difficult to place, and for something on the ground, a cat, a snake, a raccoon, they do the opposite, loud, abrupt, broad, easy to locate, because that call is an invitation to mob. So a garden gone eerie and thin is telling you to look up, and a garden making a racket in one spot is telling you where. The page’s safety line comes first: look from a distance, and look before you walk, because a mob will lead you to a snake as readily as to a hawk, wherever you live some of the local snakes may be venomous, and it will also lead you to a raccoon or a cat that bites when cornered; if you cannot identify what is there, that is your answer, leave it, keep children and dogs back, and call local animal control or the wildlife agency. Most snakes are harmless and doing you a favour with the rodents; do not kill one unless you know it is dangerous, and if in doubt leave it be, because trying to kill it is how people get bitten, and some species are protected. What the calls cannot tell you, the page says, is most of it: hawk or cat is not separable from the sound alone, silence meaning weather or silence meaning predator is the same, and the folklore layer, birds going quiet before rain, dragonflies flying low, ants moving uphill before a flood, pine cones opening and closing with the damp, is not backed up there. City birds on a steady human food supply are a flatter, less readable proposition. Researchers at a US university wearing masks while banding crows were scolded by that face for at least 2.7 years afterwards, and the scolding spread to crows that had not been there.

You do not have to open the door or answer a stranger’s questions about your home, and if they say they are from a company, check with that company yourself. Say no through the closed door is for unexpected callers; if you asked for the visit, it is not for you. Many people say the person at the door may be checking the house rather than selling: finding out whether there is an alarm, a dog, or who lives there and when they are out. One person who used to work in security sales says people in the trade know these visits can be used to pick out vulnerable homes. A pushy rep is not proof of a burglar, though: one person says that legitimate security companies also send persistent reps by text, call and uninvited visit, and that this can look just like casing. The US Federal Trade Commission warns that dishonest sales agents falsely say they are from your existing security company, push you to sign for free equipment tied to a long contract, or invent crime figures about your area. Some people say a good response is to ignore the knock, or to tell them, through the shut door, that you do not want what they are selling, instead of answering questions, since engaging hands them information. UK police guidance says you do not have to open the door, and if you are not sure who is there, do not; use the chain, intercom or viewer before you open it to a stranger. Many people say never to reveal which company your system is from, because that can be used to check whether the house is a target, and one person warns that casual remarks can give away that nobody is home or that you are going away. Many people suggest saying yes, you have a system, and naming no company; the page does not build on it, because one person describes being caught out by a salesperson who knew the industry, and a plain no needs no story to remember. The page’s two steps: save your alarm company’s number from a bill or its official website in your phone, so you can call it yourself if someone says they are from it, and say the sentence aloud once, “No thank you, I’m not interested.” Its safety line: if someone is trying to break in, or you are in danger, call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK (your local emergency number elsewhere). UK police guidance says to call 999 at once if you are threatened at the door. For a visit that only worries you, use the non-emergency line instead: your local police department’s own number in the US, and 101 in the UK. Do not let a stranger into your home on their word that they work for an alarm company or any other company. UK police guidance says that if you are not sure who is at your door, do not open it. The US Federal Trade Commission says dishonest sales agents falsely claim to be from your existing security company, and says to ask for identification before letting anyone in and to check with your own company if a salesperson says they are from it. If you live somewhere remote, one person warns that opening the door to strangers can be risky, as help is a long way off and a visitor may be armed or hostile; the page says your own judgement about who is at the door is the one that counts.

