Transcript:
[showerthoughtsofficial]: When medication says “do not operate heavy machinery” they’re probably mainly referring to cars, but my mind always goes to forklift.
[sauntervaguelydownward]: It has honestly never occured to me that this warning was about cars and not construction equipment
I mean it is definitely both, but cars are the heavy machinery most likely to be operated by the average person on a regular basis
In my language that section of the leaflet always reads “Driving and working with heavy machinery”. So forklifts and industrial machinery do indeed fit.
I really like that you put the transcript right into the post text so the helpful human doesn’t have to do it.
reddit never let you do that, thankfully this does.
I never think of cars as equipment
Its poor language probably on purpose.
I agree. It would not take much extra copy to say do not drive vehicles or opreate heavy machinery.
I swear I’ve actually heard that in some TV ads (US) but most of the country’s population doesn’t have the option of not driving vehicles
Which is specifically why for-profit pharmaceuticals use the vague language. They want to make sure they can’t be sued when someone falls asleep at the wheel after taking their medicine so they point to the warning and say “not our problem, they were warned and did it anyway.”
But if they specified “do not drive,” then people would look for the medicine that didn’t say “do not drive,” and use that instead.
“Do not operate anything that moves or anything you would not want to be under” would work
For me, it’s excavators
Just a wrench. But a really big, really heavy, wrench.
I wouldn’t trust someone on heavy medication to operate a plumbing monkey wrench or even a standard hammer without smashing fingers.
Neither would I. Even if they can safely complete tasks, their workflow is wonky. This is slow work at best, counter-productive at worst.
But the bottle directions are don’t operate heavy machinery. That line needs to be somewhere. I propose if you can’t deadlift the machinery, it’s too heavy to operate.
It depends, your body does adapt overtime. the meds I’m on when I first took them knocked me out completely, now they do nothing in terms of alertness. I am now completely safe to drive on them.
I can get behind the deadlift rule!
Wouldn’t they specify cars? I think some medication does say “do not drive”
