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WE CAN MAKE OUR PLAYGROUNDS SAFE!
  • A fall zone is the area under and around a piece of play equipment  where a child might fall. To reduce injuries, protective surfacing should be  installed throughout the fall zone, and the fall zone should be free of other  equipment or obstacles onto which a child might fall.
  • The  highest climbing member, such as a rung or platform, of climbing equipment  should not be higher than 6 feet for school-age children or 4 feet for  preschool-age children.
     
  • Stationery climbing equipment should have a fall zone extending a minimum of 6 feet in all directions from the perimeter of the equipment.
     
  • The  platform of a slide should not be higher than 6 feet for school-age children or  4 feet for preschool children.
     
  • For  slides, the fall zone behind the access ladder and to the sides of a slide  should extend a minimum of 6 feet from the perimeter of the equipment. The fall zone in front of the exit of a slide shall extend a minimum distance of 6 feet from the end of the slide chute or for a distance of H+4 feet, whichever is greater. H is the height of the slide platform.
     
  • The fall zone for swings should extend at least 6 feet from the perimeter of the support  structure on each side as well as a minimum distance of twice the height of the  pivot point in front of and behind the swing seats. Fall zones on the sides of  adjacent swing structures may overlap.

Local  authorities should make public playgrounds safer. One recent estimate showed that in Massachusetts alone, a state with a population of only about 6 million,  the lifetime health care costs caused by playground injuries could be conservatively estimated at $10 million each year. An analysis of 215 lawsuits against recreational programs in New York and New Jersey between 1974 and 1987 found that playgrounds led all categories of such suits, and of the 54 (one-quarter of the total) against playgrounds, the primary problem areas  included: "Provision and maintenance of proper surfacing under apparatus and in the play area."

Information obtained from:  Playing It Safe, a Third Nationwide Safety Survey of Public  Playgrounds, US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), Consumer Federation of America (CFA), June 1996 May 1994.

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