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White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, Kansas City, MO, USA

Children's Play Area Safety

by Randy White

© 2005 White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group

Providing play areas for children in your agritainment attraction that are safe is important, first and foremost, as no one wants to see a child get hurt or possibly killed, and secondly, it affects parents' perceptions of your facility and whether they will want to return, as well as recommend it to friends. Most parents today are very savvy when it comes to children's safety and will recognize an unsafe play area when they see it.

Each year, about 150,000 children in the US suffer playground-related injuries in public play areas requiring hospital emergency room treatment. Between January 1990 and August 2000, 147 children were killed in playground accidents. 80% of all injuries are caused by falls.

There are two sets of regulations that govern the safe design of children's play and playground areas—the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Handbook for Public Playground Safety and the ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) Standard Consumer Safety Performance Specification for Playground Equipment for Public Use. Although not law, these two documents have become the defacto safety standards based on numerous court decisions. Fifteen states have enacted playground safety laws, seven in the form of the Model Law on Public Play Equipment and Areas.

These regulations and laws govern the design and construction of any public play areas, including agritainment play areas. The ASTM specifications deal with the actual design and construction of the equipment and the hazards they can pose. Design standards have been developed to prevent strangulations, head and finger entrapment, pinching and cuts, falls from equipment that is too high, etc., whereas the CPSC standards deal both with equipment design, the layout of the equipment, protective surfacing and age zoning.

Although not a safety regulation, the U.S. Americans with Disability Act (ADA) has requirements that playgrounds (as well as petting zoos) be accessible to children with disabilities, and this has an impact on both the playground and equipment design, including the type of safety surfacing that can and needs to be used.

In our company's work with agritainment facilities, we have seen many unsafe play areas, including:

• the use of residential and other playground equipment that does not meet ASTM requirements for commercial public use,
• lack of protective safety surfacing to minimize injuries if children do fall, and
• failure to zone play areas by children's ages.

Randy White is the CEO of Kansas City-based White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, feasibility, design and consulting firm that works with family-oriented agritainment facilities. +1.816.931-1040 or e-mail (www.whitehutchinson.com/ contact/ randy_white/ ) .

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