cblaisd

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ght=hotel+fire

darthbimmer

Wanting to leave one's room door unlocked as a fire "safety" precaution is both irrational and almost completely unhelpful. I don't know if anybody has ever died in a hotel fire because they couldn't manage to unlock their own door. Far more common threats to one's personal fire safety are 1) being reluctant to take meaningful action when there is an alarm or some indication of smoke or fire, and 2) not knowing where exits routes are well enough to use them in the event of an emergency when there may be poor lighting, smoke in the air, and panicking people. See the excellent link in cblaisd's post above.

steveben53

Seeing that you seem to be so knowledgeable about how people react when they are woken up at 3.00 am by a fire alarm, when they are in an unfamiliar environment, perhaps you will enlighten us as to which hotel you were in to gain such a wonderful insight, when the fire took hold

If, however, you have not experienced such a situation, may I respectfully suggest that it is your comments that are less than helpful

exilencfc

I think it is a good idea to lock/unlock the door a few times when you move into the room so you create a muscle memory of how to unlock it - makes it more likely you will unlock it first time in the event of fire.

Annalisa12

I did notice that the male employees at the St Regis in Singapore did the evening turn down service with the door closed when my husband and I were home, but the female room attendants always left the door open.

Doc Savage

Dominique Strauss-Kahn must have been staying there.

You want to go where?

From an emotional perspective, you may be right that some people feel uncomfortable securing their doors. However, as a practical matter, I have experienced 2 hotel fires and 2 apartment building fires. The hotel fires and one of the aprtment building fires were minor, the other apartment fire was not minor, although in the end no one was injured and damage was limited to one small area. The smoke in the hallway was thick and flames were visible.

I agree with darthbimmer that it is more important to know where the fire exits are and to not delay in using them. Unless you are prone to panic, unlocking even an unfamiliar hotel door will not take more than 20-30 seconds. Far more time is wasted by most people (including myself before the above experiences) trying to decide whether it is a false alarm and getting lost in unfamiliar hallways.

My company offers travel security training, including hotel safety. They emphasized knowledge of the exits and responding promptly to fire alarms. They do encourage locking doors and using the security bar which has replaced chain locks.

BadgerBoi

I'd be more concerned about finding the door in the first place. I've removed chains, bars, bolts or whatever a million times, that action to unlock the door would be second nature to me when I got to the exit, even in the dark or with my eyes closed.

MaxBuck

The incidence of hotel and motel fires in the U.S. has dropped precipitously since 1990. It's still a good idea to make sure you identify egress points when you check into your place of lodging, but it's no longer a sign of hopeless irresponsibility if you don't.

https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/...tics/v10i4.pdf

Badenoch

That's true in the U.S. and most other developed countries. But in many places in the world fire standards are much laxer. I've stayed in a few places in developing countries that were worrisome and one in a rural part of the former Soviet Union that was downright frightening.

MaxBuck

No doubt. To reiterate, my comments relate to U.S. lodging. Though I suspect western Europe would offer similar statistics.

steveben53

The fact remains that however familiar you are with the fire exits, if you are in a panic, like most people would be in a fire situation, you could lose vital seconds fiddling around with dead bolts at the like. It really is a judgement call, but on balance, so far as I am concerned, if it is a complicated locking mechanism, I will not use it

MSPeconomist

To me, the scary doors have always been the old fashioned ones in older European buildings where you insert the key in the lock to lock the door from the inside. If someone tries to enter with a key from the outside, this isn't supposed to be possible but usually they manage to knock the key to the floor and it might end up rolled under a piece of furniture or lost among long fabric window coverings. You cannot open the door to get out without inserting the key just so and turning it in the correct direction.

You want to go where?

Most of my travel is in developing countries and yes, the fire standards are often worrisome.

I guess that I have never encountered a complicated locking mechanism, at least no more complicated than the mechanism I use at home, and normally less. Certainly, I have never encountered a deadbolt mechanism which was at all complicated. In most modern hotels, you don't have to do anything. Pushing down on the door handle (from the inside) also draws back the deadbolt. At most, you have to turn a lever.

caverunner17

I will say, a number of these posts come off as extremely paranoid... But I guess back in college most of us wouldn't lock our back doors except during breaks and we never had a single issue. Well, ok, we did. A drunk Freshman friend of ours came in and stole some cereal...

On a serious note though, In the number of hotels I've stayed in, the only time I've locked a secondary lock is when my GF and I were sharing the room with another couple and we wanted a little alone time.

I've stayed in youth hostels in the following places without issue: Amsterdam, Brussels, Brugge, Boston, Dublin, Istanbul, Madrid, Minneapolis, Paris, and Sevilla. Never once had a single problem.

I'm not stupid and leave money laying around, but at the same time, I never go out of my way either. If someone really wanted to steal my tablet or whatever, they easily could. I guess I have some faith in humanity?

That being said, I don't usually travel with stuff that I can't replace either.