Monday 25 April 2011

Blind safety lens

As part of the blind industry I am aware that there is only token understanding of the issue of child saftey with regard to the dangers of blind cords.
While there have been reports of the deaths of many children in the last year there is still no legislature governing the way we approach this, and the main reasoning is that the industry is very actively giving the end user warning signs, labels and advice so that the government does not have to devote parliamentary time to passing a new law.
This is standard procedure these days and to a certain extent is to be commended as this issue particularly shoud have cross party support, centring as it does upon the safety of children, but there are still debates to be had and the drawing up of this type of legislation requires a considerable amount of time before the matter can become law.
To keep everyone going requires those of us who can to keep the subject alive and also to push it as far as we can towards the top of everyone's agenda, at least getting more people looking into there own homes to see if they have the safest environment for their own children or perhaps visiting relatives or friends children if they have grown up families.
The danger from strangulation in looped blind cords affects mainly children below the age of 4 years, not because they are incapable of realising the danger to themselves but from the fact that they can die due to the immaturity of the neck physiology. Death can occur in less than a minute even if a paramedic were to be on scene it is unlikely the child could be revived.
My latest Squidoo lens How safe are your blinds has more detail.

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