https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/after-hundreds-of-crashes-this-britax-jogging-stroller-faced-recall-then-trump-appointees-stepped-in/2019/04/02/faf23c20-4c06-11e9-b79a-961983b7e0cd_story.html
This is crazy! There has to be some public pressure on britax to recall the stroller. |
OP, can you please summarize the article for those who don’t subsribe to WP? Thanks. |
Free summary of situation:
https://www.babybargains.com/cpsc-sues-britax-to-force-recall-of-hazardous-bob-jogging-strollers/ |
Wow. I wonder what secretly went on between the Republican appointees and Britax management to make Britax so ballsy? |
Scary and awful. I won’t be buying anymore Britax products if this is how they treat their customers! |
This actually happened to us the other day. Luckily, my husband and I were running together and I was in front, so I looked back and could see the wheel going crazy. We stopped and fixed it before anything bad happened. |
"OP, can you please go into the movie theater with a small camera and record this movie so I don't have to buy a ticket? Thanks." |
+1. I also won’t buy anything made from Britax anymore now that I know they don’t care about keeping kids safe. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that our federal safety commission doesn’t care about keeping kids safe. |
+1 |
I'm so glad I would never buy one of those overpriced strollers. I've been happy with my Chicco and Graco ones. |
“The crashes were brutal. With no warning, the front wheel on the three-wheeled BOB jogging strollers fell off, causing the carriages to careen and even flip over. Adults shattered bones. They tore ligaments. Children smashed their teeth. They gashed their faces. One child bled from his ear canal.
Staff members at the Consumer Product Safety Commission collected 200 consumer-submitted reports from 2012 to 2018 of spontaneous failure of the stroller wheel, which is secured to a front fork by a quick-release lever, like on a bicycle. Nearly 100 adults and children were injured, according to the commission. The agency’s staff members investigated for months before deciding in 2017 that one of the most popular jogging strollers on the market was unsafe and needed to be recalled. “. (But the company refused etc etc) |
It’s awful that this happened... but I wonder how many parents were checking the quick release before going for a run?
And no, I’m not victim blaming. I’m just wondering why people would think a movable part would never move. It’s like a bike. You check (or should check) your gear before going.. brakes, tire pressure, etc. Things vibrate loose or out of place. The easy way out of this is to not buy a stroller with a releasable wheel. |
Or, Britax could recall the stroller. The reason we have a Consumer Product Safety Commission is because most people are not as smart as you. But they still deserve safe products. |
+1 From the article: The stroller’s instructions told parents that “less than a half turn” of the quick release can be “the difference between safe and unsafe clamping force.” That's an unacceptably small margin of error given the potential for injury to babies and small children. And, in fact, Britax modified the quick-release mechanism, so that the wheel wouldn't fall out as easily, but refused to recall the half-million strollers with the defective design. And: Problems with other quick-release mechanisms have led to voluntary recalls by other companies, including 18 different bicycle brands recalling more than 2 million bicycles in 2015. In 2016, Pacific Cycle agreed to recall its jogging stroller, telling consumers to stop using the stroller until the quick release was replaced with a screw attachment. |
So short-sighted of the company. I would certainly never buy a product from them again, given the extreme lengths they went to to avoid recalling the stroller even in the face of numerous injuries. They just wanted to insist that the design was fine, even though it did not function adequately in the real world. |