Study says scooter and skateboard spills injure more kids than other toys
By Los Angeles Times, adapted by Newsela staff
Grade Level 6
12.16.14
Word Count 498
A girl rides a scooter past a sign reading "Speed 20 Is Plenty" on a light pole in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York, April 23, 2014. Photo: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan
The number of American children getting hurt by their toys is growing. A new study came out from Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
It shows that between 1990 and 2011 the number of kids suffering a toy-related injury jumped by 40 percent. The scientists who did the study looked at numbers collected by the government from hospitals. They found that the age kids were most likely to be hurt while playing with toys was age 2. Children under the age of 5 made up a little over half of the patients.
The government gathered information from 100 hospitals that have 24-hour emergency rooms. It then used the information to estimate the number of injuries for the entire country.
Falls And Crashes
About 3 billion model planes, hula hoops, building block sets and other toys are sold in the U.S. every year. The scientists who wrote the study say that these high numbers show how important toys are to society. Most of the time, kids play safely and don't get hurt.
Not always, though.
There is one toy that is being blamed for causing the highest number of accidents. It is the foot-powered scooter. Toy makers call it a “ride-on” toy because children climb on top and ride it. Other ride-on toys are wagons, tricycles and skateboards. The study found that the number of accidents caused by scooters and other ride-on toys like skateboards grew by 74 percent from 1990 to 2011. It was a huge increase. In fact, 35 percent of all injuries caused by toys to children were caused by ride-on toys.
Scooters also helped make falls and crashes the most common types of accidents linked with toys. The study found that 60 percent of all toy-related falls were the result of playing with ride-on toys.
According to the study, injuries linked to scooters were also more severe than other kinds. For example, kids playing with ride-on toys were 3.2 times more likely to fracture or break a bone than kids using other kinds of toys.
Some Interesting Facts
The study also found that kids who hurt themselves using ride-on toys were admitted to the hospital more often. Between 1990 and 2011, 43 percent of all hospital admissions linked to toys were because of accidents with ride-on toys like scooters.
The people who did the study also found other interesting facts. The facts applied to accidents caused by all kinds of toys, not only ride-on toys.
For example:
Four out of five toy-related injuries happened at home.
Sixty-three percent of these accidents happened when boys were playing with toys.
Injuries linked to toys were higher in the spring and summer (57 percent). They were lower during the fall and winter (43 percent).
Most (98 percent) of the kids seen in emergency rooms did not need to be admitted to the hospital.
The scientists who did the study felt that there would be a lower number of accidents if more attention was paid to making toys safer.