Sliding Doors(Automatic Sliding Doors), Warning on Children Safety Accident

- Frequent accidents on fingers and feet of children caught -

    With great conveniences in lifestyle and advances in technology, it is common to install sliding doors for customers. However, some facilities do not comply with Korean Industrial Standards, failing to attach warning signs on the doors, which causes concerns on possible safety accidents on customers.

    President of Korea Consumer Agency, Han kyeon pyo, said that the total of 319 cases of consumer injury surveillance system(CISS)-related complaints had been reported, which has been on the gradual increase each year.

    □ Children safety accidents account for 43.1%, majority of which is fingers and feet caught.

    Analysis of 297 cases, able to identify age, safety accidents under 14 years old recorded 128 cases(43.1%). Among them, toddlers aged 1 to 3 related accidents account for the most, 83 cases( 64.8%)

    In injury cases, accidents of fingers or feet caught, or jammed accounted for the most with 107 cases( 83.6%), followed by crash and shock accidents with 19 cases (14.8%).

    □ Most facilities have failed to follow safety standards on fingers protection on door crevice.

    Studies of 30 multi-unit houses and facilities for multiple purposes showed that 26 of them have the risk of fingers caught in door crevice since they failed to comply with the safety standards on crevice between ‘sliding doors leaf and fixed frame’, and 12 of them(40%) have a high risk of accident of feet caught in doors crevice, failing to abide by safety standards on ‘door leaf and floors’   

    □ Lack of signs on automatic doors or cautions and warning.

     17 (56.7%) of the studied 30 facilities do not have signs indicating automatic doors and 24 (80.0%) of them do not have warning signs or cautions of fingers or feet caught in sliding doors, failing to provide safety-related information to customers. However, some facilities have warning stickers in line with the height of children so that children could easily recognize possible dangers.

    With the studies, KCA advises relevant organizations and agencies to abide by the following standards. ▲ Compliance with the KS when installing sliding doors on facilities for children. ▲ It will request them to expand warning stickers attached in line with the height of children. It will also request parents to watch out for ▲ the possible accidents of fingers and feet of children caught in sliding doors, ▲ and move out when the automatic doors are adequately opened.