Take the batteries out of any device you are putting away or will not use for a long time. Take the batteries out before you put it away is for ordinary household batteries in a device you can open; if the batteries are built in, it has nothing to tell you about them. Many people say the same, and give the same reason: it prevents leaks and the corrosion that follows inside the device. One maker’s data sheet says to keep batteries in a dry place at normal room temperature, not to refrigerate them, because it will not make them last longer, not to carry them loose in a pocket or bag, and not to recharge ordinary alkaline cells, which may leak or burst. Loose batteries stored with their ends able to touch metal can short out; one person warns this can start a fire and says to put tape over the ends, and one person tapes the removed batteries inside the box or case of the device they belong to. If one has already leaked, what leaks from an ordinary alkaline battery is not an acid but potassium hydroxide, a base, according to the maker’s sheet. Its safety line: a leaking ordinary alkaline battery gives off a caustic substance, potassium hydroxide. The maker’s sheet says to wear rubber or latex gloves and safety goggles when you handle a leaking battery, and gives these steps. If it gets on skin, take off any clothing it touched and rinse the skin under running water for at least 15 minutes; get medical attention if irritation or pain stays. If it gets in an eye, rinse with plenty of running water, then get medical attention straight away. US Poison Control says to rinse a chemical in the eye for at least 15 to 20 minutes and to get an urgent eye exam if pain or redness is still there an hour after you started; that maker’s sheet says 30 minutes. Both are given because rinsing for longer costs nothing. If any of the leaked contents is swallowed, do not make the person vomit; rinse their mouth and get medical help straight away. In the US, Poison Help is 1-800-222-1222. In the UK, the NHS says to call 999 or go to A&E if someone may have swallowed something harmful, and to call NHS 111 if you are not sure it is harmful. Elsewhere, call your local emergency number. Many people use white vinegar or lemon juice on a cotton swab or an old toothbrush to clean the crust off the contacts, with the batteries out, gloves and goggles on and the room ventilated; let everything dry fully before you put new batteries in. The maker’s sheet says not to heat, crush, take apart, short-circuit or recharge an alkaline battery, and a swollen or hot battery pack is not a vinegar job. The page’s second safety line is a different and much faster emergency, and it is not a leak: a swallowed button or coin battery, the flat round kind in key fobs, watches and small remotes. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission says one stuck in a child’s food pipe can burn through in as little as two hours. If a child may have swallowed one, do not wait for symptoms. In the US, call the National Battery Ingestion Hotline on 1-800-498-8666 or Poison Help on 1-800-222-1222 while you go to an emergency room. In the UK, go to A&E and call 999 if needed, or NHS 111 if you are not sure. Do not make them vomit, and do not give them any other food or drink. For a child older than 12 months, US Poison Control and an NHS children’s hospital’s guidance both say 2 teaspoons of honey every 10 minutes on the way, if the battery was swallowed within the last 12 hours, can reduce the damage, and that it must not delay getting there.

Pull over as soon as it is safe, turn the engine off, and do not keep driving. Pull over before the gauge reaches red is for petrol and diesel cars; if your problem is a hot cabin, or you drive an electric car, it is not the page you need. Its safety line: never open the radiator cap, or the coolant reservoir cap, on a hot engine. The cooling system is under pressure. AAA in the US says that if you remove the radiator cap while the coolant is hot, it can spray out and severely burn you; the RAC in the UK says opening it while the engine is hot can cause serious injury from steam and scalding liquid. AAA says to wait about 20 minutes before checking anything under the hood, and the RAC says at least 30 minutes before reopening the engine compartment, and longer in hot weather or after a bad overheat. Both give a minimum, and waiting longer costs nothing. Even when the engine is cold, the RAC says to open the cap slowly with your hand covered. Get everyone out of the car and away from the road. The RAC says to switch on the hazard lights, and in the UK to leave by the left-hand door, in hi-vis jackets if you have them. If you cannot get off the road safely, or you are in danger, call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK (your local emergency number elsewhere). Otherwise call your breakdown or roadside service. If you cannot stop right now, because of traffic or a motorway, AAA says to turn the air conditioning off and the heat on while you look for a place to pull over; the heater is a bridge to the place you stop, not an alternative to stopping, and the RAC says on a motorway to leave at the next exit or pull into a service station. Many people say the heater trick is temporary and only for minor overheating; one person who works as a mechanic calls it one of the worst pieces of advice, because it masks the problem while the engine cooks inside and risks head gasket failure, and the person who wrote the tip answered that it has saved them thousands in repairs. Once the engine is cold, check the coolant level in the reservoir; the RAC says to top it up with coolant, or a mix of water and coolant, and to look under the car for leaks if the reservoir is empty. Some people warn that cold water poured over a hot engine block, or into a hot radiator, can crack the block or cause severe burns from steam, and the RAC says to avoid pure cold water on a hot radiator because it can damage the engine. Then do not drive on: the RAC says never to continue driving an overheated car, and AAA says adding coolant may give temporary relief but a professional has to diagnose the cause. The page cannot tell you why your car overheated.

