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Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

nytimes.com

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Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#11

Post by daenz »

devchix wrote: post #9

A recent episode of 99% Invisible: Play Mountain looked at how the playground got to be safe and boring. "A two-year-old boy named Frank Nelson was climbing a 12-foot-tall slide in a Chicago park when he slipped through a railing and hit his head so hard that it caused permanent brain damage. The park system of Chicago was sued and had to pay out millions of dollars to Nelson’s family. At that time, in the late 70s,…

You hit the nail on the head. From the article:

>“Many agencies fear being sued if a child gets hurt,” said Teri Hendy, the president of an Ohio-based playground consultancy, Site Masters. Ms. Hendy blamed outdated federal rules on playground design developed decades ago by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. She favors more flexible guidelines, arguing that playgrounds don’t have to be boring to be safe.

We got to this point because of lawsuits and regulation. Unless we make parents sign waivers for their kids to use the playground, we can expect more of the same. It just takes one lawsuit to ruin it for everyone else, so that's what organizations like these really need to protect themselves from.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#13

Post by maxxxxx »

devchix wrote: post #9

A recent episode of 99% Invisible: Play Mountain looked at how the playground got to be safe and boring. "A two-year-old boy named Frank Nelson was climbing a 12-foot-tall slide in a Chicago park when he slipped through a railing and hit his head so hard that it caused permanent brain damage. The park system of Chicago was sued and had to pay out millions of dollars to Nelson’s family. At that time, in the late 70s,…

It’s a little like terrorism. You can have tens of thousands of people die from cars, smoking and obesity. But if a fraction of that dies from terrorists the whole country changes.

If one child gets hurt from a slide or abducted by a stranger the whole country changes to avoid this risk but all the other risks are silently accepted.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#14

Post by function_seven »

fatnoah wrote: post #3

The only anecdote I can share about this comes from the time my family was touring a local day camp. On the tour, they showed us everything: archery, fishing, swimming, ropes, and everything else you could think of. At one point, we came to a massive, 10 foot high pile of dirt. The kids immediately ran for the dirt pile and the parents' reactions were a 50/50 mix of "Awesome" or "What are you building here?" I knew t…

I remember when I was 7 years old and my dad was working on our back yard. Up until that point, the yard was just weeds and dirt. But now we were going to get sod to cover it all.

First step was to bring in a mountain of good soil. That soil mountain was piled 6' high for a week, and I spent a lot of time playing on it. (My brother: "You know that pile is half cow shit, right?" ... Me: "Don't care")

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#15

Post by United857 »

Same can be said for a lot of other things/activities many of us enjoyed during childhood.

E.g. I remember playing with real chemistry sets with chemicals that could be potentially harmful if ingested, alcohol burners, glass tubing we had to flame-polish ourselves. Those are long gone; just replaced with "safe" but incredibly dumbed-down kits that are little more than dyes/food-coloring.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#16

Post by maxxxxx »

daenz wrote: post #11
devchix wrote: post #9

A recent episode of 99% Invisible: Play Mountain looked at how the playground got to be safe and boring. "A two-year-old boy named Frank Nelson was climbing a 12-foot-tall slide in a Chicago park when he slipped through a railing and hit his head so hard that it caused permanent brain damage. The park system of Chicago was sued and had to pay out millions of dollars to Nelson’s family. At that time, in the late 70s,…

You hit the nail on the head. From the article: >“Many agencies fear being sued if a child gets hurt,” said Teri Hendy, the president of an Ohio-based playground consultancy, Site Masters. Ms. Hendy blamed outdated federal rules on playground design developed decades ago by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. She favors more flexible guidelines, arguing that playgrounds don’t have to be boring to be safe. We got…

It’s a really tricky balance. On the one hand we should have rules that don’t allow building unnecessarily dangerous stuff (eg covering toys with lead coating) but on the other hand we shouldn’t expect 100% safety because the only really safe thing is something that doesn’t exist. It’s really difficult.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#18

Post by dawnerd »

This is essentially how I grew up. Was free to use just about any tool I wanted. We dug holes, built tree houses ourselves, you name it. At one point we even built two different sheds, just us kids without any adult really helping.

I don't recall if any of us even got hurt doing this.

I also think cities moving towards higher density with little to no yards for full homes isn't helping.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#19

Post by ghaff »

daenz wrote: post #11
devchix wrote: post #9

A recent episode of 99% Invisible: Play Mountain looked at how the playground got to be safe and boring. "A two-year-old boy named Frank Nelson was climbing a 12-foot-tall slide in a Chicago park when he slipped through a railing and hit his head so hard that it caused permanent brain damage. The park system of Chicago was sued and had to pay out millions of dollars to Nelson’s family. At that time, in the late 70s,…

You hit the nail on the head. From the article: >“Many agencies fear being sued if a child gets hurt,” said Teri Hendy, the president of an Ohio-based playground consultancy, Site Masters. Ms. Hendy blamed outdated federal rules on playground design developed decades ago by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. She favors more flexible guidelines, arguing that playgrounds don’t have to be boring to be safe. We got…

And IANAL but it's not clear that waivers would even help. Anyone can still file a suit and, presumably, a competent lawyer would argue that negligence on the part of the playground owner/operator contributed to whatever the accident was.

Re: Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous

#20

Post by lemoncucumber »

I grew up going to the city of Berkeley's Adventure Playground (https://www.cityofberkeley.info/adventureplayground/), which has been around since 1979.

It was one of most memorable and fun places I remember going as a kid. I did once end up with a nail in my arm (which I still have a scar from), but even after that happened my parents let me keep going back.

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