British Plugs Are Better Than All Other Plugs, And Here's Why

Yep, I'm going all patriotic again. And while I'm willing to bet that a good number of British folks know the first half of this video, there's one thing about slack in here that I only just learned myself.

[venomfanex]

Pro tip: Concerned about stepping on a British plug in the dark of night? Simply scatter Lego around it in order to warn you of imminent pain.

[TheDoctorPretzel]

I'm a plumber and sometimes have to do electrical work, I've been using Tom's qoute "brown Is the colour your trousers will go if you touch it" to identify live my whole career

[Micha-Hil]

"you need to have a really inventive baby to be able to put one in there and another in there and then get a shock"
honestly if a baby managed to electrocute themselves from a British plug I wouldn't even be shocked I'd just be impressed by the ingenuity of that baby

[kyvwupm]

You didnt mention that the cable colours are chosen so that A “green-red” colour-blind electrician can identify them.

[jonevenrobberstad]

Mums in Britain bragging about how smart their kids were since they got killed by an eletrical plug.

[cyberhopser]

To be fair to the European plugs: if they are built according to standard the pins also are insulated far enough so you can't touch blank live metal. Aditionally the socket is recessed so you can't even reach the pins once you start plugging it in

[SgtDreamz]

I loved the fact that each plug had a fuse when I lived in England. The power voltages are different than what I was used to in the US, and a few fuses blew on me and knowing about this made life a lot easier. And you didn't even mention that individual outlets have their own "On/Off" switch. To this day, that fact has struck me as genius.

[IgnoredAdviceProductions]

“I can’t imagine what’s worse than stepping on a plug in the middle of the night”

“A land mine”

[andywithers]

Another interesting fact is that the reason the earth wire is two colours (green and yellow) is to ensure that anyone with colourblindness can always identify it and thus ensure the earth is ALWAYS connected to the right pin.

[sgtvoro]

1:09 - With today's standard EU equipment you can't expose live metal by half plugging.
You either have an earth-less plug that has plastic neck on their pins (like UK ones)
or you have an earthed plug which has full metal pins, but the plug fills the whole socket so it won't allow you to touch metal when it makes contact.

[Accio_Eloise]

Camera operator: I didn't see that coming!
Tom: no-one ever does...

Mate, this guy is a low-key comic genius and I love it!! 👌 I feel like Tom could do an excellent English-style humour sketch show that's both massively informative and hilarious.

[Marozi]

When I was a kid, if we got anything electrical for xmas we also got a plug wrapped seperately to go with it which always had a label on it saying it was from the cat 😂

[collinsahibjohn]

This guy talks about stuff that SHOULD be boring, But honestly it's really fascinating.

edit : jeez this has blown up wth

[corrigenda]

Regarding leaving plugs on the floor to hurt you when you step on them: In the UK you don't need to do that because many sockets have switches so you just leave the device plugged in but switched off. Another UK safety feature.

[stillstanding]

You could also have mentioned the physical size and shape of the conductor pins. They offer a greater surface area in contact with the socket terminals over round pins. This reduces contact resistance and heating effect at higher currents.

[saprogeist]

Tom Scott is old enough to have been taught how to wire plugs in school, and I'm young enough not to have ever thought of that as a common skill... and we were only born a little over eleven years apart. That's fascinating to me.

[bend]

"The electricity could ground itself through you... and through your heart... which is bad..." - I love a bit of british understatement.

[RyanVitt]

As an American... I do have to concede this one. I had the privilege of living in Ireland for a few years, and I did grow quite fond of the British plugs. The only thing I would also add is that the walls all have a switch on them as well! Instead of unplugging the cord when you are not using it you can just flip the socket off using the switch. I always thought that was quite cool

[ncubesays]

I live in Zimbabwe and the house we moved into had South African type M sockets. For some reason, depending on who or when your house was built, you either get South African type M or British type G in this country. We switched all the sockets to British type G for their safety. This also means having a box of spare plugs and a screwdriver handy to rewire any new appliances that come with type M plugs.

[colinsmith]

During WW2 I was evacuated with my mother to a place near Bradford where all the sockets were two pin and round being a nosey kid I stuck my finger in one, well it was finger sized wasn't it, apparently I was propelled across the room at great speed and no doubt Mum had to change my nappy. Now 77 years of age I still have the scar on my index finger it must have given me an interest in electricity because I became an aircraft electrician.