SUMMARY: The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced that it has approved new safety standards for baby strollers and carriages. The new standards address the most serious problems that have resulted in recalls over the past five years.
In an effort to make strollers safer, the CPSC is adopting new federal safety standards that address some serious design flaws in current stroller models. The agency analyzed all the incident reports over the past five years — and the results were sobering.
Nearly 1,300 reports of stroller malfunctions have been filed since 2008. Close to 400 of these incidents involved injuries, and 4 resulted in fatalities. That's far too many, the CPSC concluded.
The most common problems with strollers resulting in injuries involved folding mechanisms, restraints, lock failures, and wheel problems. Hinge issues caused the highest injury rates; of the 75 incidents reported, 72 resulted in injuries such as pinching, lacerations, and amputations.
New safety standards will address all these issues. Stroller manufacturers will now be required to improve warning labels and assembly instructions, alerting consumers about possible hazards. They will run more rigorous tests for parking brakes, locking mechanisms, hinges, restraints, wheels, and overall stability. Strollers must past tests to show that any adjustable features (e.g. areas that pose a pinch or entrapment hazard) will secure firmly in place.
The most intensive testing will focus on all the moving parts involved in folding the stroller. Manufacturers must prove that the hinges, folding bars, and locking mechanisms pose minimal risks to parents and children when used correctly.
Data shows that about 99 percent of new mothers own at least one stroller. So these mandatory safety improvements for strollers are critical (and, some would argue, long overdue). With all the recent stroller recalls that have occurred, it's time to raise the bar and address the recurrent hazards.
We've owned five strollers in the six years since we started having babies. Two of them have been involved in recalls. Our first stroller was recalled because the canopy could pinch little fingers in its hinge. Our third stroller was recalled because the locking mechanism could fail and cause the stroller to spontaneously collapse into the folded position. Yikes.
Luckily, we haven't had any actual injuries from our strollers. That's a good thing, because we've logged many hours and countless miles in them. Our current stroller is an indispensable baby item — definitely something that I want to be as safe as possible, since it carries my most precious cargo.