CONSUMER PRODUCTS AND RETAIL E-SSENTIALS

USA: CPSC revises safety standard for carriages and strollers

AUGUST 2019 - Relevant for: TOYS AND CHILDREN'S PRODUCTS

On 2 August 2019, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a direct final rule¹ revising the mandatory safety standard for carriages and strollers to incorporate by reference the most recent version of the applicable standard ASTM F833-19² without modification. The rule will be effective on 5 November 2019, unless significant adverse comment would be received by 3 September 2019.

In April this year, we shared with you the revisions³ to ASTM F833-19. A new definition, performance requirement, test method and warning requirement were introduced for tray or grab bar proactive covering to avoid choking risk from children biting foam materials. The CPSC already issued two recall cases related to this hazard in 2015 and 2016.

The revisions included also other changes such as the addition of a failure mode to static load tests and alignment on the unit of static load. All these changes improved the safety of carriages and strollers and the Commission decided to update the standard to ASTM F833-19 under the rule 16 CFR 1227.

This rule would not significantly change third party testing for compliance to the safety standard, the Commission concluded the existing accreditations to current standard would be accepted for testing to the new standard.

[1] 16 CFR Part 1227

[2] ASTM standard portal

[3] USA Updated Strollers Standard ASTM F833-19 Published, April 2019