Garage Door Injury Numbers Still Ugly

Sept. 6, 2011 - PRLog -- 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 NEISS library, estimate there were 20,809 injures in the garage in 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 Garage Doors, says of the latest CPSC numbers.  He says in many cases safety has been pushed aside in favor of building a cheaper garage door for some manufacturers.


Year   CPSC Report of Garage Door Related Injures*
2010   20,809
2009   20,382
2008   20,017,
2007   19,943
2006   18,781
2005   19,228
2004   19,767
2003   20,005
2002   19,370
2001   20,421
2000   19,608
* 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 garage 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.

In his own case, Martin says his company has included over 20 advanced safety features with a Martin Garage Door, including FingerShield™, which protects fingers from being pinched in the sectional joints of a garage door and a Controlled Descent Device, which is designed to resolve the problem of a failing garage door that could result from a relaxed spring, a broken spring or a lift cable.

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Garage Door manufacturer of "world's finest, safest doors" since 1936. Martin Garage Doors are distributed to 92 countries of the world. Martin is an ISO company that also has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.