The conference I was at in the UK was on stair design research. Apparently stair related hospitalizations are on the rise. In Ontario, 10 people are hospitalized every day due to a stair related injury. The funny thing is people generally blame themselves if they fall even though the problem is often with the stairs.
One reason for the increase in falls may be due to a 'top of flight' defect as Jake Pauls calls it. The irregularity at the top step is caused by builders not putting a nosing on the top step. Jake says 75% of homes in Canada have this problem. It's easy to check. Just sight along the stairs and you'll be able to see if spacing changes as it does in the photo above at the top step. I was shown many case studies where people broke hips, cracked their skulls and died as a result of this defect. Often this problem can be solved by simply adding a nosing to the top step for minimal cost.
Go check your stairs now.
Graph and Photo credit: Jake Pauls.
Link of the day:
I don't agree with everything he's talking about...but it's worth a listen.
Ok...really...go check your stairs.
