Comments on: “The lethal dangers of sand”

By: BG

BG — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:12:35 +0000

Do you think this guy needs a different warning? My kids love these videos from blendtec. They are great.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Blendtec

Get rid of the sand and more kids will move to adult tools for their thrills just like the illegal kid ATV v legal adult size ATV.

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:53:16 +0000

bradley13: Exactly right. And for most people, disbelief is what happens. If you warn of risk 1 (a real risk) and risk 2 (an extremely unlikely risk) in equal terms, your goal may be to get people to take risk 2 as seriously as they take risk 1. But logically, if risk 2 is a serious as risk 1, then risk 1 is no more serious than risk 2. And so what in fact happens is that people, who know how unlikely risk 2 is, tend to conclude that risk 1 is equally unlikely and they ignore the warning.

Of course people don’t actually reason it out like that. What happens is that people end up noticing that most of the safety warnings with a product are dealing with risks that are highly unlikely, and can be safely ignored, and they stop taking any safety warnings seriously.

By: bradley13

bradley13 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:56:42 +0000

Consider one further aspect of these warnings: since they are everywhere, they become counterproductive. To take a real example: many foods are now labelled “may contain nuts” just to prevent liability – even if there is essentially zero chance of contamination. To people with a genuine nut allergy, this means more nad more products must be avoided, or else they have to take their lives in their hands by choosing to disbelieve the warnings.

By: John Burgess

John Burgess — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:23:11 +0000

OMG! I’ve seen unregulated plastic–not to mention actual petroleum–wash up on beaches where children play. I’ve even seen it on foreign beaches. Will the Foreign Torts Act apply as well?

By: Todd Rogers

Todd Rogers — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:10:15 +0000

Well, Greg, I guess that depends on the risk tolerance of which ever plaintiff’s attorney evenutally gets to that point on this list of defendants. Since at least one person thought of it (you) it’s fair to assume that others will as well. I imagine there are play-gym companies that have taken out substantial policies to divert risk of litigation. So, with such spoils, I imagine someone will send up a few trial balloons. Target rich areas just can’t go unchallenged. Do the math.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:31:36 +0000

Good question. Which raises a wider issue: does the CPSIA apply to facilities that are made available to children under 12? For example, if someone creates a play area for young children, do they need to ensure that all the toys, furnishings, and other equipment meet the CPSIA standards? Does a school need to remove all the existing playground equipment to test it? And to bring the issue back to this thread, is it legal for a beach owner or public park operator to let children under 12 use a sandy beach without testing to ensure the sand meets the lead and phthalate requirements of the CPSIA?

Of course, sand doesn’t naturally contain plastics, but there might be fragments of plastics mixed up in it, and it’s certainly possible that sand grains might contains some amounts of lead-containing minerals. So I wonder if the CPSIA could be interpreted to apply to man-made or natural facilities provided for use to children.

By: Mark Biggar

Mark Biggar — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:44:21 +0000

Does this mean that public beaches have to stop selling parking passes to families with children?

By: No Name Guy

No Name Guy — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:57:17 +0000

Run with it John….

Sand, since it is used in (gasp!!!) sandboxes, a childrens play thing, will have to be tested for lead in addition to being labled as you mention. And woe to Home Depot, Lowes or the mom and pop hardware / construction supply store that sells it to parents to fill their kids backyard sandbox. I guess they’ll have to simply stop selling the stuff.

I wonder how this will square with all those ‘shovel ready’ stimulus projects since most of them will require copious amounts of concrete – one primary ingredent being sand.

By: John

John — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:31:11 +0000

Good news : if the sand is intended for use by children under 12, as of August 14 the sand itself will have to be permanently labeled with the a batch number so it can be easily recalled.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:42:04 +0000

I once worked in a law office in which the local fire district continued to send us somewhat harassing letters demanding to know what kind of hazardous materials we have in our office. We finally responded with a snarky letter detailing the number and amount of toner cartridges we had in the office. Never heard any more.