(A) Findings. The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission has found that more than 200,000 children are treated in hospital emergency rooms each year for injuries associated with playground equipment. The large majority of these injuries resulted from children falling from the equipment. Other injuries were caused by impacts with moving equipment such as swings; entanglement of clothing on the equipment; entanglement in ropes attached to the equipment; contact with protrusions, pinch points and sharp edges; head entrapment; and equipment failure. The township formally adopts the findings outlined in Playing It Safe: June 2000. A Fifth Nationwide Safety Survey of Public Playgrounds by the United States Public Interest Research Group and the Consumer Federation of America as supportive of the following provisions.
(B) Purposes. The purposes of this chapter are to regulate the design, construction, operation and maintenance of all public playgrounds within the township and to minimize the likelihood of injury resulting from the use of public playgrounds, so as to assure and safeguard the public health, safety and the general welfare of the residents of the township, especially its children.
(Ord. 143, passed 1-9-2002)