Playing It Safe

Concerned Parents Can Test Toys in the Store

You might have thought after this year's string of high-profile recalls that there wouldn't be many dangerous toys left on store shelves. But safety consultant Alison Cassady still managed to spend about $700 during her annual shopping expedition for unsafe toys.

Recalls, after all, have their limitations. While they help ensure that fewer children are hurt by dangerous toys, they alert the public to hazards only after the toys have been sold and have made their way into homes.

So what's a shopper to do?

For starters, don't despair. Despite the record number of toy recalls this year, the vast majority of toys are safe.

"Sometimes I'm walking for hours and am not finding anything, but I tell myself that's a good thing," said Cassady, who helps compile the annual "Trouble in Toyland" report for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. This year's report is scheduled to be released Tuesday.

The recent recalls of toys containing lead and small powerful magnets have made a difference. Cassady said she had a harder time this year finding toys with those hazards.

Shoppers who want reassurance can adopt Cassady's technique of testing toys right in the store. For three weeks this fall, she scoured the shelves of Washington area toy retailers, armed with a lead-test kit, a choke-test cylinder and a sound meter. (Lead-test kits and choke-test cylinders can be purchased online. Sound meters can be bought at stores such as Radio Shack.)

Here are some of the hazards she looked for:

Small Parts

Small pieces that children can choke on remain one of the biggest toy hazards. Toys made for children younger than 3 are banned from containing small parts. And toys for 3- to 6-year-olds that have small parts are required by federal law to carry a warning label that reads: "Choking hazard. Small parts. Not for children under 3 years." But Cassady found toys that should have had a label and did not. She found others that had labels that were hard to read because of small print or different wording.

A toy with small parts should have a statutory warning "and not something the company made up itself," Cassady said.

Shoppers can check to see whether pieces fit in a choke-test cylinder, which is a clear plastic tube about 1 1/4 inches wide and with a slanted bottom with a space about 1 to 2 1/4 inches deep. It costs about $3.

Cassady also used her hands, trying to pry the tiny arm off a figurine, yanking on toy-car wheels and breaking her nails pulling on plastic flowers in a safari play set. If she couldn't pull them off, she said, neither could a child. Of course, there is a major pitfall to this approach: If you break it, you buy it.