Hair dryer safety hazards

When the electrician said safer he meant from an electric shock, not in terms of causing a fire. UK plugs are fused and earthed – if there is a short the fuse blows, cuts the current and prevents the cord from burning and starting a fire.

Electricity to put it very simply has two components, the volts and the amps. If the voltage is reduced, the amperage has to be increased proportionally to get the same amount of power out of the appliance.

Medically, it is worse to be exposed to high amperage than voltage. So actually, the Japanese system is physically less safe than the European system.

I should qualify that and say that if both systems are above the minimum required level of safety, then it doesn’t much matter if one is even safer.

The UK system has a lot of safety interlocks such as a built in earth, a switch on every socket, and shields which close off the live socket slots when there isn’t a plug inserted.

In comparison, the Japanese system is more or less to jam a couple of metal prongs into a hole in the wall. It looks much less safe but I don’t know if it really is less safe in practice.

I haven’t been able to find accident statistics on Teh Google.