This week in safety: Halloween cautions and recalls

Halloween falls on a Saturday this year and that has law enforcement agencies across the country preparing for a night of arrests -- not only for the usual mischief and mayhem but for  drunken driving. Halloween has become a deadly night on the nation's roads, with DWI arrests surpassing even those on New Year's Eve.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), last year 58 percent of all highway fatalities across the nation on Halloween night (6 p.m. Oct. 31 to 5:59 a.m. Nov. 1) involved a driver or a motorcycle rider with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher, which is illegal in every state.

What can you do about it? If you're a pedestrian, use the sidewalks and take your children trick-or-treating early in the evening. If you're attending a party where alcohol is being served, plan a safe way home either by designating a sober driver or taking a taxi or public transportation, NHTSA advises.

Decorative lenses
The Food and Drug Administration also issue a Halloween caution this week -- against the use of decorative contact lenses s part of a costume. In a video and press release, the FDA reminds revelers that wearing lenses purchased without a prescription can cause serious eye injuries and even blindness.

Halloween recall
This week there was also a Halloween recall. About 7,800 candle holders in the shape of a haunted house that were sold at Yankee Candle were recalled because the material that covers the windows can catch fire and has in some incidents.

More news
Makeup 101: A safe, reaction-free Halloween for your kids
Medill Reports
After a mass recall of children’s face paint this year due to “rashes, itchiness, burning sensation and swelling where the face paints were applied,” the FDA is urging anyone with concerns about cosmetics to contact FDA representatives. But a single recall doesn’t mean the world is rid of potentially harmful cosmetics. Other makeup still on the market could cause similar reactions. Read more ...

GAO: FDA and USDA not kept in food import loop
ConsumerAffairs.com
Many agencies share responsibility for ensuring the safety of imported food, including the FDA, the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), and Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection division. But the GAO found that while importers report information about food shipments to the Customs agency, that agency's computer system does not notify FDA or FSIS when shipments arrive at the border. Read more ...

Add lesser-known hazards to baby-proofing list
Kansas City Star
Anyone can walk down a baby aisle and pick up standard safety materials. But several dangers go unaddressed because awareness is focused on staples such as outlet plugs and baby gates. Read more ...

Mattel lead settlement could add up to $50 million
The Associated Press
Mattel Inc. and its Fisher-Price subsidiary have agreed to settle a consumer lawsuit for what could total more than $50 million over the 2007 recall of millions of toys made in China that were found to contain high levels of lead. Read more ...

Bill giving FDA new powers to oversee food supply has wide support
The Los Angeles Times
Legislation granting the FDA new powers to oversee the nation's food supply has elbowed its way onto Congress' crammed calendar with bipartisan support and rare agreement between consumer groups and an industry stung by product recalls. Read more ...

Nelson seeks funds to help homeowners replace drywall
The Miami Herald
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson is urging Florida lawmakers to find out whether leftover federal funds could be used to help homeowners with tainted Chinese drywall. ``Defective Chinese drywall is ruining the health and lives of countless Floridians,'' he said. Read more ...


More recalls

• 13,000 sets Fiesta Masquerade and Home Olympic flatware (choking hazard)
• 1.3 million Idea Village Handy Switch wireless light switches (fire hazard)
• 19,600 Coby Electronics rechargeable batteries sold with portable DVD/CD/MP3 players (fire hazard)
• 4,100 Toro Z Master ZRT Mowers (liquid-cooled models only) (burn hazard)

When the wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round, sit down

Every day, more than 23 million children across the country board a big yellow bus and head to school. While many parents worry about sending their most precious cargo off on the bus each morning, riding a school bus is considered one of the safest forms of transportation, about seven times safer than passenger vehicles.
 
Each year 42,000 people are killed in motor vehicle crashes, Of those, on average, six are school-age passengers killed while riding a school bus. In 2008, there were 153 people killed in school bus-related accidents. Sixty-eight percent were occupants of other vehicles; 13 percent were pedestrians and nine percent were school bus passengers, according to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
 
There's a debate over whether the use of seat belts would further reduce student fatalities but NHTSA has not found any data to suggest that school bus passengers are safer belted than not. The size of the bus is a factor in that it is more like a heavy truck and distributes crash forces differently than a passenger vehicle. And, by design, large school buses are “compartmentalized” to provide an envelope of crash protection with taller, energy-absorbing seat backs and closely-spaced seating rows. The same cannot be said of small school buses, which are required to have lap and/or shoulder belts, since their size and weight are more similar to passenger vehicles. Still, there is a concern that belting up in one type of vehicle but not another can send a contradictory message to children who are told to wear their seat belts in the family vehicle but often not required to on a bus.
 
