Reacting to Playground Safety Concerns — How Can Agencies
Determine Their Own Needs and Applications?
POINT . . .
"Daily playground safety inspections are the ONLY way to protect your agency
and/or park district from playground accident liability."
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By Larry Bakanec
Sadly, there are no magic formulas
for determining the appropriate frequency of park playground safety inspections. What's reasonable for your
district? Monthly? Weekly? Daily? Inspection frequency has to be determined by you and your district's
needs. One suggested method to help
you make this decision is based on
what will give you a "quiet night's
sleep." The term "quiet night's sleep"
means you have done everything possible to prevent playground accidents
from occurring. Also, that you have
an acceptable amount of risk financing available to pay for a loss should
one occur. From a risk management/loss prevention position, your goal
should be to prevent accidents from
occurring. To assure you reach this
goal, daily playground inspections are
recommended.
From a risk management/loss prevention position,
your goal should be to
prevent any accidents
from occurring. To
assure you reach this
goal, daily playground
inspections are
recommended.
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One of the most effective loss prevention tools to aid in playground inspections is documentation on safety
checklists. Safety checklists provide the
inspector with a guide for tracking unsafe conditions resulting from vandalism and/or general wear and tear.
Completed checklists should be filed
as written documentation of your
playgrounds' equipment status and
conditions on any particular date.
Your checklists also can be used in
legal defense of playground accident
claims. Be sure your completed checklists note playground location, date,
time of inspection and are signed by
the staff member conducting the
inspection.
Playground Maintenance Checklist
If daily safety inspections aren't
possible, they should be conducted on
a frequent, regularly scheduled basis.
Following are some of the danger
points that should be checked on
EACH tour:
• Visible cracks, bending, warping,
rusting, or breakage of any component.
• Deformation of open hooks, shackles, rings, links, etc.
• Worn swing hangers and chains.
• Missing, damaged, or loose swing
seats; heavy seats with sharp edges
or corners.
• Broken supports/anchors.
• Footings exposed, cracked, loose in
ground.
• Accessible sharp edges or points.
• Exposed ends of tubing that should
be covered by plugs or caps.
• Protruding bolt ends that do not
have smooth finished caps and
covers.
• Loose bolts, nuts, etc.
• Splintered, cracked or otherwise
deteriorated wood.
• Lack of lubrication on moving
parts.
• Worn bearings.
(Continued on page 14)
Illinois Parks and Recreation
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12
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July/August 1989
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. . . COUNTERPOINT
"Weekly inspections of play areas, fencing and outdoor lighting may be
desirable, but they are not reasonable."
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By Steven S. Plumb
We have heard and read a lot lately
about playground safety, or the lack
of it, in public parks and play areas.
Articles describing serious injuries,
enormous insurance settlements and
unsafe facilities and conditions are
appearing regularly. More and more,
pressures from the public, the media,
the legal profession, and particularly,
insurance companies are forcing public agencies to re-evaluate their approach to play area maintenance.
Park and recreation professionals are
finding it increasingly difficult to walk
the line between what is necessary to
maintain safe playgrounds, and what
resources are available to do the job.
A variety of solutions to the problem of play area safety are being explored on all governmental levels.
Nationally, the playground safety
problem is being addressed by proposing new regulations and guidelines,
such as those currently under development by the American Society for
Testing and Materials (ASTM) Task
Force on Playground Equipment for
Public Use. In Illinois, the IPRA Park
and Natural Resource Management
Section has initiated a project to
develop a comprehensive play area
maintenance and inspection process
that could be implemented by any
public agency. Unfortunately, these
efforts are long-term projects which
will not immediately benefit managers
of public play areas.
We must strike a
balance between what is
necessary for a safe play
environment and what
is practical in terms of
available resources such
as manpower, funding
and equipment.
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In the interim, insurance carriers
and risk management associations like
PDRMA (Park District Risk Management Association) and SRMA (Suburban Risk Management Association)
have taken up the slack and are mandating play area maintenance and
inspection procedures, processes, and
techniques.
Is this bad? Not necessarily. No
thoughtful park and recreation professional would deny the need to provide
facilities which are as safe as can reasonably be expected. In basic terms,
our mission is to provide FUNCTIONAL, SAFE, and AESTHETIC
recreation areas and facilities for our
constituents. Providing safe play areas
is just as important as providing functional or attractive facilities.
The difficulty of the problem is not
in deciding to develop safe play areas
and facilities, but rather, in determining what is reasonable. We must strike
a balance between what is necessary
for a safe play environment and what
is practical in terms of available resources such as manpower, funding,
and equipment. Unfortunately, many
of us no longer have input into this
process; many decisions regarding
maintenance procedures are now
being made for us by loss prevention
specialists and risk managers.
For example, those of us whose
agencies are members of PDRMA are
being evaluated by loss prevention
(Continued on page 15)
Illinois Parks and Recreation
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July/August 1989
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Point . . .
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(Continued)
• Broken or missing rails, steps,
rungs, seats.
• Surfacing material worn or scattered (in landing pits, etc.)
• Hard surfaces, especially under
swings, slides, etc.
• Chipped or peeling paint.
• Vandalism (broken glass, trash,
etc.)
• Pinch or crush points (exposed
mechanisms, junctures or moving
components, e.g. axis of seesaw).
• Tripping hazards such as roots,
rocks or other environmental obstacles.
• Poor drainage areas.
