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Grounds For Play’s commitment to safety continued. Part of that deep commitment is a conservative interpretation of the Handbook as it pertains to "composite" climbers, structures that combine several elevated decks with bridges, climbers, and slides. The Handbook states that the "recommendations for individual pieces of equipment should be used as a guide in establishing the use zone around the perimeter of a composite play structure". (5.1.7), and that "care should be taken to ensure that the play and traffic patterns of children using adjacent components on composite structures are complementary" (6.2). Together, these guidelines lead us to design composite structures so that the clearance needed for individual climbers (six feet) is maintained for adjacent climbers on the composite structure. We describe this as a 6' "halo", clear of obstructions and providing a free-fall path to the resilient material around the climber. Many of our competitors sell structures with climbers containing metal rungs in the projected path of a child should they fall in the course of using a particular climber. Metal rungs are hard and small, and when they occur more than 18" lower than the child's position as they climb, they create a hazardous condition that clearly has potential to do great injury. We believe this violates the CPSC guideline (12.1.2) that says "Climbers should not have climbing bars or other structural components in the interior of the structure onto which a child may fall from a height of greater than 18 inches." Many competitors accept this risk in their designs because they argue about the meaning of the word "interior" in the guideline. For us, rather than argue about the meaning of "interior", it is better simply to consider where a child might land if they fall during the use of the climber. If they can fall more than 18" onto rigid metal rungs, this is unsafe and not to be tolerated. We believe in, and stake our reputations on, our duty and ability to design structures with high play value but without these unnecessary risks for children. We would invite the same scrutiny and review of the 6' halos around each of the climbing components within our composite structures, and of the design of our climbers to prevent children from hitting metal rungs in the process of falling. *with national and international distribution of its equipment
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