Third death prompts review of Ikea plan for unstable dressers

[LynneSin]

Third death prompts review of Ikea plan for unstable dressers


Nine months after the deaths of two toddlers prompted Ikea to launch a safety awareness campaign about unstable dressers, a third fatality has the company and federal regulators reviewing whether that effort went far enough - and negotiating potential next steps for Ikea.

Third death prompts review of Ikea plan for unstable dressers
A company spokeswoman on Wednesday acknowledged its ongoing discussions with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission about "additional actions" that the retailing giant might take.

She wouldn't elaborate on the negotiations, nor would a representative from the safety agency.

But calls for a full-blown recall of Malm dressers - a popular, low-cost line involved in all three deaths - mounted last week. Safety advocates said they were baffled, and increasingly concerned, that the commission has let Ikea keep selling dressers that fail widely accepted stability tests.


Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160502_Third_death_prompts_review_of_Ikea_plan_for_unstable_dressers.html#qCvBD1CoVOtTVMGp.99

[Phentex]

1. Why aren't the parents using the wall brackets?

I know the instructions can be annoying but the brackets are included.

[Phentex]

2. and P.S. my sister climbed a dresser when she was four and it tipped

and knocked the head off a St. Joseph statue. My mother was more upset about that than she was the fact that my sister could have been hurt. Nothing came with anchors back then.

[kentauros]

6. Maybe it's because I'm a draughtsman,

but I've never had any difficulty with IKEA instructions. Methinks the ones that ones who complain the most are the same ones who don't read / throw the instructions out before they start assembling things

[PoliticAverse]

3. Note that many more kids are killed by tipping televisions each year...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/tipping-televisions-kill-record-number-of-us-kids-govt-warns/

[Fla Dem]

4. Geez Ikea, just stop selling them. How hard a decision is that?

[TexasBushwhacker]

5. This could happen with any tall dresser

IKEA is being single out simply because millions of these have been sold.

[Xithras]

8. No, there's actually a problem with them.

Federal standards say that a dresser should remain stable with the top drawer fully extended and a single 50 pound weight hanging on it. The Malm fails that test.

Ikea could fix this simply by shortening the drawer slides. That will prevent the drawer from extending out as far, and keep the center of gravity centered over the feet. This is a pretty standard thing in the furniture industry, and it's why cheap, lightweight dressers never offer fully extending drawers.

Generally speaking, the heavier the dresser, the more resilient it is to tipovers and the deeper the drawers can be. The lighter the dresser, the shallower the drawers need to be in order to maintain its balance.

Of course, if everyone would just screw their furniture to the wall, it would be a moot point. I live in California and an STILL suprised by the number of idiots who don't secure their furniture. Hello earthquakes!

[alphafemale]

7. Bracket anything that could get top heavy and tip.

This is common sense.