When a green light or a walk signal says it is your turn, look each way once more before you move, because the signal says who should stop and not who will. Look before you go, even when the light is yours says it is a glance, not a change of personality. Many people say having the right of way gives you a claim and no protection: a vehicle that ignores the signal does not care who was right, and many people say your physical safety comes before being legally correct. The UK Highway Code says the people in charge of vehicles that can do the most harm carry the most responsibility to take care, and that drivers should give way to people crossing or waiting to cross a road they are turning into. The page calls that a rule about blame: it does not change what a car does to a person. On foot, the Highway Code’s advice is to stop just before the kerb where you can see what is coming, look all around and listen, go straight across without running, and keep looking and listening while you cross. At a crossing where traffic must stop, check that it has stopped before you start; at pedestrian signals, start only when the green figure shows. It also says to look out for traffic turning into the road, especially from behind you, to cross where drivers can see you, and at night to wear something reflective. Some people say to let a vehicle come to a full stop before you cross in front of it, and some warn that a driver’s wave covers only that driver’s lane, so a vehicle in the next lane may not have stopped. At the wheel, many people say to look across the junction before you enter it on green. The Highway Code says green means you may go on if the way is clear, to take special care if you are turning, and to give way to people crossing. The page does not tell you to pause at a green light, and people disagree about it: some suggest waiting a couple of seconds to let a late runner through, and others say a pause confuses the drivers behind, breaks the timing of the signals, or invites a rear-end collision. What the people who object suggest instead is to do the looking earlier: scan the junction while you wait at the red, so that on green you need only a glance, and stop only if you see a vehicle that is not going to. People are split on eye contact, which some say tells you the driver has seen you and others say gives false security. What both sides can use is the Highway Code’s check at crossings where traffic must stop: make sure the vehicle has actually stopped. Its safety line: if someone has been hit by a vehicle, call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK (your local emergency number elsewhere) straight away and say where you are. Make sure traffic has stopped before you step into the road to reach them. Do not move them unless they are in danger, and press firmly on any heavy bleeding while you wait for help. If they are not breathing normally, St John Ambulance in the UK says to put the phone on speaker and start pressing hard and fast on the centre of the chest while you talk to the call-taker. The walking, crossing and traffic-light rules on that page are from the UK Highway Code, and the page could not check US rules on who must yield, so it states none. It does not say who would be at fault in a collision, and a look cannot protect you from a driver who is not looking. It is not written for someone on a bicycle or a motorcycle beyond the junction lines above, or for someone who cannot see or hear traffic well or cannot cross quickly.

Find out now whether your campus has its own sworn police or only security staff, because that decides who you call and what a report to them can do; in an emergency, call 911 (999 in the UK). Find out who your campus police are before you need them is about US colleges and universities, and nowhere else; it does not cover how universities in the UK or elsewhere handle reports. Its safety box comes first, carried whole. If you or someone else is in danger right now, call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK (your local emergency number elsewhere) before you tell the school, and say the building and room you are in. If you cannot call safely, get to safety first and ask someone else to call. If you have been sexually assaulted, what you do next is your choice: in the US the RAINN hotline is 800-656-4673 (800.656.HOPE), and in the UK the Rape Crisis England and Wales support line is 0808 500 2222. If it is a partner or ex who is hurting or frightening you, the US National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-7233 and the UK National Domestic Abuse Helpline is 0808 2000 247. If you are thinking about suicide or hurting yourself, call or text 988 in the US, or call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK. The words “campus police” and “campus security” are not always the same thing: one person says victims sometimes go to the administration first because they wrongly think campus security are sworn officers with arrest powers, and another says some universities have only a security department that works with the local police, which changes how reporting works. Under a US federal rule, the Clery Act regulations (34 CFR 668.41 and 668.46), a school that takes part in federal student aid must give its students and employees an annual security report by 1 October each year, and the report must describe the enforcement authority and jurisdiction of the school’s security personnel, whether they have authority to make arrests, and how they work with the state and local police. So the check is short: open the report, find the section on security personnel, and answer three questions: are they sworn officers, can they arrest, and who do they work with in the city. If the report does not make it clear, ask your campus public safety office the same three questions before anything has happened, and save two numbers in your phone: 911, and your campus public safety desk. In an emergency the answer in the US is 911 and not an office, and the page says to say the building, the floor and the room, because one person warns that a mobile call may reach 911 with only a general address. Some people say to call the campus security or public safety line as well, because campus layouts confuse outsiders and campus staff can meet responders and show them the way; against that, one person says that in a fire or a gas leak, waiting for campus staff to unlock a card-swipe dorm can cost lives, and so puts the 911 call first and the campus call second. A report to the school is not a police report: one person says a school’s disciplinary process does not carry the same legal weight as a police report, even though it can affect your record at the school. For sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence and stalking, the federal rule says the school’s report must give victims written information about three options: notify the police, on campus and local; be helped by campus authorities to notify them; or decline to notify them. What you do is up to you. One person warns that telling a faculty or staff member can set a school process going, so ask first who has to pass it on. If the police do not take a report or the school does not act, the page does not cover what to do next. It is not for anyone outside the US, for a neighbour or teenagers harassing you at home, or for a problem at a workplace or a hospital, whose rules differ; for legal advice, ask a lawyer or a victim services centre.

