The standard about lighters that Hitchcock would not appreciate
One rule in EN 13869 is widely violated
Would you bet a finger that you can light a lighter ten times in a row?
If this sounds like a twisted game, you’re probably remembering one of the best episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (starring the phenomenal Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre), Tarantino’s Four Rooms, or one of the many other adaptations of this Roal Dahl’s story.
Now, if a piece of your finger were on the line, the first thing you'd want from your lighter is efficiency- or rather, effectiveness. It needs to work every time, no excuses.
Actually, that’s not what the regulations for lighters focus on.
The goal of the lighters regulations isn’t to ensure your lighter works ten times in a row; it’s to make sure it’s safe.
Lighters that are regularly recalled from the European Union market are flagged for being dangerous. Some fail to comply with the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) or the international ISO 9994 standard. But most of these lighters violate another key standard: EN 13869, which sets the requirements for child-resistant lighters.
The first rule of this regulation is: no “novelty lighters.” In other words, no lighters that look like toys, because children might accidentally ignite them while playing.
Sounds simple enough, right? Well, the EU’s Safety Gate system is full of examples of lighters shaped like:
Guns
Boots
Cell phones
Toilets
And my favorite: chocolate bars.
You can explore the full list on the Safety Gate website. As of today, 342 lighter models have been pulled from the EU market.
How is this still happening?
Maybe the regulation is a bit vague… Let's take a look at the actual text of the standard:
"No lighter shall be a child-appealing lighter."
It seems there’s no space for interpretation…
Maybe the issue is that standards like EN 13869 are behind a paywall, and companies can’t afford to buy them? Could it be that translating these standards into Chinese is particularly expensive? 🤔
For now, I’ll leave you with these Hamlet-like questions while I’m pretty sure we will again see creative lighters pulled from the European market in the next months and years. Human imagination has no limits.
Next Tuesday, I’ll dive deeper into EN 13869- a standard that, apparently, only one company in Europe fully complies with. I bet you know it.
P.S. On December 13 2024, the new General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) came into force. Among other updates, it requires businesses to appoint a Responsible Person to keep selling lighters (and many other products) in Europe. More info here.🔥