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Joined: Mar 2000
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Jackie Offline OP
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From a Newsweek article:

A warning on a small tractor that reads "Danger: Avoid Death" has been chosen as the nation's wackiest warning label by an anti-lawsuit group.

The Wacky Warning Label Contest, now in its 11th year, is conducted by Novi-based Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch as part of an effort to show the effects of lawsuits on warning labels. ...

The $250 second place was given ... for a label they found on an iron-on T-shirt transfer that warns: "Do not iron while wearing shirt."

... earned the $100 third-place prize for a label on a baby stroller featuring a small storage pouch that warns: "Do not put child in bag."

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Reminds me of a gag on an old episode of the David Letterman Show, in which a viewer wrote in to ask what was that tag on the back of helmets that NFL players wear. Dave produced a football helmet and the camera zoomed in to show the text on the label: Insert head here.

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That's great, Jackie, thanks! I found a photo:



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It's funny, but it's also serious. I fear that our lives are so full of unnecessary and useless clutter that we often miss things that we need to see, because our brains have been trained to filter out most of it.

A partial solution might be to limit certain kinds of signs from certain venues and to disbar and publicly cane lawyers who bring suits based on the lack of signs that say obvious things.

You can't get lawn jarts any more, because a guy's kid was killed with one and the package failed to warn him that hurling a 1 pound spike in the vicinity of a small child was potentially hazardous.

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And it's not like it just said AVOID DEATH. It gives you three definite steps to help you AVOID DEATH.

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"It gives you three definite steps "
Some help...they left out "breathe."

Perhaps this particular sign shouldn't have made the idiocy list, but there are many, many that should.

Last edited by TheFallibleFiend; 12/14/07 01:19 PM.
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Then when you've succesfully followed the three steps and step down there's the inevitable banana peel.

( any case history of a lawyer taking the defence of a banana peel? )


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