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60 free Safety trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
53 free Safety trivia questions with answers. Safety trivia is a staple of workplace toolbox talks, school assemblies and Safety Week contests, and this set is built to be used for exactly that. Fifty-three questions cover fire safety (the fire triangle, extinguisher classes, stop drop and roll, smoke and CO alarms), first aid (CPR rates, the Heimlich manoeuvre, the recovery position, AEDs), road safety (the three-point seat belt, airbags, BAC limits, texting risk), workplace safety (OSHA, hard hats, lockout-tagout, PPE, hazard symbols) and home and outdoor safety (drowning, lightning, sun, food temperatures). A good share are easy enough for kids and new hires: what number to call, what to do if your clothes catch fire, what a scarecrow of a bear tells you about wildfires. The hard ones ask who invented the seat belt, when 911 was first dialled and what the biohazard symbol was designed for. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the topics involved, and each question shows the sentence that backs it up. Useful for training, but not a substitute for it.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01If your clothing catches fire, what three-step technique are children taught?
Stop, drop and roll
It is taught to kids, emergency crews and industrial workers, mainly in North America.
Q 02The fire triangle shows a fire needs heat, fuel and what third element?
Oxygen
Throwing a fire blanket over a blaze works by cutting off that third side of the triangle.
Q 03Fires involving ordinary solids such as paper and wood fall into which category?
Class A
Class B is flammable liquids and, under the European scheme, Class C is flammable gases.
Q 04The first record of a fire extinguisher is a 1723 patent by which English chemist?
Ambrose Godfrey
Captain George Manby's portable pressurised 'Extincteur' followed in 1816, using pearl ash solution and compressed air.
Q 05Household smoke detectors sense smoke either optically or by which other process?
Ionization
The first single-station smoke detector was invented in 1970 and went on sale the following year.
Q 06The gas that CO alarms detect is nicknamed the 'silent killer' because it is what?
Colourless and odourless
Alarms are designed to sound within 60 minutes at 70 ppm but immediately at 500 ppm or more.
Q 07What is the recommended rate of chest compressions during adult CPR?
100 to 120 per minute
Compressions should be 5 to 6 cm deep, and untrained rescuers are told to skip the breaths and just push.
Q 08The Heimlich manoeuvre is used to treat what emergency?
Choking
The rescuer stands behind the victim and applies pressure just below the diaphragm; it is also called an abdominal thrust.
Q 09An AED delivers an electric shock to correct which heart rhythm?
Ventricular fibrillation
The devices talk the rescuer through every step, which is why they are taught in basic first aid classes.
Q 10The recovery position is used for a casualty who is unconscious but still what?
Breathing
Lying on the back can let the airway close; lying on the side keeps it open and lets fluid drain.
Q 11Which Swedish carmaker introduced the three-point seat belt as standard in 1959?
Volvo
Engineer Nils Bohlin then proved its worth in a study of 28,000 Swedish accidents.
Q 12Early airbags inflated using a small explosion of which compound instead of compressed air?
Sodium azide
Allen Breed's sensor could set one off in under 30 milliseconds; GM put them in fleet Impalas in 1973.
Q 13The first crash test dummy, built in 1949 to test aircraft ejection seats, had what name?
Sierra Sam
Today's Hybrid III dummies come in sizes for a ten-year-old, a six-year-old, a three-year-old and a grown man.
Q 21The first American hard hat, patented in 1919, was made of what?
Canvas, glue and paint
E. W. Bullard came home from World War I with a steel helmet and turned the idea into the 'Hard-Boiled hat' for miners.
Q 22Lockout-tagout procedures ensure that dangerous equipment cannot be what during maintenance?
Restarted
Every hazardous energy source has to be isolated and rendered inoperative before work starts.
Q 23In the hierarchy of hazard controls, which two measures sit at the top as most effective?
Elimination and substitution
Personal protective equipment sits at the bottom, as the last line of defence.
Q 14By roughly how much does texting while driving raise crash risk, per the US DOT?
23 times
Polls regularly find that over 30 percent of US drivers admit to having recently texted at the wheel.
Q 15The world's first numeric speed limit, set in Britain in 1861, was how fast?
10 mph
The 1865 'Red Flag Act' cut it to 2 mph in towns and 4 mph in the country.
Q 16The first electric traffic light was built in 1912 by a policeman where?
Salt Lake City
Lester Wire's design came 44 years after gas-lit signals went up outside the Houses of Parliament in London.
Q 17The black-and-white striped zebra crossing was first trialled in which country?
United Kingdom
A thousand experimental crossings went in during a 1949 Pedestrian Safety Week, and the first permanent one was marked in Slough in 1951.
Q 18The first 911 emergency call in the United States was made in 1968 in which state?
Alabama
Britain had been using 999 since 1937, and Winnipeg was the first North American city with a central number in 1959.
Q 19The first Poison Control Center opened in 1953 in which US city?
Chicago
Its founder had become the man the whole country phoned about poisonings, taking calls at home around the clock.
Q 20OSHA, the US workplace safety regulator, was created by a law signed by which president?
Richard Nixon
The Occupational Safety and Health Act became law on December 29, 1970, and the agency sits inside the Department of Labor.
Q 24Which California professor developed the ground-fault circuit interrupter in 1961?
Charles Dalziel
He had spent years estimating exactly how much current it takes to send a human heart into fibrillation.
Q 25The biohazard symbol was designed in 1966 by an engineer at which chemical company?
Dow
Charles Baldwin wanted a symbol that was memorable but meant nothing else, so it could be taught from scratch.
Q 26The three-bladed radiation trefoil symbol was designed in 1946 at which university's radiation lab?
UC Berkeley
The first versions were magenta on a blue background rather than today's black on yellow.
Q 27Which symbol is used internationally to warn of poison?
Skull and crossbones
Pittsburgh's Mr. Yuk sticker was invented because children associated the pirate flag with adventure rather than danger.
Q 28Kevlar, the fibre in bulletproof vests, was invented at DuPont in 1965 by which chemist?
Stephanie Kwolek
By tensile strength-to-weight it is five times stronger than steel, and its first commercial use was in racing tyres.
Q 29Smokey Bear's slogan was updated in 2001 from 'Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires' to prevent what?
Wildfires
The change came after huge fires in grasslands, and to make clear he was not opposing prescribed burns.
Q 30The real bear cub who became the living Smokey was rescued in 1950 from a fire in which state?
New Mexico
The five-pound cub was found after the Capitan Gap fire and lived out his life at the National Zoo in Washington.