There are only a few rules to follow when you are in an elevator and general etiquette always wins out if you are concerned about what you are doing. Don’t stand too close to fellow passengers if you can help it. Don’t cough without covering your mouth. Don’t stare at another passenger for the whole ride. However much we all follow these rules of the lift, sometimes there are things that drive people to throw the rules out the window.

In this blog we have talked about some elevator promotions involving advertising inside and outside of elevators that use optical illusions to enhance the imagery of a campaign. Currently, there is one campaign going on at an office building in London that looks normal – no visual effects, just pictures of Jaffa Cakes – a pastry – on the elevator walls. There’s one difference – if you break convention and lick the cakes, you taste the cake.

This idea, developed by Jaffa Cakes’ manufacturer McVitie, was inspired by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the famous book by Roald Dahl. According to Mail Online, staff members at the building seem to enjoy the campaign, but with some reservations:

“It seems like a brilliant idea to life the mood of workers – sticking more than 1,300 Jaffa Cakes to the walls of an office block’s lift. But with the average person’s tongue home to billions of bacteria, some will ask if this outlandish stunt really is a good idea.”

However, the project (which took a month to install) has a caveat that should make germaphobes a lot happier – the cakes are removable:

“Addressing the hygiene issue, a Jaffa Cakes spokesman said: ‘The wallpaper consists of Jaffa Cake-flavoured stickers which are removed and replaced once licked. ‘Once a Jaffa Cake flavoured spot is licked the spot is removed by a lift attendant who is in the lift the whole time staff have access. His job is to stop any licking crossover, and potential germ spreading.’”

What do you think about this ambitiously eccentric campaign?

If you’ve ever been on a cruise ship before, you know how easy it can be to forget that you are floating in the middle of the ocean. In fact, with all of the luxuries fit onto the ocean liner, you might even think you’re in a fancy hotel that rocks a little bit now and then. There are restaurants, dance clubs and usually an entire casino packed onto these boats. Obviously, these boats have to have elevators to be up-to-date with handicapped accessibility regulations.

This goes double for ferries that act as public transit for citizens to get from one side of rivers to the other. In a lot of cases, these ferries serve a greater purpose – they can seriously speed up travel time. Sometimes these boats need to be refitted to work within current regulations, which is the case with the Park City ferryboat in CT. According to the Connecticut Post:

“The Park City is the oldest of the three ferries the company operates. Constructed in 1986 in Palatka, Fla., it’s now at the Thames Shipyard and Repair Co. for what’s described as a major $2 million refit. The most important phase of the project is the installation of a second elevator, which is being welded in place near the stern to put the boat in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

The article says that even though the boat was fitted with an elevator in the mid-1980s, when the boat was initially constructed. Although this elevator has served its purpose, the new installation of a second custom lift will bring the boat into compliance with current regulations. Each custom elevator will have its own purpose:

“…the old elevator will be used only for freight. Unlike the old one, the larger new elevator will access all three decks, including the sun deck up top.”

When you look into the world of accessibility devices like elevators, wheelchair lifts and custom elevators, a lot of the problems that arise come from local and state-level governments figuring out how to allot funds and start projects. Like any other organized process, councils must approve dates, budgets and other bureaucratic items before any type of project can begin. However, this sometimes puts the disabled and elderly at a loss, especially when it comes to mobility in public places.

This was the problem in Glenarden, MD, where handicapped citizens have been waiting for a new elevator to be installed in a local municipal building. According to Maryland Community News Online, the initial development had stopped due to funding and contractor issues:

“[Interim City Manager Donald] Bell said Wilkins could start work immediately upon approval and would replace Forestville-based Roane Construction Co., which the city paid $7,000 out of its surplus fund in 2011 as a payment for eventual work, only to learn that money went straight to the state because Roane owed the state money for an unrelated project, Bell said Monday.”

The article says this issue, although important, has negative consequences for handicapped residents of Glenarden. Census data from 2010  says that 11.6% of the citizens are age 65 and older, which doesn’t account for any disabled residents who would also need elevators. The reasons for installing a new elevator are due to this data and the difficultly some have faced with travelling around the James R. Cousins Jr. Municipal Center. There are still problems with obtaining funds for the expensive plan:

“The city has $167,000 in state bond bill money to complete the project, but Wilkins’ $178,000 estimate includes an additional $11,000 in county permits that the city is covering with city reserve funds…”

Luckily, people who need home elevators have a much easier time obtaining permits for installation. These types of devices are absolutely essential for confidence and self esteem, so let’s hope the Glenarden council can figure out its problems.

Once an election year is over in the United States, it seems like there is maybe 6 months of reprieve before the next campaign begins to win the Presidency. Most of the time, this begins to mount from the opposition party, starting with a vetting process that heads toward the future direction of the next election. As you know from watching TV, the candidates like to attack the current President – Barack Obama – while the President responds by attacking right back. The information used to attack can sometimes be serious and other times silly. Here’s an example that falls in between, depending on your  political allegiance.

According to the New York Times, a special type of home elevator installation has been brought into the discussion for the 2012 presidential election, as an example of Republican hopeful Mitt Romney’s ‘image as a man of the people.’ In this case, it is Romney’s car elevator, located at his oceanfront home in San Diego, that is being used by the Democratic Party:

“Plans for the expansion, first reported by Politico and later obtained by The New York Times from a rival campaign, include a split-level, four-car garage with a “car lift,” an outdoor shower, and a 3,600-square-foot basement.”

We have discussed car elevators in this blog before and they primarily act as a way for high-rise apartment residents to get into their car without having to descend to a parking garage. Simply pull your car into the elevator and be transported to your floor. The article says that Obama’s team is using Romney’s plans for such an elevator to show how far removed from the low and middle class Romney is. However Romney’s campaign has defended the car elevator, albeit with a snarky response from Obama’s camp:

“The Romney campaign said that a ‘car elevator’ was simply a mechanism for storing cars in tight spaces, but that hasn’t stopped Mr. Romney’s rivals from jumping on the details of the planned expansion. [A] spokesman for President Obama’s re-election campaign, wrote, ‘But while Governor Romney has been quite specific about putting the finishing touches on his car elevator in La Jolla, he has hid many of his domestic and foreign policy plans under lock and key.’”

Do you think this might help or hurt Romney’s chances to secure the Republican nomination?