Calling for stricter regulation of treadmills because children have been injured by them is like calling for stricter regulation of kitchen knives.
They are both items intended for adults. Any injury a child sustains from them is likely because the parent wasn’t supervising them or didn’t take proper measures to prevent access to it. You wouldn’t let your child rummage through your knife drawer at will, so why give them the opportunity to stick their hands into treadmills.
Common sense alert folks: Place your treadmill in a room your children can’t access. If you don’t have a spare room, make sure you know where your kid is when you are using your equipment.
Companies should manufacture safe equipment, but treadmills are designed for adult operation. If we need to start making every piece of equipment child safe, tell Harley Davidson I have a great design which incorporates training wheels.
3 comments
Tuna says:
Apr 10, 2008
It makes me wonder how these kids are even able to turn the thing on? The buttons are pretty high up 0.o
Maybe we need stricter laws on boxing bags? A kid might punch it and hurt his hand, or it might swing back and hit him.
Mike says:
Apr 10, 2008
Haha you’re right Tuna. Start with treadmills and where does it end. Every bit of exercise equipment has the potential to hurt a kid. It’s another case of let the Government regulate ‘it’ so the responsibility is taken out of the parents hands.
Lisa Lowrey says:
Aug 1, 2009
Well kids do get into everything. But I agree that not everything can be made ‘child safe’. Common sense needs to be used to determine what needs to be child safe. Remember driving with your kids is probably one of the most dangerous things, and we can only make it so safe. But if you ignore the safety conventions it is all up for grabs.