Shopping Cart Accidents Increase to 66 a Day

[The Straight Story]

Going to the grocery store can be harmful for children if shopping carts are involved, according to a new study that found an average of 66 kids a day in the United States are hurt in such incidents.

Research published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics shows a child visits an emergency room every 22 minutes because of shopping-cart related injuries. The figure was based on data collected from 1990 to 2011, during which time more than 500,000 children under the age of 15 were treated in ERs after being hurt in a shopping cart. The yearly average came out to more than 24,000 a year.

Kids under the age of five are the ones that parents should pay the most attention to, according to the study. Eighty-five percent of the injuries occurred to the youngest children—between newborn and age four.

Most injuries (70%) occur from kids falling out of the carts, followed by collisions with carts, carts tipping over, and limbs getting trapped in a cart.

Nearly 80% of all injuries involved the head. The researchers found concussions and internal head injuries increased by more than 200% during the study period, from 3,483 in 1990 to 12,333 in 2011. Most of the increase related to injuries to toddlers and infants.

http://www.allgov.com/news/unusual-news/shopping-cart-accidents-increase-to-66-a-day?news=852311

[zbdent]

1. but but but ... shopping carts don't kill people, people pushing shopping carts kill people!

ban them now!!!

[kcr]

2. Well of course. People die anyway.

I mean, a woman died because she dropped a can on her foot! And no one calls for banning cans! So by all means, we should let people walk into schools and slaughter people en masse and do absolutely nothing about it. Makes total sense.

[The Straight Story]

3. I agree, we should make doing that illegal

You have my vote to ban going into schools and killing people.

[kcr]

4. Well good for you for supporting such a ban. A ban that has pretty much always existed.

Clearly more needs to be done

[The Straight Story]

6. Indeed

But what - based on the fact that over 99 percent of gun owners don't do anything like that or any other crime involving a gun I think it is pretty safe bet that the problem is not gun owners in general. Most of them obey the laws in place.

Problem is the very few, but folks don't want to examine those people and causes because it is easier to blame the tool they use.

[kcr]

7. I also think that it's a small percentage of gun owners pushing a scary agenda

it's just that they're very vocal. It's a shame.


That's the thing about tools, too. Shopping carts. They present a danger, but like another person mentioned in this thread the newer models are safer. They're being redesigned with safety in mind. You can do that with tools that aren't designed to be a weapon. But no matter how many redesigns, a weapon is still a weapon. It's purpose is still to shoot and kill. That's why I really have to laugh at the "it's just a tool" argument. Redesigns for guns are the opposite. They don't look for ways to make it safer, like they would for a shopping cart. They look for ways to make it a more efficient killing machine. But it's just a tool in the same way a shopping cart is? Baloney.

[Historic NY]

5. Shopping cart design...

taller and deeper instead oF the old wider and shallow. More and more most come w/o the seat straps and are made of lighter materials.

[CBGLuthier]

8. This is a good and interesting post but

man, the stupid is getting thick among a certain crowd.

[TheCowsCameHome]

9. +1,000

It certainly is, isn't it?

[gollygee]

10. They happen before 5

because they are too old to sit in the cart after that, not because they are less easily hurt. If they were in carts at the same rates, they'd probably get hurt at the same rates.

What drives me crazy is when I see toddlers climbing up on the little seat they're supposed to sit in and the parents not reacting. I kept my kids buckled into the cart. No standing! Ack!