I comment as an elevator consultant who is currently handling four deaths on elevators. And many more in the past. Also as a member of the ASME A17.1 Standards Committee that writes the national consensus elevator/escalator safety code. And a member of the State of Illinois elevator board.
Illinois adopted the nationally accepted standard, which is written by a consensus process and approved by the American National Standards Institute and the Canadian Standards Association. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers A17.1 committee has a balanced membership participating in the process. The process is long and perhaps tiresome, but results in an excellent safety code.
Perhaps Ms. Langer should ask the relatives of the two people who died in Cincinnati when a hydraulic elevator fell, how they feel about the issue. Or she can ask the 12 people in Chicago who were injured when a hydraulic elevator fell (1 died, which I ascribe to a different cause, but I’m not an M.D.).
If a hydraulic elevator in Illinois falls with a passenger(s), there will be serious injury or death as has happened before.
The building owners owe the highest duty of care to the people using the elevators. This delay is wonderful if you are a plaintiff’s lawyer.
The testifying elevator experts are cutting into their potential income by supporting the Elevator Safety Law. But we do it anyway.
So government interferes in many ways. Seat belts? Alcohol and driving? Speeding? Stopping at red lights? Wearing personal protective equipment on construction sites? TSA screening at airports? Which of these is Ms. Langer willing to ignore and place herself in danger?
Richard A. Gregory