Damage to playground equipment
MUST be repaired immediately. If
you are unable to make necessary repairs immediately, I recommend the
broken or damaged equipment be
taken out of service. Simple actions
like this go a long way toward reducing losses from playground accidents.
Playground safety checklists may be
obtained from insurance companies,
risk pools, the National Safety Council and the Consumer Products Safety
Commission.
The next question is, "By which
standard do we judge playgrounds to
be safe?" Presently, no national standards for park playgrounds exist. Playground standards are being addressed by the American Standards for Testing and Measures (ASTM) and, hopefully, will be completed soon.
The expense of staff
time to inspect, document
and make needed
repairs is minuscule in
comparison with today's
insurance and litigation
costs.
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In the meantime, the Consumer
Products Safety Commission has issued safety guidelines for playgrounds.
Since these guidelines are generally
considered the going standard for
safety, I recommend you design your
playgrounds accordingly. Variations
from these guidelines can put you at
risk in case of playground accidents;
variations that can create the basis for
some plaintiffs' attorneys to claim the
park district has been guilty of acts
of negligence or willful and wanton
misconduct.
Park districts can greatly reduce
their vulnerability towards playground
accidents and liability by following
these steps:
- Use the Consumer Products
Safety Commission's guidelines
for safe design of playgrounds.
- Insure that commercially manufactured playground equipment
adheres to the Consumer Products Safety Commission guidelines.
- Insure that playground equipment manufacturers provide
your district with a certificate of
insurance — naming your district as additional insured.
- If park district staff installs commercial playground equipment,
insure it's done to the manufacturer's specifications. Have them
inspect the installation and sign
off that the equipment has been
properly installed.
- Never modify any playground
equipment without written approval of the manufacturer.
- Use checklists to record daily
safety inspections.
Daily inspections of park playgrounds during peak use times is an
essential component of any comprehensive loss prevention program. The
expense of staff time to inspect, document and make needed repairs is
minuscule in comparison with today's
insurance and litigation costs. Can you
afford the high cost of negative public
relations in your community because
you didn't act to prevent the preventable accident? Daily playground inspections can help you reduce, even
eliminate, accidents resulting from
unsafe conditions. How safe are your
playground conditions right now? I
hope you can sleep well, tonight.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Larry Bakanec is the Safety/Risk
Manager for the Lake County
Forest Preserve District in Lake
Villa.
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Illinois Parks and Recreation
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July/August 1989
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. . . Counterpoint (Continued from page 13)
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specialists using the "Loss Prevention
Program Evaluation Rating". This involves an in-depth examination of a
district's safety and loss prevention
program according to criteria set up
by PDRMA's Loss Prevention Committee. After the 1988 evaluation of
all members, the Final Report recommended that . . . "the frequency of
inspections for playgrounds, parks,
fencing and outdoor lighting should
be increased to at least weekly during high use periods (spring and
summer)."
For the Elmhurst Park District and
for, I suspect, many other agencies,
weekly inspections of play areas, fencing, and outdoor lighting may be desirable, but they are not reasonable.
In Elmhurst, we have emphasized preventative maintenance for many years,
and have developed comprehensive
maintenance and inspection programs
for most of our facilities. Our play
area inspection program is used as a
model by the PDRMA loss-prevention
evaluators, and requires a full 3-4 days
to complete for our 20 play areas. In
past years, inspections have been completed monthly except during the
winter. PDRMA requirements now
would have us complete weekly inspections, which will require nearly one
person full time, during "high use
periods". When fencing, buildings,
outdoor lighting, athletic fields, and
other areas of potential concern are
also considered, the impact on existing maintenance operations becomes
significant.
We have begun to shift
our mission from providing functional, safe
and aesthetic recreation
areas and facilities to
"covering our agency"
and "loss prevention".
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If a play area inspection program
is comprehensive (covers each piece of
play equipment and all components of
each piece), weekly inspections are
totally unnecessary. S-hooks will not
wear out in a week; bearings and
bushings don't require weekly attention; and footings do not become
hazardous overnight. Safety surfacing
may need to be raked out more frequently than on a monthly basis, and
broken equipment needs to be repaired immediately, but the agency
should have mechanisms other than
monthly inspections to identify and
repair broken play equipment. In
short, these items can be maintained
more regularly as necessary. To do less
than a comprehensive inspection is a
paperwork exercise which serves only
to protect the agency from lawsuits
and liability claims. Completing the
inspection paperwork and building a
documentation file then becomes an
end in itself.
The answer to the problem for the
short term is to develop a comprehensive preventative maintenance program and implement regular inspections as necessary. For the long term
we need to convince the insurance
carriers and risk management associations to fight frivolous lawsuits and
liability claims, even if the immediate
cost is higher.
By mandating weekly comprehensive play area inspections, we have
overreacted to a safety concern. We
have begun to shift our mission from
providing FUNCTIONAL, SAFE and
AESTHETIC recreation areas and facilities to COVERING OUR AGENCY
and LOSS PREVENTION. In our
efforts to react to playground safety
concerns, we should not consider safety to the exclusion of all else. Instead,
we must find a balance between what
is desirable and what is practical and
realistic, or we will be out of the play
area business.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Steve Plumb is Superintendent of
Parks and Planning for the Elmhurst Park District. He is Co-Chairman of the IPRA Parks and
Natural Resource Management
Section Play Area Maintenance
and Inspection Project committee, and a member of the ASTM
Task Force on Playground Equipment for Public Use.
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Illinois Parks and Recreation
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July/August 1989
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