This month SafeKids Oregon, an organization that regular readers know I have long supported and been associated with, is launching an important public education initiative. “Buckle Up: Every Ride, Every Time” aims to eliminate some of the myths surrounding kids and seat belt use. The report begins by acknowledging that…
Many of us have walked through traveling carnivals and probably had the same thought: exactly how safe and well-maintained are these fairground rides that spend much of the year being hauled from one county fair to the next? For a group of parents in Connecticut this weekend that question became…
On a day when the NFL has settled a landmark lawsuit over player concussion (a subject on which I’ll write more later this week) it is worth remembering the measures closer to home that we all need to take to protect our kids from traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries.…
It is one of those things every parent fears: a child suffering and injured after having been locked in a hot car. It is something few of us can dream of doing, and that even fewer could stand by and watch. Yet here in Oregon it happened once again, just…
The case of a 15-year-old Vancouver boy who drowned last year while attending a church-run summer camp may soon be headed to court. Today’s Oregonian reports that the victim’s estate has filed a $13 million lawsuit against the camp and its organizers. According to the paper, the boy died just…
An Associated Press report republished by the Salem Statesman-Journal this month is distressing. According to the news agency, a 3-year-old girl was critically injured in Oregon City when the child “fell into a crawl space.” This was not, however, an at-home accident. The crawl space was in a house that…
Today marks the start of National Window Safety Week (April 7-13). With the seasons changing, and warmer weather settling in, that makes this an especially opportune moment to remind parents of simple but important ways to avoid tragic Oregon injuries to children during the coming months. Here in Portland this…
On Tuesday the Oregon Senate passed by a wide margin a bill that would allow children of any age to ride motorcycles, dirt bikes and other off-road ATVs. Let me be frank, it is hard to see how any responsible parent would allow a child that young to ride a…
See the link below for an interesting story from yesterday’s Oregonian on a new study focusing on teen driving fatalities nationwide. The good news: Oregon and Washington “are among the nation’s safest states for 16- and 17-year-old drivers, according to a new report by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA).”…
An article published this week in the online magazine Slate makes a compelling case that the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an organization many of us think of as an important guardian of Americans’ safety and rights, could do a lot more to make its own workings transparent. The article begins…