This article...

• ...is not a legal brief, a justification for bureaucracy nor an in-depth technical discourse on product safety. It's a generalized viewpoint of what you're facing in the current product development world.
  
  
• ...is not meant to venerate political or philosophical justification for or against oversight of citizens and the responsibility for their own actions. It's about 'the way it is' and what you need to do about it if you develop products for consumers, and you don't want to end up in the 'slammer' for pitching a shoddy product.
  
  
• ...but is very pertinent to just about all product industries such as prescription drugs, high-tech, autos, food, industrial machines, consumer electronics, toys, military, etc. Details will differ for each product type, but the global perspective and what you need to know is the same.
  
  
  
  
  
  Safe: "Free from injury or risk; unhurt; without risk of mishap or failure; trustworthy; made incapable of doing harm".
  
  Safety Compliance is the "act or practice of acquiescing or yielding" to standards of safety by testing the product to the standards. These standards are targeted to product categories, their production, their use, the environmental impact and support throughout the products' life to ensure that they can be safely handled and operated in both normal conditions and under conceivable, misuse conditions. Some misuse examples would be: using a hairdryer while in a bath, storing chemicals or drugs in a refrigerator next to food, using a baby car seat but not securing it, using 'indoor only' lights outdoors, etc.