Products: Death in the Crib

The testimony reads like a surrealistic nightmare: cribs that strangle, glass doors that shatter and become makeshift guillotines, high-handlebar bicycles that break cheekbones, hot-water vaporizers that scald, power mowers that clip off fingers and toes, wringer washing machines that crush the young and unwary. But the gruesome catalogue is no dream; it is compiled from accounts of common product hazards listed in a study released last week by the National Commission on Product Safety. The study notes that consumer products are involved in most household accidents —and those accidents kill 30,000 people annually, permanently disable 110,000 and put...