Recall Overkill Hits Fisher-Price Trikes

In what has to be one of the silliest recalls in recent memory, Mattel (MAT) subsidiary Fisher-Price is voluntarily recalling 14 models of toddler tricycles, including its iconic Hot Wheels Trike. The terrifying hazard these trikes contain? They come with a little pretend key that you can stick in a hole near the handlebars -- and kids might fall on it and get a bruise.

Oh, come on. Doesn't the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission have real hazards it should be busy warning us about? This basic trike model has been around since 1969 -- hard to believe it now suddenly poses a serious risk to toddlers' health.

Guess what? Playing outside is hazardous to our health. We could trip on a crack in the sidewalk and fall down, too.

The CPSC reports a total of six kids needed medical attention after getting hurt on this key. For a product that's been on the market more than 40 years, that seems like a pretty stellar safety record.

Nonetheless, the CPSC has pressured Fisher-Price into recalling the whole trike so that parents can be given a different, flatter key to use instead. It's hard to see why Fisher-Price and its retail partners should have to go through this drama. The agency could have simply issued an advisory for parents to remove the little key and get rid of it. Problem solved!

Maybe we need new regulatory standards for how serious an injury needs to be before it's the subject of a recall. Or perhaps we could create a simple advisory-level warning below the full-on recall level. As it is, parents are going to be shlepping trikes back to stores while kids cry, all for what's really a minimal danger.

Photo via Flickr user Esparta