To those who feel that it is possible to stop 'wrongdoers' from using fire exits, when they shouldn't, by some sort of design layout of the premises, should realise that this is probably only partly possible at the building construction design stage, and, even then, there are always constraints that will cause 'weak points' in the design. Also, sometimes a building is eventually used for a purpose other than it was originally designed for and even though the fire exits are in the right places for escape, they are not for secuity purposes. If it was possible to easily 'design out' all the potential security risks in every building, in every case, then surely it would be done. No-one wants to spend the extra money on fitting mag-locks etc., if a similar or better solution was available.
To those who feel that the 'wrongdoers' be given free access/exit on the basis that there is a risk (and it seems that no-one has yet been able to prove the level and liklihood of this risk for an evaluation of whether it is worth taking) of people becoming trapped in a fire due to a failure of the system, I would guess that they have never run a business. Believe it or not, people generally only run businesses to make money! It is how they earn their wages to pay their bills, and feed their families, and also pay their taxes to pay the wages of all those people who are government money funded. Profit is not a four letter word - it pays everyone's wages. Yours and mine. Directly or indirectly.
When a business owner finds that tresspassers, thieves and peeping-toms are costing him money he looks at it as though this money is basically coming from his own pocket. He will obviously be concerned and will need to take steps to protect his livlihood. Or go bust. He won't be helped by anyone if he does go bust through no fault of his own. He also won't have the protection of being able to make a mistake and still get paid (and earn a pension fund) because he hasn't got any 'employment rights' nor does he work for an organisation that doesn't need to make a profit because it 'earns' it's income from taxes.
Surely we can all see that the problem of securing fire exits to avoid their misuse is a very real and big one. Everything we are all suggesting has been tried and found not to be acceptable to one or the other part of the community. Therefore we need to come up with a better solution than those that presently exist.
It would be great if people on this forum could use their combined knowledge, experience and innovative-thinking, to come up with a real solution to this problem together. Any offers?
For my own part, I feel the answer will still involve using the automatically releasing lock scenario, but incorporating enough fail-safes to keep the 'any risk is a too high a risk' advocates happy (even grudgingly! ?)
