Consumer Reports Year-Long Investigation of Deadly Tip-Overs Finds Voluntary Standard Leaves Too Many Children at Risk

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Consumer Reports Year-Long Investigation of Deadly Tip-Overs Finds Voluntary Standard Leaves Too Many Children at Risk

Organization calls for stronger, mandatory standards to prevent child injuries and deaths

Filed under: Home, Policy & Mobilization

Release date 03/23/2018

YONKERS, NY-- Consumer Reports, the non-profit member organization has found that furniture tip overs are an epidemic that has taken hundreds of lives. In fact, every 17 minutes, someone in the United States is injured when furniture, a TV, or an appliance tips over. Many of those injured are young children who may climb on or play inside a dresser or other kinds of furniture used to store clothes. In 2016, there were an estimated 2,800 tip-over injuries involving children younger than age 6 and these products. Between 2000 and 2016, 195 people died as a direct result of these products tipping over, and the vast majority were young kids.

With child injuries on the rise and no tip-over laws on the books, Consumer Reports today released findings of a year-long investigation into furniture tip-overs.

As part of the investigation, CR analyzed thousands of incident reports from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. In addition, CR scientifically tested 24 dresser models, available at popular online and retail stores, to determine which were more likely to tip over and which could withstand more rigorous tests. CR found that the voluntary standard leaves too many children at risk and does not cover enough of the marketplace. There is no way for consumers to simply look at a dresser and tell whether it’s more likely to tip over.

CR is calling for a stronger, mandatory standard for furniture in order to protect more people and help avoid tip-over injuries and deaths. In the meantime, CR says the most effective way to prevent tip-overs is to secure dressers to walls.

To see how, check out the full story available at www.CR.org/tipover

Lisa Chow 914-378-2413 lisa.chow@consumer.org

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