The greatest risk with school buses is when children are getting on and off. That is why motorists should be extra vigilant when sharing the road. The most important tip for other drivers is to obey the stop arm signal and red flashing lights and not proceed until the signals are turned off. Also, never pass on the right side of a bus where children exit and enter.

This week is school bus safety week and NHTSA is offering these safety tips as a reminder to parents and students:

• Supervise children to make sure they get to the bus stop on time.
• Make sure they wait on the curb away from the road and avoid rough play.
• Teach your child to ask the driver for help if he/she drops something near the bus. A driver cannot see a child who may bend down to pick something up. Have your child use a backpack or bag to keep loose items contained.
• Make sure clothing and backpacks have no loose drawstrings or long straps that may get caught in the handrail or bus door.
• Encourage safe school bus loading and unloading.
• If you think a bus stop is in a dangerous place, talk with your school or transportation office about changing the location.—Liza Barth

Related reading: For more transportation safety news, read our Cars blog.

At the test track: Putting the brakes on uncontrolled acceleration

After learning about Toyota's recall of 3.8 million cars with ill-fitting floor mats, the folks at our test track got busy. Not only did our editors and engineers take a look at floor mats, they also took several cars for a spin to see how a driver should respond when a car is subject to uncontrolled acceleration.

As our Cars blog reported earlier, the floor mat recall came in response to a fatal accident in which a family of four was killed in California. A suspected cause of that crash was a floor mat that became lodged under the accelerator of the loaner Lexus the family was driving while its own car was being serviced.

This week the car team turned to our test fleet for insight. Of the 25 current test cars they checked, they discovered three with loose mats that could slide forward under continual pressure. All three of the cars had all-weather rubber floor mats, not the carpeted kind commonly included as original equipment with new cars. Most of the cars they checked came with standard mats affixed to the floor with hooks. Lesson learned: It's a good idea to check your floor mats no matter what kind of car you drive.

Next, the team tried some strategies to stop a speeding car. They took two cars with "smart-throttle" technology—a Mercedes-Benz E350 and Volkswagen Jetta Wagon—out to the track to see if depressing the brake would signal the computer to ignore the throttle as claimed. It did and you can read more about how on the Cars blog.

The engineers had a tougher time bringing vehicles to a halt when they stepped on both the brake and the throttle in cars without the new technology—specifically a Toyota Venza and Chevrolet HHR.

So what should you do if you are put in such a situation? The answer is simple: Put the car in neutral. In each of the cars tested, the engineers were able to easily nudge the gear lever into neutral and stop the car quickly. Read about the results of their tests.

This week in safety: What's your beef?

If you're a hamburger lover, you may lose your appetite after reading this. But we wanted to call attention this week to an eye-opening but stomach-turning report in The New York Times about the safety of ground beef. Sadly, the tale begins with a 22-year-old who became disabled after suffering a severe form of foodborne illness caused by E. coli. What did she eat? A hamburger.

An excerpt from the article explains: Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen.

The newspaper traced the origin of the suspect burger through inspection and other records and displayed the results graphically in the Anatomy of a Hamburger. The investigation caused a stir in the capital with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack calling the situation "unacceptable and tragic."

More headlines
FDA takes enforcement action against ready-to-eat sandwich manufacturer
Food and Drug Administration
The U.S. Department of Justice, on behalf of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has filed a complaint for permanent injunction against Rel's Foods Inc. (Rel's), of Oakland, Calif., seeking to stop the company from manufacturing, producing, and selling adulterated food products. Read more ...

Preventing childhood burn injuries
Time
Between 1990 and 2006, overall numbers of burn injuries among children dropped by 31 percent, according to a study published in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics. Yet while that decrease is cause for celebration authors of the large scale study point out that burn injuries are still disproportionately high among younger children. Read more ...

Crusader tracks toll of kids strangled in blinds
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Tuesday morning, Linda Kaiser met Tiara Robinson. They both once had healthy, playful baby girls. Now, one was severely brain damaged. The other dead. And the killer is still dangling in most American homes. Read more ...

They're called "Child Safety Caps" but how safe are they?
WBIR.com
We have a warning for anyone with young children. Those child safety caps on medications in your cabinets might not work. "I just kept turning it like this and then it just came right undone," said kindergartener Walker. Read more ...

Garage sales and the CPSC: Sorting the facts from the myths
Product Safety Daily
It’s not true. Have you read news stories or heard from a friend that the government is going to start fining people who host yard sales or garage sales? It’s not true. Read more ...