When you come up behind someone walking on a shared path, slow down first, let them know you are there early and calmly, and pass with as much room as you can. Slow down and leave room when you pass a walker is for riding where people walk: shared paths and trails, and sidewalks where cycling is allowed. Its safety box comes first, carried whole. If a collision has hurt someone, call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK (your local emergency number elsewhere), say exactly where on the path you are, and stay with them. Mayo Clinic says to assume a spinal injury if there is severe pain in the neck or back, weakness, numbness or loss of control of the limbs, bladder or bowels, a hard blow to the back or head, a head injury with a continuing change in how alert the person is, or a neck or body that is twisted or positioned oddly. In that case do not move the person, keep the head and neck still, and if they are wearing a helmet, leave it on. St John Ambulance in the UK says to assume anyone hurt in a traffic accident, a bicycle crash included, may have a neck or spine injury, and to treat them where you find them and support their head and neck. Move them only if they are in immediate danger. The NHS says to call 999 after a head injury if the person: was knocked out and has not woken up; cannot stay awake or keep their eyes open; has a fit; has fallen from more than 1 metre or 5 stairs; has problems with sight or hearing; has clear fluid from the ears or nose, bleeding from an ear or bruising behind an ear; has new numbness or weakness; has problems with walking, balance, understanding, speaking or writing; has a head wound with something in it or a dent in the head; or behaves differently, such as being more irritable, distracted or losing interest. It says to call NHS 111 if they are being sick, feel dizzy, take blood-thinning medicine, had been drinking or taking drugs, or you are worried about anything else, and not to drive yourself to A&E. Babies and young children need different care. The slowing and the room work whether or not the walker hears you, and the signal is a courtesy that sometimes lands and sometimes does not. The UK Highway Code, Rule 63, tells cyclists in places shared with pedestrians to take care when passing them, especially children, older adults or disabled people, to slow down when necessary and let them know you are there, for example by ringing a bell or calling out politely, and not to pass closely or at high speed, particularly from behind; it adds that a walker may be deaf, blind or partly sighted and that this may not be obvious. In the US, NHTSA, the federal road-safety agency, says to pass pedestrians with care by first announcing “on your left” or “passing on your left”, or to use a bell, and to avoid or minimise sidewalk riding in the first place and check your law. How to let them know is where people split. Some people say a call from behind can make a walker jump, freeze, turn around, or step the wrong way, though one person points out that “on your left” tells the walker where you will be and is not an order. Some people prefer a bell, and warn it can scare someone if you ring it at the last second; the US Federal Highway Administration adds that a person who is Deaf or hard of hearing might not hear a bell. One person argues that a slow, quiet pass with as much room as possible is safer than a call; the official guidance says to let them know, so the page does not tell you to pass in silence. One person says that if you feel you need to shout, you are probably going too fast for where you are. On a crowded path, or if you cannot stop within the space you can see, a call does not make the pass safe: get off and walk the bike past, which costs a few seconds. The page does not cover riding on roads with cars, where to ride in a lane, crosswalks, or who is at fault in a collision. In the UK, the Highway Code (Rule 64) says you must not cycle on a pavement. If you are a walker with a hearing or sight difference, a call or a bell may not reach you, and the page can only ask riders to slow down and leave room.

Who these pages are not for. The strap page is not a plan for a fight and refuses one country-specific strand whole; reporting a theft, insurance and armed robbery are gaps it names. The wallet page sends leg pain to a clinician and does not carry an argument about a particular kind of back-pain practitioner. The gun page is not a course, and some people warn that an online discussion is no substitute for one. The cart page is not for anyone who walks to the shop, whose shops have no corrals, or who has a mobility limit or a loaded cart in snow, for whom the door is right. And the birds page says learning any of it by ear takes real time, that there is no shortcut, and that a bird going quiet is information, not an answer.