Address, “The Prevention of Elevator Accidents”

Mr. Bolton—The preservation of human life and the protection of our fellow-creatures from physical injury, claim prior consideration over conservation of mere materials.

Any form of danger which results in the destruction of life, and exhibits a tendency toward increased developments, invites our systematic investigation. Ameliorative measures, if undertaken in advance of the growth of an evil, are of double value. To one phase of the subject, of the conservation of life, I desire to direct your attention.

The increase of fatalities and injuries resulting from the extensive use of passenger elevators has become sufficiently marked to deserve careful attention by those who are concerned with the benefit of our fellow-citizens. Complete statistics as to the number of accidental occurrences in and about elevators of all classes throughout the country are not available, but an estimate based upon such official returns as relate to labor alone, indicate that the annual total is now probably in excess of seven thousand, of which probably three-fourths are of a preventable character.

From small beginnings, the roll of such accidents reported by the New York Department of Labor, which it is conceded do not cover all such occurrences, rose in 1909 to a total for five years of 1,600 injured persons, of whom 198 were killed and about 298 permanently disabled.

The Wainwright-Phillips Commission of the New York State Legislature reported in 1911 a list of injuries and deaths, in the three years 1907 to 1910, affecting 1,108 persons, of whom 106 were killed and 241 were more or less seriously and permanently crippled. In addition, no less than 200 persons fell down hoistways, of whom 43 were killed outright and 19 permanently injured.

These occurrences took place only on elevators in industrial establishments, and are only those which have been officially reported.

The Industrial Commission of the State of Wisconsin reported for the ten months, September, 1911, to June, 1912, thirty-nine accidents in and upon elevators, and fifteen more due to falls down elevator shafts; all occurring in establishments of various industries. Accidents occurring in transportation were 195, so that the relation of elevator accidents and falls was 28 per cent. of transportation.

That such accidents are duplicated outside the limits of observation of labor departments is indicated by an examination of the reports of the New York county coroners, which show about one hundred deaths annually from elevator accidents in the county of New York only. In the year 1911, in the Borough of Manhattan, there were reported sixty-eight fatalities in connection with elevators, about two hundred permanent injuries, and probably about three hundred more may be estimated as having sustained lesser injuries.

The fact that accidental occurrences in or about elevators are thus found to be deplorably numerous and increasing is not to be taken as a reflection upon the general security of elevator travel. Their number is relatively small in comparison with the vast number of persons utilizing these appliances. One express schedule elevator handles about 700,000 persons per annum. Further, by far the larger number of mishaps are not due to failure or fault of the elevator itself, but occur in and about the entrances of, or in the hoistways of such apparatus, from persons falling through unguarded openings into elevator shafts, and of course a number are due to the recklessness and incompetence of employes and operators.

It remains the fact, however, that a large part of these occurrences are unnecessary, just as was found to be the case with many of the forms of danger to life and injury to limb which attended the operation of freight and passenger trains prior to the adoption of certain of the safety appliances and methods which have been brought into general use on railroads, as a result of the concentration of public attention upon the subject, and legislative action based thereon. Similar attention and action with the compilation of statistics upon the subject will undoubtedly result in diminishing the number of fatal and injurious occurrences connected with elevator operation.

Some loss of human life and injury to the person may to some extent be regarded as an unfortunately inevitable accompaniment of all forms of motive apparatus, and the complex conditions of modern existence have not only increased this liability by demands for more rapid movement of all forms of mechanical transportation, but the vast increase in the usage of appliances has introduced new elements of danger.

In no class of transportation are the effects of haste and crowding more apparent and dangerous than in the modern means of vertical transportation, use of which is now made by all classes of people. Liability towards accidental occurrences in elevators, therefore, affects the whole public, and it is needless to dilate upon the general concern in, and economic loss resulting from deaths or injury of any member of the community. It may be conservatively estimated that the economic value of the mere services of persons killed in and about elevators, based upon life expectancy, and the loss of time of those injured, would annually exceed the cost of equipment of all passenger and freight elevators with modernized safety appliances.

There are some features connected with elevator accidents which call for consideration and rectification. These have grown up around the development of the appliance in a manner somewhat peculiar to it. The elevator is a transportation apparatus which is for the most part privately operated and owned. Unlike the railroad, it is not regarded by the law as the apparatus of a common carrier. Unlike the road carriage or car, it is not operated upon the public highways. Unlike the machinery of a factory, it is not utilized exclusively by employes.

Its development and use have been, perhaps, too restricted to require the attention of such legislation as has been rather freely applied to the other classes of appliances engaged in transporting human beings.

It has therefore come about that the legal status of the elevator is in a very indefinite condition, its public regulation is generally local and therefore at best erratic, and the liability for the security of its occupants is as varied as the legal practice and rulings of different States.

The results are unfortunate to all concerned except perhaps that part of the legal profession which concerns itself with the prosecution of claims for injuries. Only two States, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, have adopted legislative provisions, of limited character, relating to elevators. The former State provided so long ago as 1895 a requirement for automatic locking devices on all passenger elevators, thus being the pioneer in this direction. The State of Rhode Island by its general law, Chapter 129, requires all elevators “to be equipped with safety appliances to prevent the starting of the elevator car in either direction while any door opening into the elevator is open.”

