Are Playgrounds Safe?

More parents seem to be letting their kids play in the street. According to the Canada Safety Council, this is a bad practice. It's preferable to use the local playground - provided the playground is safe.

"It is clearly unsafe to turn the street into a play area," says Canada Safety Council president Emile Therien. "Children should never be encouraged to play where there could be traffic."

Why not install barriers and speed humps to make streets a safe place for children to play, as some advocate? "The money would be far better spent on good public playspaces, states Therien. It's irresponsible to make children think playing in the street is okay."

However, many parents fear for their child's safety on the apparatus. Playground falls are a major cause of hospitalizations among children. Every year about 28,000 children go to hospital with injuries related to recreational equipment, according to the Canadian Paediatric Society. Many of those injuries are fractures that need to be sent to the operating room. Children have even been strangled to death when a drawstring caught on equipment.

In 1998, the Canadian Standards Association introduced a new edition of its standard for public playspaces and equipment. Designed to provide requirements to help improve the safety of playgrounds, the standard, CAN/CSA-Z614-M98 Children's Playspaces & Equipment, is intended to promote and encourage well-designed, well-maintained, innovative and challenging playspaces.

More and more agencies are implementing the CSA standard, says Therien. He believes that widespread application will reduce playground injuries. The Canada Safety Council is urging all agencies that operate playgrounds to implement the standard, which is voluntary.

CSA does not test or certify playground equipment, so parents won't find the familiar CSA Mark on equipment at daycares, parks or schools. Here's what you should look for if you're concerned about your local playground.

• To reduce incidents of head entrapment and prevent serious head and neck injuries, gaps in play space equipment should be less than 90 mm (3.6 inches), or greater than 225 mm (9 inches).
• Protective barriers and guardrail heights keep children from inadvertently falling off platforms and elevated play surfaces. For children 18 months to 5 years the barrier should be at least 725 mm (29 inches). For children 5 to 12, the top height should be at least 950 mm (38 inches).
• The distance between the top of a guard rail or play surface and the protective surfacing beneath it is called a fall height. As a fall height increases, so does the amount of protective surfacing required beneath it.
• There should be a protective surface around any piece of equipment from which a child could fall. Surfaces should absorb impact and cushion a fall. The surfacing should be composed of materials such as wood chips, sand, engineered wood fibres, and fine and medium gravel.
• Look for any features that could entangle drawstrings or other clothing on play equipment where there is uncontrolled motion, like sliding and jumping. These should be eliminated.
• The playground owner or operator should have a comprehensive maintenance program and inspect the equipment frequently for any potential hazards.

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