ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 TAG: 9606120017
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: MARKETPLACE
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL
The kids are home for the long, long, long summer, and you want to get them out of the house for a while.
But before you send them out to swing and seesaw and slide off some of their energy in the neighborhood park, you may want to take a closer look at the playground. It may not be as safe as you think, according to a survey conducted by the Consumer Federation of America and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
The consumer groups surveyed 562 playgrounds in 25 states, including Virginia, and discovered that a majority pose hidden hazards: unsafe swings, too-tall slides, and inadequate covering for the ground around the equipment.
In Virginia, a group of Radford University students checked out 15 playgrounds in Blacksburg and Radford, and volunteers with the Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, a CFA member, looked at 10 play areas in Northern Virginia.
Overall, surveyors across the country found some improvements over last year, said Ed Mierzwinski, U.S. PIRG consumer program director.
But playgrounds are still far from ideal, he said. According to the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, every year nearly 150,000 children are injured on public playgrounds seriously enough to require emergency room treatment. An average of 15 children die in playground accidents every year, the agency said.
There are no federal rules for playground construction. The CPSC publishes the Handbook for Public Playground Safety including voluntary safety guidelines. The CFA this year updated its Report and Model Law on Public Play Equipment and Areas, which recommends even stricter regulations for playgrounds.
Here's a partial list of what surveyors found at playgrounds in Virginia and across the nation. The safety standards are based on CPSC and CFA guidelines.
* Protective surfaces. Because three-quarters of all playground injuries are related to falls, the most important feature of a playground isn't the equipment itself, but what's covering the ground around the equipment, said Nancy Chamberlain, a graduate student who led the Radford student surveyors.
Hard surfaces such as concrete, asphalt, grass and soil aren't acceptable by CFA standards, because a fall onto a packed surface from as low as 2 inches can cause head injuries.
To pass CFA's test, playgrounds must have at least 9 inches of a loose surface material - hardwood chips, pea gravel, sand, shredded wood mulch - or be covered by a synthetic surface such as rubber tiles.
Of the 25 playgrounds surveyed in Virginia, 23 of them - 92 percent - failed the surface test. Nationally, the failure rate is 85 percent.
* Swings. Children can be seriously injured if they're hit in the head or face by moving swings, so swings should be spaced apart far enough to prevent collisions.
Swing seats should be made of lightweight, impact-absorbing materials - not wood or metal. Swings shouldn't be attached to other play equipment, and no more than two seats should be suspended in the same section of the support structure.
Nationally, 41 percent of swings failed CFA's tests. In Virginia, 35 percent failed.
* Slides and other climbing equipment. CFA says the highest climbing rung or platform on climbing equipment - or the height of the top of a slide - should not be more than 6 feet for school-age children, or 4 feet on equipment used by preschoolers. In Virginia, 80 percent of local playgrounds surveyed had equipment that was too high.
All climbing equipment should be surrounded by something called a "fall zone," the area under and around the equipment where a child might fall. To reduce injuries, the fall zone should be covered with protective surfacing such as sand or mulch and be free of other equipment or obstacles. The zone should extend a minimum of 6 feet in all directions from the equipment.
Additionally, almost half the Virginia playgrounds - and more than half the parks surveyed nationally - had hazardous equipment such as climbing rings, climbing ropes or track rides.
Even playgrounds that look safe may hold hidden hazards. A child could be strangled, for instance, if he got caught in an opening that was big enough for his feet to fit through but too small for his head, or if his clothing got snagged on an S-hook.
But this doesn't mean that every playground should be torn down and rebuilt from scratch, Chamberlain said. If the equipment in a playground is sound, perhaps the owner - whether a city or a church or a school - can start by upgrading the ground cover, then work on buying new equipment later.
"Do what you need to do to take short-term actions, then set long-term goals," she said. "I don't think it has to be all or none. The goal is to be sure that kids have a place to play."
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