Each year, more than 24,000 children are injured after falling from shopping carts. The Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital concluded that 66 children are treated in the emergency room daily due to a shopping cart accident. That’s one child every 22 minutes!
“The findings from our study show that the current voluntary standards for shopping cart safety are inadequate,” said Gary Smith, MD, DrPH, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “Not only have the overall number of child injuries associated with shopping carts not decreased since the implementation of the safety standards but the number of concussions and closed head injuries are increasing. It is time we take action to protect our children by strengthening shopping cart safety standards with requirements that will more effectively prevent tip-overs and falls from shopping carts.”
Suggested design changes include improving performance standards for restraint systems and placing the child seating area near the floor. This latter design change would be safer because it would lower the cart’s center of gravity, reducing the risk of cart tip-over and injury from falls. After all, the child is much closer to the ground.
In addition to design changes, researchers noted that interventions designed to teach parents how to use shopping carts safely, store-wide broadcasts encouraging cart safety belt use, and store employees encouraging families to use cart safety belts would also help reduce the number of shopping cart-related injuries.
“It is important for parents to understand that shopping carts can be a source of serious injury for their children,” explained Dr. Smith, a pediatrics professor at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. “However, they can reduce the risk of injury by taking a few simple steps of precaution, such as always using the shopping cart safety belts if their child needs to ride in the cart.”
Other tips for preventing shopping cart-related injuries include:
- Whenever possible, choose alternatives to placing your child in a shopping cart.
- Always use the shopping cart safety straps. Ensure your child is snugly secured in the straps and the child’s legs are placed through the leg openings. If parts of the cart restraint system are missing or are not working, choose another cart.
- Use a cart with a child seat low to the ground, if available.
- Make sure your child remains seated.
- Stay with the cart and your child at all times.
- Avoid placing infant carriers on top of shopping carts. If your child is not old enough to sit upright by himself in the shopping cart seat, consider other options such as leaving your child at home with another adult while you are at the store, using in-store child care areas, using a front- or back-pack carrier, or using a stroller.” – www.sciencedaily.com
Shopping cart injuries occur most often in children under the age of five. They can be terrifying, mainly because the majority of the accidents involve head trauma. If a shopping cart has injured your child, your child and your family have legal rights. Our accident injury lawyers at Eason and Tambornini, A Law Corporation, will protect your family’s legal rights. We have the knowledge and expertise to pursue personal injury or product liability claims that may have caused injury or death to a child.