The State of Wisconsin, by its Industrial Commission law, Chapter 485, of 1911, placed in the hands of that body general power to require safeguards “in all places of employment,” but it does not appear that the powers of the act extend to every class of building in which elevators may or can be employed. Other efforts have been made to effect legislation in the same direction, but have so far failed of enactment.

A bill was introduced in the House of Representatives December 12, 1910, by Mr. W. Bennet, requiring all elevators in the District of Columbia to be provided with gate and car interlocking devices, which bill did not become law. A bill was introduced in 1911 into the Assembly of the State of New York amending the labor law in the direction recommended by the Wainwright-Phillips Commission, and empowering the Commissioner of Labor to require automatic door-locking and car interlocking on all passenger elevators in factories. Senate Bill 911 and Assembly Bill 329 of 1911 were designed to require in general terms the use of “such safety devices as will prevent accidents to persons getting on or off elevator cars and from falling through open doors into the elevator shafts.”

The attention of the American Museum of Safety has been directed for some years towards the accomplishment of some amelioration of existing conditions, and that humane organization made a strong effort to arouse public interest in these measures and to secure their enactment, but without success.

The subject has received some sporadic attention by several public associations, including the National Civic Federation, the American Association for Labor Legislation and the New York Association for Labor Legislation, but without effective results.

With the foregoing exceptions, the obligations of an owner of a building, as regards the security of an elevating appliance, are practically limited to a compliance with the then existing local regulations to the purchase of a device commensurate with the existing state of the art, of a design made by a reputable concern, and to the employment of reasonable care in upkeep and operation.

No legal obligation appears to lie upon an owner to alter or modify the appliance in conformity with greater knowledge of the art, or to add to it greater means of security. Until some unfortunate occurrence has taken place, an owner of property naturally feels unwilling to embark on such expenditures. The present system of liability insurance rather tends to such a situation, as an owner has no inducement in the form of reduced premiums, to expend money upon desirable safeguards. If the liability corporations should concede a substantial reduction of premiums, in connection with appliances dealing with a certain proportion of the risks attending elevator operation, much could be accomplished without the aid of special legislation.

While the law-making powers do not hesitate to direct such measures to be taken with and upon the property of common carriers, they seem to regard the operation of a practically public conveyance within private property as a privileged possession and hesitate to enter the castle of the owner and involve him in enforced expenditures upon a privately operated appliance.

Yet an elevator, whether used for the purpose of the carriage of goods, of tenants, of employes, or of visitors to a building, is a common carrier earning a profit, even if indirectly, for it is as much a source of revenue as is the machinery of a factory around which many enforced safeguards have, by legislation, been thrown.

If, therefore, the owner of a building installs elevators for the convenient carriage of tenants and visitors within his property, he does so because the apparatus enhances the value of that property, and that enhancement is largely due to the public use of the appliance, in which use the unknowing users have some right to legislative protection from results of ignorance or incompetence, of neglect or parsimony.

It has taken a long time for this view of the matter to become even partially recognized, even in the city of New York, in which the use of elevators has multiplied beyond all conception of what seemed probable twenty-five years ago. The number of passenger elevators in the Borough of Manhattan alone, now exceeds nine thousand, and these increase annually by about five hundred new machines. The estimated number of freight elevators, none of which under present circumstances are subject to official inspection, is not less than ten thousand.

The regulations regarding elevators in Manhattan, commencing with feeble beginnings, have advanced under the careful direction of the present Superintendent of Buildings of Manhattan, Rudolph P. Miller, C. E., into the field of interference with private control, and the department is compiling further regulations which will go a long way towards the protection of the public in safeguarding the elevating apparatus they are compelled to use. The Manhattan regulations, while in themselves excellent, are directly applicable to passenger elevators only with such freight elevators as are within the same shaft enclosure as a passenger elevator. They require the operator to be of reliable and industrious habits, not less than eighteen years of age, with at least one month’s experience in his duties.

A number of known elements of unsafe character are prohibited and some constructive features of value are insisted upon. No provision is, however, made for automatic interlocking of gates and car movement, nor are projections in the shaft prohibited. Some good, detailed regulations and suggestions have been issued by the Wisconsin Labor Commission, but these and other State and local regulations could be substantially increased in value, by a thorough technical investigation and settlement.

Some improvement of deficiencies in apparatus existing prior to these rules has been effected by requiring safeguards to be applied upon any alteration or large repair work being sanctioned. This course has brought about the addition of speed safety appliances in a number of old installations where this elementary security was absent.

Later regulations will, in similar manner, require carefully conducted tests of all machines whether new, altered or repaired. Many minor matters of security are or will be thus provided for, yet the limited powers of a bureau can but at best halt in dealing with the entire problem. And when the regulations of Manhattan are made, as they should be, the best possible, it is regrettable that in another city or even in another borough of the same city, the same desirable conditions will not apply.

Yet the security of an elevator requires the same measures of attention, in one State as in another, as much in the merest hamlet as in the great metropolis.

