Garage Door Injury Numbers Still Ugly

The numbers continue to tell a grim story.

Too many accidents are occurring in the garages of America.

Statistics for 2010, released by the Consumer Product Safety Commission via the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System library, estimate there were 20,809 injures in the garages of the United States for the year.  That is a slight increase from 20,382 similar injuries in 2009.

The numbers are a compilation of a sampling of hospitals and reports from throughout the United States and cover two categories of injuries related to the garage door, and garage door systems with openers.

“Too many people assume the garage door they buy is safe, when it’s really not,” Dave Martin, chairman of Martin Door Manufacturing, says of the latest CPSC numbers.  He says in many cases safety has been pushed aside in favor of building a cheaper door for some manufacturers.  He decries the practice.

* CPSC Numbers are generated on a sampling of designated hospitals.  Real figures could be higher, or lower.  The categories tallied include automatic garage door and garage door openers.

Martin has been considered a crusader within the door industry, pushing for new safety initiatives, when the CPSC began to report high number of accidents in the garage, ranging from crushed limbs to some fatalities.

Martin insists the industry can improve its standard in safety, much as the lawn care business did years ago, when lawnmowers were required to come with a safety device, which stops the mower automatically when someone takes their hand off the handle.  He says the technology is in place and has been for several years.

In his own case, Martin says his company has included over 20 advanced safety features with a Martin Door, including FingerShield™, which protects fingers from being pinched in the sectional joints of a door and a Controlled Descent Device, which is designed to resolve the problem of a falling door that could result from a relaxed spring, a broken spring or a lift cable. The company also sells a door system, which features soft touch reverse, instead of photo eyes to reverse a garage door on the least amount of pressure, much as an elevator door or subway door does.