The legislature of Suffolk County voted to ban the sale of cribs with drop sides in that Long Island county. If the municipality signs the move into law, it will be the first place in the country to ban the sale of drop-side cribs amid an alarming number of deaths, injuries and crib recalls. In support of the legislation, lawmakers expressed concern over the estimated 90 deaths and 11,000 injuries associated with drop-side cribs between 2005 and 2008.  During the same period, the Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled more than 4 million drop-side cribs, mostly due to hardware failure. 
 
We've reported on this blog many times about hardware failures on full size cribs that put children at risk. We've reported on strangulations, entrapments, suffocations and falls—all the result of the failure of a component on a product designed to provide a safe sleeping environment for children. 
 
We proposed that ASTM-International, the organization that sets voluntary safety standards for cribs, ban the drop-side design until an appropriate durability test can be developed.  Our proposal passed and is expected to result in a major revision to ASTM’s crib standard.   
 
The CPSC is also working on revising the agency's mandatory standards for cribs.  We expect to see its new regulations in 2011. 
 
Our take:  While we commend Suffolk County for taking this action, such patchwork legislation does little to solve the larger problem.  We need strict federal standards that are applied uniformly across the entire country.  In our opinion, the CPSC can’t work fast enough to promulgate tough crib standards that will ensure that cribs provide the safest sleeping environment for all children.—Don Mays