Lee Michaels wrote:
"nhurst" wrote .
"J. Clarke" wrote:
Martin H. Eastburn wrote:
Mommy regulations again. Give me a break.

Many people can't reach over and then down for some time after
delivery or if just short.

A problem which our society is going to have to learn to deal with is
excessively complete communications.

We're starting to see regulations to address one-in-a-million events.
Literally--did you see the numbers they quoted in the link that was
provided--3 deaths out of 3 million cribs?

It's all about risk management, though. If you're big enough to sell
one million cribs, then your chances of your product killing someone,
anyone, goes up to unacceptable levels. Changing something like this
is a no-brainer, all things considered.

No matter what you do a few idiots are going to manage to hurt themselves or
someone else with it. At what point do we decide that it's time to accept
that nothing can be made completely idiot-proof?

Sure, some of the failures were because of incorrect assembly or
faulty materials that can crop of from time to time. It's not always
someone's fault, but that won't prevent an angry family from hiring a
lawyer and suing the company, costing them more money than it's worth
to just not manufacture the things in the first place.

The solution to that is to make it more difficult to bring lawsuits or make
the suits higher risk for the plaintiff.

I have a 2 year old and own a drop-side crib, and those drop down
sides are heavy, and can be tricky to get to work when you're trying
to be quiet. Honestly, I think the replacement of the drop side with a
fold-down rail is better for everyone involved. It accomplishes the
same goal of making allowances for shorter folks or those with back
problems, but reduces the risk of a guillotine-type failure or unsafe
gaps that the little squirmers can wiggle into. I bet assembly
wouldn't be any more difficult, and it would be pretty obvious if the
thing is backwards or upside down.

And no doubt the fold-down rail will have its own set of risks.

Also, this isn't the Federal Congress making the ruling, but a trade
organization issuing voluntary guidelines. Though the CPSC may adopt
them as their rules if they're put in place before the CPSC meets
about the situation.

Doesn't matter how it's coming to pass.

=============================

My take on it is that the manufactureres don't want to lose money if
they don't offer the drop down model when others do. So to level the
playing field, they mandate that nobody offers it. I really think
that safety is not the major issue. Competitiveness is. And
liability, of course.

Which doesn't alter the fact that they're addressing one-in-a-million
problems.

And it is a good PR move. We care about babies. Buy our products. Of
course, this would render almost all present cribs obsolete. So
everybody has to buy new cribs. Wanna bet that there will be a brisk
black market for the drop down cribs for awhile?

Not if the government decides to outlaw them, which it may.