ABSTRACT
This chapter explores children's formal play environments in public settings in an attempt to answer a basic question: are children's formal play environments safe? A number of problems were evident from the beginning of the project. First was the meaning of 'safety' and the unit of measurement of safety. Second, there was a problem in separating playground-related accidents from non-playground-related accidents. The two major categories of causative factors for playground-related accidents are falls, bumps and blows. Care must be taken in interpreting some of the available data on 'playground accidents' as to location. The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission analyzed an estimated sample of 117,951 playground equipment-associated injuries as reported by the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System during 1974. It is quite obvious that the issue of safety has had observable impacts on a number of areas with which agencies involved in children's formal play environments are concerned: planning and provision; maintenance; and programming and supervision.
