Ah! Some hope remains!

[Caveat Emptor]

Retailers and manufacturers seem to be getting the point about the danger of those GODAWFUL plastic packages that almost require a CHAINSAW to open (they result in 6000 ER visits a year!!

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/play...26721&src=news

[lordlundar]

*watches clip*

Wait, what? Blast their way into the packaging? A little counter intuitive there?

[One-Fang]

Zips? Heheheh.

About time they did something about those packagings.

[PossJB]

Some general blade safety tips:

1. Always cut away from yourself

2. Make sure the blade is sharp (a lot of injuries are caused by pushing too hard with a dull blade)

3. The pointy end goes into the other guy

[Fenrus]

3. The pointy end goes into the other guy

...so THAT's been my problem this entire time! Gahh...

[Hon'ya-chan]

Now if they will cut mall hours this Holiday Season due to the economic slowdown, we're all set!!

[One-Fang]

No I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there.

Cut away from yourself? That's awkward at best. It's much more natural to draw the knife towards yourself. I think it would be more dangerous to try to cut outwards in such an unnatural and cumbersome position, than to sensibly draw towards yourself.

Just make sure the 'yourself' is a reasonable distance from whatever's cutting. Put it on a table or something and don't hug it to your guts while slicing.

[Broomjockey]

No I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there.

Um, you can disagree, but that's how they train chefs, woodcarvers, and any profession that works with a blade as part of their job.

[One-Fang]

Fair enough. If you're professional then there's two things going for this. Firstly, you're doing this A LOT. If you're doing it a real lot, then the safest way possible is absolutely necessary. Second, if you're doing it a lot, you get used to whatever way you're trained.

I open one of those packages maybe 4-5 times a year. It would be clumsy for me to do it any other way than I do now. I see clumsy as less safe than taking reasonable precautions on the 'towards' pull.

[lordlundar]

Cut away from yourself? That's awkward at best. It's much more natural to draw the knife towards yourself.

The original point of reference is to keep the handle as the most likely thing to hit you if you lose control, in other words, pointy end AWAY from you.

[Broomjockey]

I open one of those packages maybe 4-5 times a year. It would be clumsy for me to do it any other way than I do now. I see clumsy as less safe than taking reasonable precautions on the 'towards' pull.

Clumsy for you, but if you tried the other way a few times, you might find yourself becoming less clumsy. I know for me it took a few times, but if I have a decent knife, I can now get those packages open fairly quickly, because I can use my whole arm to push behind a sawing motion. However, a case of "sticking with what you were trained doing" is perfectly fine. Just keep in mind that it's actually both less safe and less efficient.

[Ljt09863]

.It's much more natural to draw the knife towards yourself.

...are you speaking to us, or one of your horrible SCs?