Maclaren stroller “recall”: new hysteria over an old hazard to little fingertips

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This morning, on our morning ride to the nursery with G, F and I were discussing the US “recall” of Maclaren baby buggies.   The story we read this morning was headed “Pushchair amputation risk recall.” Well, this had me picturing kids somehow getting an arm or a leg hooked around and…I don’t know…I was a bit stumped from there.  Predictably, the media (in this case, the BBC news website) was taking every opportunity to make the danger sound spectacular.  Sensationalist, I believe, is the word generally used.  What it turns out to be is that some kids have hurt their fingers, and some have had ends of fingers nipped off, by getting them caught in a hinge as the stroller was being unfolded.  Maclaren is offering free kits, in the US only, to cover the offending hinge.  Aside: it’s interesting that the word “recall” no longer seems to imply that products are actually recalled to a dealership for repair or replacement.

In the story we initially read was the line:

“The company stressed that models sold in the UK were not affected.”

The obvious question was then: Are the UK models any different from the ones sold in the US, or is it just that the recall only “affects” purchases made in the US?  After all, what possible reason could there be for Maclaren strollers to be different in the US from in the UK?  It appears that the answer is that the hinges are the same in both cases.  For some reason, Maclaren is finding it wise to issue free hinge covers in one market while hoping to avoid the expense in others. (Apparently Maclaren will send the kits to Canadian requestors, even though technically they aren’t extending their recall to Canada.)

Back to the giddy sensationalism of the BBC stories (I’m singling the BBC out because that’s who I read.  They are susceptible to a bit of hyperbole but it’s not the most susceptible outlet by far): The second story I read (“Row over pushchair safety risks”) begins:

“A consumer group has called for UK parents to receive the same protection as those in the US, amid fears of amputation risks from a pushchair.”

Amputation risks!  Must read on!

They carry on:

“Owners of one million Maclaren pushchairs in the US have been told to stop using them after a dozen children had their fingers amputated in a hinge.”

Kids losing fingers!  Agh!

They get through one more instance of the word “amputation” before arriving at the quote from a CPSC spokesperson specifying that the amputations that were reported were of fingertips, not whole fingers.

In yet another story, “Why no UK baby buggy recall?” reporter Nigel Pankhurst at least begins with specific fingertip references, but later, in relating a specific anecdote where a child had

“had her fingertip cut off when she jumped into a Maclaren Volo as it was being unfolded…”

he can’t resist:

“The finger was re-attached but she has been left with a scar.”

Again the fingertip is exaggerated to a whole finger.  Sigh.

So should the hinge cover kit be offered to everyone in all markets?  I think Maclaren should probably bite the bullet and do it.  And it is time to improve their hinge design.  It will save some pain and scarred little fingers, and Maclaren’s reputation is on the line.  The world is small and moms are networked!  This same fact leads me to think the risk is not actually very great: the “recall” affects models manufactured since 1999.  If serious injuries were common, Maclaren would have a bad reputation on  message boards frequented by mothers of young children, where the pros and cons of any model you can name have been discussed.  I’ve read plenty of threads on Maclaren strollers and never heard a peep on this.  On the other hand, if I were to read discussions about specific cars, the incidence of kids slamming their fingers in the doors would probably not come up.  It may just be that the days of parents regarding pinched fingers as an unavoidable hazard of having a folding buggy have come to an end.

Photo editing with the GIMP: Rounded corners Part II

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Edit Dec 6, 2009: I have also done a demonstration of one way to make only one, two, or three corners round, in “GIMP: Combining selections.”  In it, I used the method of Part I to make a rounded selection, and then I added the desired square corners to the selection.

Before I get into the promised more-complicated-but-more-powerful way to make corners round on a photo using the GIMP, I should quickly demonstrate the really-least-complicated way.  It’s so simple, actually, that perhaps this is the post to read instead of Part I.

Under Filters -> Decor, in my version of the GIMP (2.6), there’s an option called Round Corners.  This option will be greyed out (unavailable) if your image already has an “alpha channel” (a channel containing transparency information).  If your image has an alpha channel and you still want to use this filter, you’ll want to remove it.

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You just choose your parameters:

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Whenever it’s an option, I like to make modifications to a copy, rather than the image I’m happy with thus far, so I keep “Work on copy” checked.  Here is the result of the parameters above on a 500×500 image:

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The “radius” parameter in the Round Corners script is actually the radius, in pixels, of the curve used to round the corners, unlike the “radius” in the Rounded Rectangle selection script I talked about in Part I, which is the diameter of that curve, as a percentage of one side of the image.  Since I have a square image 500 pixels on a side, if I choose here 250 pixels as the radius I should get a circle. I may as well demonstrate that here, along with the fact that “Add background” gives you white corners instead of transparent ones:

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Here’s my circle, on a white background:

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The white is in its own layer below the image, so when you save you’ll most likely want/need to flatten the image or let the GIMP’s export function do it for you.  If you check the “Add drop-shadow” checkbox, the drop shadow will go on its own layer too.

Just for fun, let’s add the default drop shadow to the 80-pixel-radius corners:

roundbutterflywithshadow

As is evident by now, this method is quicker and more versatile than the way I wrote about in Part I.  I still have my more complicated but sneakily powerful method to get a demonstration written about.

If my explanation doesn’t work for you, here’s the official documentation at Gimp.org:

Decor filters -> Round Corners (this is a lot more helpful than the entry on selecting a rounded rectangle)

GIMP Manual

In addition, I see there are actually quite a few rounded-corners tutorials already on the web so if you don’t like mine, a search for “gimp round corners” will get you lots of other options.