Clark Howard's Tips

August 5, 2008

New rules governing the safety of children's toys, cribs and more are set to go into effect by Christmas 2009. While parents won't get the benefit of the legislation immediately, there are a couple of free-market solutions that will cover upcoming holiday season purchases later this year. Read on for further details.

Under the new rules, there will be mandatory third-party testing of products for kids up to age 12. That's before the products make it to market. Other provisions include tougher standards for lead in toys -- which was a problem with imports from communist China. Meanwhile, there will finally be whistleblower protection. Previously, those insiders who blew the whistle risked being fired without any compensation whatsoever.

Fines of up to $15 million will be permissible if children do get hurt, whereas before there was essentially no fining permitted at all.

The new rules raise the question -- when should government get involved? If an industry monitors itself, Clark believes government should stay out. But the toy industry did not govern itself. So they brought the heavy hand of government into their world.

No legitimate business gets up in the morning with the intention of harming children. Yet there's a diffusion of responsibility throughout the industry. You have contract factories, final-assembly factories, wholesalers, distributors, retailers and more in the picture. The responsibility for safe toys gets lost in the mix.

But to the credit of the retail world, both Wal-Mart and Target have come out with their own stiff standards that importers and manufacturers have to meet. The Wal-Mart and Target standards will be effective this coming Christmas. Clark loves such free-market initiatives.

Consumer advice courtesy of