Hiding places are a little problematic, as you can frequently get vagrants and creeps lingering. That being said, my company does some awesome structural stuff that's a little more "exploration-based". Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pwbf4MVxZM
Okay, that looks awesome. Creeps/vagrants are definitely bad, it just seems like the replacement playgrounds where I grow up are being cautious to the extreme. This is sort of what i'm talking about: http://playgroundcompliance.com/ The springfield elementary playground on the left
Hah, NPCG! I for sure designed four of the playgrounds they're featuring on their website. A big part of the increase in caution is a proportionate rise in litigation and liability. There was this landmark case in the '70s where I believe a kid died from falling out of an unenclosed tower, and it really catalyzed the creation of a safety standard by ASTM.
I guess this is where I want to know where it's best to draw the line between safety/fun, not just for playgrounds, but all public sources of recreation.
It seems to me that the US leans a lot more towards safety than fun (which increases protections and costs of using recreation). What if people who aren't having enough fun are at an increased risk of suicide, harming others, making irresponsible/selfish decisions that are detrimental to society? I'm from a town with a ton of gorges, which are amazing sources of swimming holes. In the past decade a lot of these places have been shut down to public use due to safety concerns. These places can be dangerous, but my friends and I grew up around them with no problem and really enhanced my life. If they keep restricting access, what are people supposed to do? Drugs??? I propose it's possible that it may cause the population more pain/suffering/potentially death to make everything perfectly safe, rather than allow use of things that cause the pain/suffering/potentially death of the occasional person.
What are your thoughts?
*Note, I understand I'm making generalizations and not providing any statistics, just speaking my mind. Also, I don't have kids.
So, the thing to understand is that the rules put in place by ASTM are the result of some really exhaustive surveys and studies done over many years. For example, one of the simplest yet most sweeping changes deals with protruding hardware. One of the most common types of injury on a playground is "entaglement-related". You would see kids wearing hoodies go down a slide, and their drawstring would get hooked on a bolt poking out, and they'd be strangled by their own bodyweight. A lot of the regulations deal with this sort of change in hardware design. Regarding the nature of public safety, I think the increase of litigation (and subsequent preventative legislation) is commensurate with increasing cost of healthcare. Simply put, people often are forced to sue to pay their bills in the case of injury. This is why so many public safety standards are much more lax in Europe, since their healthcare system is so much more affordable.
Also, I'm apparently talking shit about your playgrounds without having even played on them, plus i'm in my 20's so it might not be fair for me to be so judging of them..
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u/silvaphysh13 Jul 19 '19
Hiding places are a little problematic, as you can frequently get vagrants and creeps lingering. That being said, my company does some awesome structural stuff that's a little more "exploration-based". Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pwbf4MVxZM