The trampoline: a staple of Australian childhoods. However, every summer, up to 3000 Australian kids start making trips to the hospital for hurt fingers, broken bones, head injuries or worse.
The voluntary guidelines have a whole range of great ways to make trampolines safer for kids to enjoy. However, the safety guidelines for trampolines are optional, and toy companies are taking dangerous shortcuts that put kids at risk. In fact, 7 out of 8 models CHOICE experts tested failed safety standards, meaning kids could hit their head badly, or get their heads, limbs or fingers trapped.
It’s a simple problem our Consumer Affairs Minister can solve: companies shouldn’t be able to pick and choose whether they follow safety guidelines or not.
Done. FWIW when I was a youngster in the US trampoline parks were all over. Each trampoline was ground level over a pit, all surrounded by gravel. None of that padding over the springs, just the thrill of legs going through.
There seems to be a growing resistance by regulatory bodies to establish minimum safety standards. The only upside which can be derived from the current state of affairs, is that it highlights which companies are interested in the welfare and safety of their customers. They are the ones who will get my repeat business.
We’ve just published our latest trampoline review - there’s a summary article here. Broadly the results seem a bit better than before, but still there are a lot of models with safety or durability failures.
There’s still no specific product safety regulation for trampolines. Our petition for stronger general product safety laws is still open.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Should the Australian trampoline standard become mandatory? Do you have any trampoline safety stories to share?
