May - June 2002

Recommendations and Conclusion

Deaths and injuries related to public playground equipment - deaths and injuries that could be prevented - continue to occur. While no play area or piece of equipment can be made completely safe, careful design minimizes injuries and saves children's lives.

It behooves local authorities to make public playgrounds safer. Nationally, according to one estimate, the health care costs caused by playground injuries in 1995 were $1.2 billion for children younger than 15 years old. Another estimate showed that in Massachusetts alone, a state with a population of only about 6 million, the lifetime health care costs caused by playground injuries could be conservatively estimated at $10 million each year. An analysis of 215 lawsuits against recreational programs in New York and New Jersey between 1974 an 1987 found that playgrounds led all categories of such suits, and of the 54 (one-quarter of the total) against playgrounds, the primary problem areas included "provision and maintenance of proper surfacing under apparatus and in play areas."

Despite the high number of hazardous playgrounds found in this survey, the situation is not hopeless. Playgrounds can be built safely. When constructed correctly, playgrounds provide lots of fun and developmental challenges for children. NYPIRG, USPIRG and CFA offer the following recommendations:

(1) States and local governments should adopt CFA's "Model Law on Public Play Equipment and Areas."

(2) Parents, school administrators, child care providers and park personnel should evaluate local playgrounds using the CFA's Parent Checklist (included in the national report and on the CFA web site www.consumerfed.org) and work to make them safer by contacting the owner or operator of the playground and demanding corrective action.

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For more information, contact:
Susan Craine, NYPIRG, 212-349-6460, scraine@nypirg.org

Introduction

Survey Findings

Recommendations and Conclusions

Charts