Don't miss these recalls
After getting at least 100 more injury reports, DeVilbiss expanded a 2006 recall of pressure washers and air compressors to include 620,000 units -- 72,000 were recalled three years ago. The injuries include hand and finger fractures and lacerations, and reports of minor property damage and damage to vehicles. The December 2006 recall announcement reported more than 26 injuries. Also recalled:

• 84,000 Lowe's folding directors chairs (fall hazard)
• 900 Guardian full-face diving masks (visor can separate from mask)
• 430 Daiso wooden toys (choking hazard)
• 130 Daiso children’s toys, purses and pen cases (lead paint)

Safety news from our Cars blog
Our Cars franchise has been busy this week reporting on road hazards so we've gathered the posts here to share with our readers.

• Record low traffic fatalities this year
• Highlights from the distracted driving summit
• DriveSafely cell phone application
• Celebrity crash a reminder to set parking brakes
• Safety group calls for recall of 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee
• Toyota and Lexus car mat recall is official

Stopping to talk about distracted driving

This week our Cars blog had a view from the front seat of the Distracted Driving Summit arranged by the Department of Transportation in Washington D.C. The lawmakers, safety advocates, entrepreneurs and victims at the summit engaged in a free-wheeling conversation about drivers doing other things while operating a moving vehicle.

While the popularity of texting or talking on a cell phone has brought this safety concern to the fore, the summit also covered eating, drinking, grooming, talking to a passenger, dealing with children and other distractions.

As Tom Mutchler, an engineer in our Auto Test division wrote, scientifically, there are different kinds of distractions.

• Visual distractions take your eyes off the road.
• Manual distractions take your hands off the wheel.
• Cognitive distractions take your mind off the road.

"Simple in-vehicle tasks like tuning a radio (assuming you’re not navigating a complex in-car multidirectional controller) have little cognitive load, a slight visual load (a quick glance), and a brief manual load. Adjusting the radio is often accepted as a baseline for comparing the amount of distraction of other controls. Various other 'old-school' distractions each register differently with respect to these demands.
 
But texting is a 'perfect storm.' It requires you to look at the keyboard, manually manipulate the keys, and think about what you’re writing. This means texting is a visual, manual, and cognitive distraction all in one."

You can read the entire series of posts on our Cars blog but please, not on a handheld device in the car.

Related reading: Over the past few months, The New York Times has been running a series called Driven to Distraction, which also highlights the dangers of doing other things while driving. The stories involve cabbies, truckers and traveling salesmen but the most compelling accounts come from accident victims and their families.

Toyota owners: Check your floor mats

We'd like to call attention to a post on our Cars blog that affects 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus owners. Toyota is asking the owners of seven Lexus and Toyota models to remove factory driver-side floor mats to prevent potential throttle “entrapment” that can equate to uncontrolled acceleration.

The vehicles affected by the advisory include:

• 2005 - 2010 Toyota Avalon
• 2007 - 2010 Toyota Camry
• 2004 - 2009 Toyota Prius
• 2005 - 2010 Toyota Tacoma
• 2007 - 2010 Toyota Tundra
• 2007 - 2010 Lexus ES350
• 2006 - 2010 Lexus IS250 and IS350

Toyota is not calling the action a "recall" and is working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on a solution. Read more on our Cars blog.

This week in safety: A crash test for the ages

You might think that a muscular 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air could hold its own in a modern-day crash test because of its advantage in weight and size. But as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) proved on its 50th anniversary, that belief can be quickly crushed. The safety group conducted a frontal offset crash test pitting a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu against its classic predecessor, which weighed 300 to 400 pounds more. The explosive results illustrate how far crash-test protection has come since the non-profit organization began conducting safety evaluations and advocating for improvements.

As our Cars blog wrote, "automotive safety has improved dramatically in the past five decades. The 2009 Chevrolet Malibu has as standard equipment: antilock brakes, stability control, occupant-sensing front air bags, and side air bags. Beyond the safety gear, advancements in vehicle engineering give the Malibu a clear advantage in this match up." To see how the Bel Air fared, watch the video.

More safety news from the CR blogs

• Cars: Automakers rally behind ban on texting
• Cars: Misaligned floor may have caused four-person fatal
• Babies & Kids: Where germs lurk
• Health: Swine flu alters traditional greetings

This week's headlines
One in four teens with own car has been in a crash
Associated Press via MSNBC.com
Parents beware: Giving in to teens' demands for their own cars can have dangerous consequences, new research suggests.Teenagers with their own cars or free use of one are much more likely to get in crashes than those who share a car. Read more ...