The use of elevators is now widespread through all States, and in all classes of buildings, affecting the convenience and security of all classes of persons; and calling for the establishment of well considered and equalized regulation in every part of the country.

It speaks volumes for the sense of responsibility of our leading manufacturers of elevators, that among all the tens of thousands of machines turned out by such concerns as the Otis Elevator Company and their competitors, accidents due to the physical breakage of the machinery of elevators should be in number only what they are, when they include the failures of machines built in days when the industry was small and the art far less understood than it is at present.

When we reflect upon the fact that the passengers carried in elevators in the city of New York far exceed in number those carried on all the surface and subway lines, we may the more appreciate the point to which I desire specially to direct your attention, namely, the desirability in the public interest of State regulation, and as far as possible, uniform regulation, of the security and operation of elevators. The local regulations may be left to care for details of installation but the State authority is necessary to require elevators to be not only modern but progressively modernized appliances; that no antiquated and essentially dangerous apparatus shall be continued in use, and that necessary safeguards and properly qualified operators shall accompany their operation.

The State may further require that in excessively tall buildings, where the elevators constitute the only practical means of egress in emergency, there shall be a proper sufficiency of such appliances capable of removing the occupants within a reasonably safe period of time.

The limitations of the carrying capacity of an elevator are now well understood, and the safety of operatives in high loft buildings and of tenants in loftier “tower” office buildings, demands that the parsimony of owners and the ignorance of architects should not be allowed to restrict the exit of occupants of such buildings. A second elevator, in the Triangle fire disaster, would not only have saved its capacity in human occupants, but would have averted the fatal overcrowding of the single car which rendered it practically of no avail.

Many loft buildings of twelve stories and some even exceeding twenty stories are in existence in which the elevator accommodation is utterly inadequate for the removal of occupants of upper floors in a reasonable time, in case of emergency. The effectiveness of exterior “fire escapes” and of crooked interior stairways, especially for great heights, is now known to be strictly within certain limitations, and elevators have on many occasions demonstrated their value in the saving of life in panic and fire.

Office buildings are constructed thirty and more stories in height, without fire escapes and with winding stairways which are useless in emergency, and with such limited elevator capacity as would not remove the tenants in less than thirty minutes.

A most important and desirable subject for general action is afforded by provisions for safeguarding elevator gates and doorways. In and about these orifices, as previously observed, a large proportion of unnecessary accidents and fatalities occur. The unlatched door, the open gate, the absence of inner gates, the projecting sill, and the slippery tread, are fruitful causes of deplorable injuries and have caused the unnecessary loss of many precious lives. The proportion which this class of occurrence bears to the total is evidently large. An analysis of a list of four thousand accidental occurrences shows the following proportions:

Per cent.
Getting on or off cars58
Falling through unguarded openings20
Fractures and fall of cars, only17
Mechanics making repairs in shafts, etc4
Unexplained1

A number of devices have been developed during recent years, which have overcome objections to their use in the past, whereby the gates of elevators must be securely locked and fastened before the car can be moved. Six of such devices are approved for use in the State of Pennsylvania. It would seem that so simple a feature eliminating the essential danger surrounding the operation of a car moving vertically between floors in a shaft would long ago have been demanded by every form of authority.

With other engineers, I was at one time opposed to the use of such appliances on the ground of their uncertainty. But the growing volume of fatalities directly attributable to the lack of such safeguards, together with radical improvement in their construction, now demand the opposite conclusion.

There has been particular objection in some large cities to the application of devices for locking the gates, on the ground that the speed of operation on rapid schedule service would be retarded and inconvenience and overcrowding would result. In order to satisfy myself upon this point, I made this year a series of comparative trials of elevators equipped with one such appliance, the Clarke automatic safety devices, and found that no such loss of time in service actually resulted. On the contrary, a trial of the elevators in the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company’s Building, 49 Wall street, New York City, and in the Hotel Imperial, showed that the operators made better time with the device in service, as they were compelled to make more exact landings and thus avoided much of the time frequently wasted in reversals of the car movement.

Under the present circumstances, therefore, it seems that the proper time has arrived for action in this respect, and that the example set by the States of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island may be embodied in careful legislative requirements in other States, which would, at some expense, it is true, to private owners, safeguard the public from those peculiarly present dangers which have taken such unnecessary toll of human life and limb, in the ghastly entanglement between the gate or doorway and the moving car, or the dreadful fall through the opened gate.

It would be very desirable, if, in the investigation of this subject, and the preparation of legislation to deal with it, competent technical and legal ability were employed, as the subject is of a technical character. Some of the legislation already in existence has been worded in so ill-considered a manner, as to give the impression that it was phrased in order to prevent the recovery of damages by injured persons.

The expression of your interest in this matter will tend to strengthen the hands of those who are seeking at present, by the limited means available, to enforce good methods of installation, proper safeguards and proper operation. It will also aid our great manufacturers, who lead the world in the design and construction of these truly American appliances, in securing the proper surroundings and proper care they are constantly urging for the appliances they construct, and will aid humanity by averting some unnecessary wastage of the health and lives of our fellow creatures.

Following Mr. Bolton’s paper he presented the following resolution: