CPSC is at it again-Thinking of banning drop-side cribs

[Anthony Whitesell]

The Wall Street Journal listed an article yesterday (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124034985675140521.html) where the Consumer Products Safety Council is thinking of banning drop-side cribs (where one side lowers to allow easier access to the child) due to safety concerns. ... Further down they note "problems with durability and hardware. Spring pegs have malfunctioned, metal locking pins have popped off, and wooden slats have broken".

I can say this with experience as I have had to review two cribs in the past 20 months (due to the first one being recalled for slats breaking; luckily mine didn't). They use thin wooden slats (1/4" to 3/8" thick and ~1" wide) and plastic hardware. When I push on the bottom of the side to release it, the rail bows more than it moves to drop. I don't know how far the slats are mounted into the rails. If the slats and rails were thicker, the slats installed deeper into the rails, and some of the hardware metal all the problems would be solved.

So they are looking to ban the cribs because they are made with weak wood based on bad designs with cheap/weak plastic hardware. Gotta love our governments perspective on things.

I really wish I had had time to rebuild the sold maple crib I grew up in. There wouldn't have been any mechanical deficiencies.

Rant off. Thank you for listening.

[Brent Leonard]

Personally I'm glad there is an entity that has authority to ban unsafe designs and products, especially when it concerns my most valued possession.

In the age where demand for CHEAP dictates, It becomes neccesary to prohibit the sales of designs that don't work when made cheaply and by cutting corners.

The crib and feeding table the Growler and I bought a few years ago was Babee Tenda. Quite expensive, but when I looked at the US made quality and safety record of the products, I didn't hesitate.
The link explains "cheap" cribs and baby products and safety records quite well. At the time we bought our Babee Tenda crib & chair (Company was established well before the 1950's), Babee Tenda was the ONLY crib & high chair manufacterer who had NEVR been sued for a product causing injury or death to a child.
http://www.babeetenda.com/safeissu.htm




Most people on this site refuse to use a Harbor Freight tool.....so.....
WHY ON EARTH WOULD ONE PUT THEIR MOST VALUED POSSESSION IN THE BABY PRODUCT EQUIVALENT OF HARBOR FREIGHT?????

I should add. Most people don't know that quality cribs and chairs exist. I didn't, until my wife (the Growler) drug me to a consumer child safety show.

[Gene Howe]

Maybe, the Consumer Products Safety Council's time would be better spent in writing requirements for the materials and manufacture of the crib.
They could just buy a Babee Tenda and use their specs. Too simple, CPSC?

[Neal Clayton]

there was a thread awhile back, the basic idea was there's a guy who's a retired government product inspector who basically decided to use a few of his remaining days to go around posting stuff about various products in the comments on amazon. one of which was the plans that rockler sells for baby cribs.

his claim was "something built in a garage shop is obviously not as safe as something from an approved manufacturer". of course when asked if he had any idea what was in the description of the plans as far as the means of construction (specifically that all of the slats were mortised) he didn't have a good answer.

so the bottom line is yea: if that guy is representative of government inspectors, they can't exactly make a good judgment about how something is built, because they don't know how to build anything.

[Rob Russell]

Folks - this thread can very easily veer off topic into politics and has already started to do so. That's not allowed per the SMC Terms of Service.

Please confine your comments to FACTUAL posts that are germane to the discussion. Opinions are fine, but increase the potential for the thread being yanked because of political commentary.

This has the potential to be a good discussion about crib construction.

Thanks,

Rob
SMC Moderator

[Greg Peterson]

Well, there are just some products I don't think the market is particularly well suited to regulating. I'm glad the consumer has at least one advocate. Why deny consumers the reasonable expectation that the product they are purchasing won't cause harm?

I'm sure that many old cribs were build like a tank, and would not fail the test in question. That said, safety is ever evolving. If there exists a design flaw, what is the best way to deal with it? Seems to me designing the crib so that it passes the safety test is the builders job. Can't blame the regulator if the design isn't safe.

[Greg Cuetara]

It is very interesting. I have built 2 cribs in the past year from the rockler plans. I made sure that they met the guidelines posted. Max 2 3/8" between slats. 1 finger between the mattress and the slats etc.

I think the points above are valid. If there is a good quality crib which has a drop side can it still be safe? Is it only because of cheap construction? Those are rhetorical questions.

As a new parent it is a wonder that I ever survived as a kid. Don't do this Don't do that.....can't use this can't use that. I used to have a thing I sat in which had wheels and ran all around the house. They say now not to use them because kids can run their heads into tables or down stairs.

In the end I think a little bit of common sense is warrented. If one, two or three children are hurt by drop side cribs out of the millions who use them every year is it really a problem? Could it be a construction defect in the few cribs where there was a problem? Take 1 million children in the US using drop side cribs. That is 365 million nights slept in the cribs and if you include naps it is more-so around 700 million to 1 billion nights slept in the cribs. How many kids getting hurt does it take to make a change? Well even 1 child getting hurt is too many. In the end though if 40% of the time there is a problem then that type of crib should be banned. If there are a few instinances out of 1 billion there is a problem when do we start to worry? How many problems does it take before we should make a change? In the above example of a trolly and wheels more supervision and better gates at the top of stairs would make all the difference.

I hate to put it that way but I think we jump too quickly right now.

[Greg Peterson]

It was the bean counters that determined it was cheaper to deal with the fatalities than to fix the problem in the Pinto. That turned out great. So a few folks lost their lives to a known defect. It was cheaper to pay off their families than to fix the problem in the first place.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

on the up side this'll make an easier bar for us lot when it comes time to build a crib.

Mo more fussing around with that durn fool drop side. Lettin' got o' that'll allow for more effort in the fancy schmancy carving and inlay 'n make for a nicer ole timy lookin crib which I fancy any how.