I know this wasn't aimed at me, and that you're just playing Devil's Advocate, but I'm gonna answer anyway.
Playing Devil's Advocate here.
So, what happens when your relative sells the house and the new owner thinks it would be a perfect playhouse for the kids?
Then the new owner should take responsibility for his own kids' safety and install tamper-resistant receptacles. This is no different from the argument we sometimes hear regarding things like show window receptacles. You know:
"This is a dentist's office; we won't have any advertising in the front window."
"But what happens when you move out and the next owner/tenant is a clothing store?"
"Then
they can install the show window circuit."
Or, perhaps a more relevant example: If I'm building a new house, do I have to have a receptacle every 12 ft. in my attached garage because the next owner might decide to turn it into a bedroom for his teenager?
The current owner can't be held responsible for what a future owner
might do.
So, what is the correct price to put on a child's life?
This one made me chuckle, because it reminded me of an old episode of The Simpsons. "Will somebody
please think of the children?!"
There are about 21 million children under age 5 in the US. I know it sounds harsh, but 12 out of 21 million is not statistically significant. Now, that being said, we all know that you can't put a price on any child's life. But there are lots of things that could save the lives of more than 12 children a year, but we choose not to do them because they've been deemed too expensive, impractical or inconvenient. And I think I'll stop there before I slip into political territory.
What use would be more wise? Isn't someone gonna profit off of that use as well?
I have no problem with companies making a profit. It just irritates me that they're legally requiring something that's harder to use* and costs more money, while having an almost negligible (statistically speaking) effect on safety. I'd be perfectly happy with TR receptacles being available as a safety upgrade but not required by law (as in the case of the hospital corridors mentioned in the OP). Then I could decide to put them in my 2-year-old's bedroom, but not behind my entertainment center.
*I'm basing "harder to use" on anecdotal evidence from people I know who have TR receptacles in their homes. I don't have them, as my house is twenty-something years old. But the complaints I always hear are: (1) Even if you have your plug lined up perfectly, you have to push really hard to get it to go in; and (2) The little tamper resistant doors don't last long anyway before a plug snaps them off. Now, maybe everybody I know has the cheapest ones available, and more expensive ones would work better; I don't know.
And no I don't work for a receptacle manufacturer.
I do work on a lot of safety issues and these kinds of arguments come up all the time, that people need to be responsible (they do), we can't make it completely safe (we can't), or it costs too much (how much is too much?). But there is usually very little consensus on what is "safe enough." I'm sure that a parent who has lost a child would argue much differently than you or I would.
Can't disagree with you here (I have a feeling this is the part where you stopped playing Devil's Advocate). Unfortunately, the more I think about this issue, the more political it becomes in my mind, and I don't want to go there (plus it's not allowed). It's a question of where the line is between the government's responsibility to protect public safety, and the individual's right to decide what's best for himself and his family. And I don't think we're ever going to find a consensus on that issue.
