Public Playground Safety Hqndbook

This handbook presents safety information for public playground equipment in the form of guidelines with the intent to promote greater safety awareness among those who purchase, install, and maintain public playground equipment. This handbook is intended for use by childcare personnel, school officials, parks and recreation personnel, equipment purchasers and installers, playground designers, and any other members of the general public such as parents and school groups concerned with public playground safety and interested in evaluating their respective playgrounds.

The recommendations in the Handbook are focused on playground-related injuries and mechanical mechanisms of injury; falls from playground equipment have remained the largest single hazard pattern associated with playground use. Since the first edition, the Commission has included recommendations that playgrounds not be installed over concrete, asphalt, or paved surfaces to address serious head injuries due to falls from the equipment. Additionally, the Commission has made suggestions for commonly used loose-fill and unitary surfacing materials (e.g., wood mulch, pea gravel, sand, gym mats, and shredded/recycled rubber mulch) that provide head impact attenuation and can mitigate the hazard presented by falls from playground equipment.

Maintaining the focus on falls, the Handbook's surfacing recommendations are based on the surfacing material's energy absorbing effectiveness. During the past 35 years, innovations in technology have led to new playground equipment and surfacing practices. Voluntary standards for equipment and impact attenuation for protective surfacing have evolved. The 2010 edition of the Handbook, the most recent version, still discusses common materials, but also covers new surfacing systems that are specifically designed and tested to comply with ASTM F1292, the voluntary standard for measuring impact attenuation of surfacing.



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