Quicker pace urged in tackling drywall problems
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Members of Congress summoned officials from four federal agencies investigating tainted Chinese drywall to Capitol Hill Wednesday for a closed-door meeting amid growing concern that action is not coming swiftly enough to help thousands of affected homeowners. Read more ...

CPSC Chairman looks at Chinese drywall in Cape Coral
Fort Myers News-Press
Because it is not all the same or made by the same manufacturer, defective Chinese drywall can't be recalled in the same way as other defective Chinese products, Inez Tenenbaum, chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said while touring an affected home. Read more ...

Beware of dollar store dangers
WBBM-TV (Chicago)
There's one business that's definitely booming in this economy: Dollar stores. Sixty-five million Americans shop at them. Sales at many chains have shot up by about 10 percent in 2009. But instead of a great deal, you may be bringing home some dollar store dangers. Read more ...

Dangerous toys make up one in three recalls in the EU
eGov Monitor
Children's toys account for almost a third of products recalled in the EU in the past four months according to latest data from Consumer Focus Labs. The Recalled Products Web site has recorded the recall of 680 faulty products in the EU since its launch last May, at an average of 34 products per week. Read more ...

Peanuts regain place in pantries 
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s sunny and warm and dry and hard to imagine a more perfect early September day for peanuts in this part of the world where as the Arachis hypogaea goes so goes just about everything else — the economy, the jobs, the pride, the reputation, an entire way of agricultural life. Read more ...

Don't miss these recalls

• 20,000 Big Lots store wooden bunk beds (collapse and fall hazard)
• 2,500 Grand Trunk single and double “Parachute” hammocks (fall hazard)
• 14,000 Quest commercial juice dispensers (fire hazard)

Quiet-running hybrids and electrics need audible backup alerts

A few days ago, I nearly became another accident statistic. As I walked through a parking garage, a Nissan Altima Hybrid backed silently out of its parking spot.  A large column obscured my vision of the car and its driver probably didn’t see me, either. The car missed me by less than two inches.

Once my heartbeat got back to its normal rhythm I realized that the audible cues that normally would have alerted me to a moving vehicle were absent with the hybrid.  Any “full” hybrid that can run on only electric power, even momentarily, poses the same hazard. The few completely electric vehicles on the road have the same sound of silence.
 
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were about 4,400 pedestrians killed by motor vehicles last year and another 69,000 injured. The National Federation of the Blind says that visually impaired pedestrians are particularly at risk. The group has been pushing for legislation that would require all vehicles to emit a sound similar to engine noise in all phases of operation. Some car makers, including Nissan, are researching the use of pleasant-sounding warning systems that alert pedestrians to their moving hybrid vehicles, but unless the sounds are easily recognizable and relatively consistent among all vehicle manufacturers, people may not recognize them as warnings.

The Washington Post reported on this issue today, citing one disturbing result from a yet-to-be released NHTSA study comparing the accident rates for some hybrid vehicles to their conventional engine-powered counterparts.  According to the Post, "the analysis suggests that during certain low-speed maneuvers such as turning and backing up, hybrid vehicles are 50 percent more likely to be involved in an accident with a pedestrian."
 
Until car makers and NHTSA figure out the best solution to silent-running hybrid and electric vehicles, we know of one partial solution that might work for some cars.  In January 1992, we reported on the Back-Up Alert, which replaces a car’s standard back-up bulb with a bright halogen bulb and a small beeper that sounds when the car is shifted into reverse.  We reported that “the alarm produced a sound that’s loud enough to alert a child in a driveway, but not loud enough to draw the neighbors’ ire.”  We found versions of the bulbs and similar products available on Internet sites such as JC Whitney, but not for all makes and models.

Anyone who has a silent-running hybrid should consider installing a warning system. And I hope similar products are developed for more models to alert pedestrians to hybrids moving in any direction.  It’s not a complete solution for the blind or visually impaired, but it might prevent guys like me from being flattened in a parking garage.—Don Mays

This week in safety: More folks are buckling up

Seat belt use has risen to a record 84 percent, up one percent from last year, according to new data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Each percent increase translates into an estimated 280 additional lives that will be saved. In 2008, an estimated 13,250 lives were saved by the use of safety belts, the agency reports.

As our Cars blog reported, studies show that in states where there is a primary law enforcing seat belt use (one in which you can be pulled over solely for that offense) the compliance rate is higher—88 percent compared with 77 percent in states with other laws. There are also regional differences. The West continues to have the highest rate of use at 93 percent. And seat belt use rose in the Northeast 3 percentage points to 82 percent; 2 points in the Midwest to 82 percent; and 1 point to 82 percent in the South.

