Knob Very User Friendly, I Suppose

Hey, let’s figure out what dumb rules we haven’t passed yet, and then we’ll pass those!  That ought to prove that government spends too much time thinking about the wrong stuff.

Doorknobs have been banned in Vancouver,  Canada and many residents are up in arms over the new nanny-state rule.

Starting next March, the city will be  requiring the installation of lever handles on all new building doors instead of  round doorknobs.

The City Council passed the new code in  September in an attempt to make the city more accessible to the disabled and  elderly.

It’s only for new buildings, and not retroactive for older ones.  At least not yet, until they decide that any retrofit needs to use those rules as well.  Ostensibly, this will make it easier for the elderly or the disabled to open doors.  I’m sure that voice commands will be enabled as soon as technology allows.

I don’t think that the intent is all that dumb.  The lovely wife has had wrist problems in the past that meant she couldn’t turn regular knobs.  But really… does the government really need to dive to this level of minutiae when instead it could focus on balancing budgets or something more useful?  I can’t say that the city of Vancouver has an unbalanced budget, I’m just guessing… since focusing on doorknobs probably means that the council is missing the point.

Ah, government…