Safety committee studies tipping hazard

By Jeff Linville -- Kids Today, 6/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Furniture executives and consumer safety advocates are working together to form voluntary safety standards to prevent case goods from falling over.

An estimated 3,000 children a year are treated for injuries from furniture and/or TVs falling on them. About five of these children die from the injuries or suffocation resulting from the tipping, according to the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission.

"We don't want to see anyone get hurt. The first thing on our minds when we develop a piece of furniture is safety," said John Conrad, vice president of merchandising for Powell Co. Conrad is one of the furniture veterans who are on a committee of the American Society for Testing and Materials. The ASTM committee met in March to discuss and revise a proposed standard for testing tipping on dressers, armoires and drawer chests.

ASTM Active Standard F2057 narrows the focus by eliminating "shelving units, such as bookcases or entertainment centers, night stands or under-bed drawer storage units."

The danger of tipping comes when a child tries to climb the front of a furniture piece. In these accidents, the children attempt to reach the top of the dresser or drawer chest by using the bottom drawer like a step. The weight of the drawer and the child pulling down in the front causes the whole case to tilt forward; heavy items on top of the case can fall on the child, or the furniture itself can fall forward onto the child.

When designing a product, especially for the child's room, a manufacturer has to ask certain questions related to safety, said Glenn Prillaman, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Stanley Furniture and Young America. How far out do the drawers extend? Are there doors too high up on the case? Is the piece wide and deep enough to have a stable base?

The biggest factor in tipping is center of gravity. For example, a drawer chest with the TV pulled out to the front edge is more likely to fall forward than one with the TV pushed further back.

Children add to the danger by pulling out drawers or doors that pull the weight forward. Then when they step on the drawer or pull down on the door, their weight greatly increases the risk.

Doors at the bottom of the case don't shift the center of gravity much, said Prillaman, but the same doors higher up make the piece top-heavy. Also, wide doors swing out farther when open, creating a bigger hazard than narrow doors. The same applies to drawer length: the farther the drawer pulls out, the more the child's weight can affect the balance.

Prillaman said manufacturers can make cases more stable by adding heft to the back or base of the piece, but that adds to the cost. Some companies would rather cut corners than worry about consumer safety, which is the main reason he would like to see this standard adopted by the CPSC. The ASTM can only establish voluntary standards, but the CPSC can make it law.

"We as an industry have to care about safety. It shouldn't be a company thing, it should be an industry thing," Prillaman said.

Regardless of whether the standard becomes law, Conrad believes the committee is headed in the right direction with its discussions. The guidelines proposed are "doable by manufacturers and repeatable by testing organizations," he said.

Bobby Puett, co-owner of Diversified Testing Labs, which checks bunk bed safety for many youth manufacturers, believes the voluntary standards should be something simple enough that factories wouldn't need him to test for compliance.

With Puett's input, the test under discussion would entail putting a 50-pound weight on a drawer that's been pulled out to see if the piece tips forward. Fifty pounds would cover most kids up to age 5.

Some suggested testing with all drawers open at the same time, but others countered that this doesn't simulate real-world conditions. How can the child climb up the drawers like steps if they are all pulled out, questioned Puett.

Even with just one drawer open at a time, this would still be a worst-case scenario, some argued. In a home, the case would be weighed down with clothing and other items that make it more stable than in the factory. And, most injuries involve kids younger than age 5.

Prillaman said Young America's youth furniture already complies with this test and also comes with an anchoring kit that allows the pieces to be fastened to a wall. Some manufacturers include a simple nylon strap that can be screwed into the case and the wall. It isn't a strong support, but designers figure the case really doesn't need much help to stay put. Such restraint devices could be part of the final standard.

In some cases, the child gets to the top of the dresser and pulls on the mirror to stand up, said Josh Garrison, of Garrett Mirror Support Co. The mirror can break loose, causing the child to fall off the dresser, or the mirror can crash down on the child, causing blunt trauma and cuts.

Garrison said he has been attending the meetings to see if the committee will adopt a test of mirror supports with this standard. Some factories use scrap pieces of plywood or MDF to attach mirrors, and there is no rule about how strong this support should be, he said.

So far, discussions haven't set a test for mirror stability.