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How bicycles slipped the CPSIA noose

June 25, 2009 Interesting development today in the Consumer Product Safety Commission's efforts to bring "common sense" to enforcement of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act's lead standards: Bicycle manufacturers are getting a two-year reprieve from enforcement.

What's most interesting to me is the rationale the commissioners used to justify their decision. 

While safety troubled toys get all the attention, bicycles have long been a major concern for CPSC when it comes to children's injuries. (It's not surprising considering the inherent danger of a product that in order to work calls for balancing on two wheels at high speeds...) As Moore points out in his statement, there have been nearly 35 bicycle-related recalls in the last 8 years. Of those, the vast majority were due to high-end adult bicycle components failing. In light of such, Moore's arguement goes like this:

In order to provide higher performance, high-end bicycle parts are made from much lighter (and potentially then more fragile) composite materials than bikes for children. What separates those high-end components from the more robust ones on lower end adult and children's bikes? ... Lead. Or at least it may/could be lead, as Moore writes: 

"It may be that the lower amount of lead in these products had nothing whatsoever to do with their failures, but it is worrisome enough for me not to proceed to a reduction in lead in certain components in children's bicycles until all the necessary testing is done to ensure that the substitutes for lead do not compromise the structural or mechanical integrity of these bicycles."

In the meantime, it's expected that makers of children's bicycles should take advantage of the "time out" (in Nancy Nord's words) to find ways to produce lead-free bicycles without weakening their structural integrity—if in fact lead has anything to do with a bike's structural integrity at all. 

You can find both Moore's and Nord's statements on the ruling here.

Posted by Cliff Annicelli on June 25, 2009 | Comments (2)