Consider child safety….

Consider child safety….

Child safety is everyone’s responsibility

Young children are injured or killed by strangulation, caused by getting tangled in window blind control cords.  You know, the cord or chain that’s positioned at the side of a blind to open and close it?  Seem’s a bit over the top but this is real.  Action has been taken by the industry in recognition of this serious problem and a new law was introduced in February 2014 that reduces the risk to children dramatically.

There are very little statistics or collective recordings of injuries or deaths to children.  This US article states one child is strangling in window cords every two weeks!  This excludes statistics from everywhere else in the world. So it’s a problem that should not be ignored.  Hopefully this article will help raise additional awareness and educate parents and property owners of the risks.

Law

BS EN 13120:2009+A1:2014, BS EN 16433:2014 and BS EN 16434:2014 were published by BSI on 28 February 2014

Applies to home and office locations where there will be children aged 0-4 years old.

What can I do?

Ask yourself if the blinds in your home, your family, friends and work place are ‘child safe‘.  If you are part of the design team working on residential or commercial properties, the architects should specify child safe blind systems (where manually controlled blinds are chosen).

 

 

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