Other CR safety news

• Cars: IIHS crash test: 2009 Chevrolet Malibu vs. 1959 Bel Air
• Health: Injury rates higher for high school football players and wrestlers
• Home: Make your own (less toxic) cleaners

Headlines
Lead, arsenic found in products from handbags to car seats
USA Today
A consumer watchdog group has found lead, arsenic and other potentially harmful chemicals in an array of everyday products, from handbags to pet supplies to car seats and backpacks. Read more ...

Residents plead for action in town hall meeting on Chinese drywall
WWLTV.com
A colossal crowd unsuccessfully tried to squeeze inside of the Mandeville City Council chambers, eager to get answers on what to do about their contaminated Chinese drywall. Read more ...

New York eyes ‘No Smoking’ outdoors, too
The New York Times
New York City’s workplace smoking ban six years ago drove cigarette and cigar puffers outdoors. But soon some of the outdoors may be off limits, too: The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, said  that he would seek to ban smoking at city parks and beaches. Read more ...

Why can’t she walk to school?
The New York Times
To get to school, the child leaves home by herself, proudly walking down the boulevard in a suburb of a small city in upstate New York. The crossing guard helps her at the intersection. She lives only a block and a half from school. Yet she walks by older children waiting with parents for buses to the same school. Read more ...

Hints from Heloise: How to check an automatic garage door
The Washington Post
If your garage door opener is older than 1993, it should be replaced. Garage-door openers manufactured after Jan. 1, 1993, are required by federal law to have advanced safety features that comply with the latest Underwriters Laboratories standards. Read more ...

Limit your exposures to cell phone radiation
The Environmental Working Group
Scientists are exploring the health implications of cell phone radiation. Meanwhile, buy smart. The Environmental Working Group has a new interactive database to find wireless devices with the lowest emissions. Meanwhile, the kids are right—texting trumps talking. Read more ...

Don't miss these recalls

• 22,000 Trudeau Garlic Duo slicers (laceration hazard)
• 2,000 pairs of Clarks children’s shoes (choking hazard)
• 600 WoodMaster AFS 900 outdoor furnaces (fire hazard)
  

Got a leaky tire? Check your valve stem

It's been over a year since we warned about millions of faulty Chinese-made tire valve stems, yet every week we get comments from readers about flat tires and blowouts caused by defective stems.

"Two tires that I purchased two years ago blew up on the expressway within a few hours of each other," wrote Rick. "Just yesterday I came outside and a third tire was flat. On this one the valve stem was obviously leaking."

"I had a tire fail from a defective valve stem on the capitol beltway near Washington, D.C. at night in a construction zone during a thunderstorm. I'm lucky to be alive," wrote Mark. "I drove for almost a week before I realized I probably had three other defective valve stems."

Mark is a lot like other drivers who may not realize that they have defective valve stems. In fact, not everyone is aware that a valve stem is sold separately from the tire or wheel. And because the identifying characteristics of the valve stem are on the part that does not show (see illustration) they are very difficult to identify.

The faulty stems were made by a Chinese company in Shanghai for Dill Air Control Products of North Carolina. Dill and one of its distributors, Tech International, have recalled approximately 8 million faulty valve stems.  It's believed that many more have been sold and that some were used as original equipment on 2007 Fords. In an agreement reached with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which investigated the defective valve stems, Ford sent letters to affected owners and offered to do free inspections for premature cracking. Cracks in the stems can cause tires to lose air, and such air loss and low tire pressure can result in tire failure and a loss-of-control crash at highway speeds.

According to one recent news report in the Stamford Advocate, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is considering an investigation into potentially millions of defective valve stems.
 
Eugene Petersen, program leader for tire testing at Consumer Reports recommends that motorists conduct a visual inspection of their valve stems to check for cracks. To do this, remove the hubcap (if there is one) move the top of the stem around, and use a flashlight to check for any sign of cracks at the base of the stem where it meets the wheel. It's also important to keep a close eye on tire pressure by checking it monthly. If one or more tires have to be topped off, it may be a sign of a leak, possibly from a valve stem. If this happens, have your tires checked by a mechanic at once. 

Essential reading. To learn more about valve stems read our past posts:

• Warning issued on faulty tire valve stems following rollover death
  
• Recall of faulty tire valve stems expanded
  
• NHTSA steps up investigation of tire valves … but not enough
  
• Faulty tire valves may have been installed on 2007 Fords
  
• 2 million more tire stem valves recalled that are prone to cracking