The History of Electric Christmas Tree Lights Legend has it that the tradition of putting lights on holiday trees dates back to at least the 17th century. It wasn’t until 1882, however, that an inventor and vice president of Edison’s electric company named Edward Johnson hit on the idea to light up a tree with the new phenomenon of electric lights. Johnson used 80 small electric light bulbs to decorate...

The 12 Days of Holiday Safety Here are a few simple things you can do in a minute to help protect your family. Day 1: Talk to your kids about safety. Teach them not to touch electric lights, cords or decorations. Day 2: Read an article on SafetyAtHome.com on ladder safety before you hang decorations. Day 3: Examine your lights for wear – kids can help point out unlit bulbs, but they shouldn’t handle...

Thanksgiving Cooking Tips: Serving Up a Side of Safety From our friends at UL and “Commit a Minute” Thanksgiving is a day full of enticing smells, good company and lots of laughs – but along with the enjoyable chaos is the reality that cooking fires are three times more likely to occur on Thanksgiving than any other day of the year. In addition to cooking and entertaining, UL is reminding...

Holiday Accidents and Injuries By the Numbers Nothing is more important than keeping your little ones safe. Yet every minute, 17 children go to the emergency room with unintentional injuries – that’s 9.2 million accidents that didn’t have to happen every year.* It’s often small decisions – a candle left burning, a dry Christmas tree or child left alone even for a moment – that could have life-changing...

Be On The Safe Side This Season: Top 10 Tips for Safer Holidays With the hustle and bustle of the holidays, it seems that there’s never enough time to get everything done. It’s important, though, to make sure that safety doesn’t get left off the list: during the holiday season, fires cause a 34% greater dollar loss and holiday decorating injuries send more than 14,000 to the emergency room. Commit...

Holiday Decorating Safety from UL and NFPA Homes have been decorated, gifts will soon be unwrapped and New Year’s resolutions are ready to fill everyone’s thoughts. With the onset of post-holiday activity, it’s important to keep safety at top of mind. … HomeRead More »

Effective measures include: Actively enforcing existing 0.08% BAC laws, minimum legal drinking age laws, and zero tolerance laws for drivers younger than 21 years old in all states. Promptly taking away the driver’s licenses of people who drive while intoxicated. Using sobriety checkpoints. Putting health promotion efforts into practice that influence economic, organizational, policy, and school/community...

Young people: At all levels of blood alcohol concentration (BAC), the risk of being involved in a crash is greater for young people than for older people.    Among drivers with BAC levels of 0.08 % or higher involved in fatal crashes in 2009,  more than one out of every 3 were between 21 and 24 years of age (35%).  The next two largest groups were ages 25 to 34 (32%) and 35...

Every day, almost 30 people in the United States die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. This amounts to one death every 48 minutes.  The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totals more than $51 billion. How big is the problem? In 2009, 10,839 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for nearly one-third (32%) of all traffic-related deaths...

In 2009, there were 10,839 fatalities in crashes involving a driver with a BAC of .08 or higher – 32% of total traffic fatalities for the year.   Traffic fatalities in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes decreased by 7.4 percent from 11,711 in 2008 to 10,839 in 2009. The alcohol-impaired-driving fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) decreased to 0.36 in 2009 from 0.39 in 2008.   An...