PAGE ONE -- Goodbye to Teeter-Totters, Tall Slides / Old favorites too dangerous for modern playgrounds

Tall metal slide, highFast swingspinning merry-go-With parks and schools to meet strict new safety standards, rounds and other playground equipment that delight generations of California children will soon be in the past.Now safety first, excitement second.\"This excitement has disappeared, especially for older children,\" said Debbie tulben, a park planner in Santa Clara County.Instead of traditional equipment, the colorful wooden, plastic game structureCoated metal and fiberglass.Each of these massive structures costs up to $40,000, aiming to improve children\'s motor skills, increase upper body strength, and stimulate imagination, all in the safest possible environment.\"You can\'t even buy a nurse --Tim Gilbert of Moore said: \"They may shake again because of a back injury --\"Iacofano-Berkeley design company Goltsman is often committed to redesign the playground.\"The metal tube monkey bar is gone, the only happinessgo-The rounds you can buy have governors to prevent them from going too fast.\"Older children may despise new devices ---few self-respecting 8-year-The old people will get a six.foot-High slide, maximum height allowed according to a suggested safety specification.However, parents may welcome safety standards: according to the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, nearly 150,000 children each year end up entering the hospital emergency room after being injured in a public playground.About 15 children die each year in these injuries across the country.\"It\'s short-sighted to say things have to be a bit dangerous to be funny,\" said Mary Allen Firth, director of product safety at the American consumers Federation.\"If there is a way to get kids out of the hospital, it\'s a good thing.\"The Fise team is one of the most active advocates of playground safety and wants the federal guidelines to be strengthened.The organization proposes to limit the height of all playground slides and platforms to 6 feet M, banning animals and glidersSwing in style, eliminating the swinging movement Ring and the trapeze rod, and requiring up to 1 feet of sand, wood chips or other cushioning material under all playground equipment.\"There are a lot of things that can be interesting and don\'t have to be 10 feet in the air,\" Fise said .\".A California law stipulates that by 2000, cities and schools must comply with the current safety guidelines of the Consumer Product Safety Board, which sets voluntary design standards for playgrounds and amusement equipment.These playgrounds must also meet the accessibility requirements of the US Disability Act.At the same time, the growing threat of litigation has prompted some parks and school districts to act more quickly to make the playground safer.\"When I grow up, if I drop something on the playground and my ankle breaks, my parents will tell me that I should be more careful,\" Turpen said .\", Santa Clara County park planner\"Now, many parents blame the park department for any harm.\"Some cities and schools are dismantling playground equipment due to potential responsibility.San Francisco, the city\'s tallest slide, 14The footer of the West Gate playground is missing.In Auckland, a 7-year-The old man died in the Monkey Bar at Fruit Valley School in 1993, and the city and school district are still working to replace the equipment declared closedRestrictions on children three years ago.Ray Hendrickson, business manager at Millbrae School District, said: \"We removed all playground equipment at the school in 1995 to prevent any potential lawsuits .\".\"The (litigation) loss against the playground school district is astronomical.\"Milbray school has a state now.of-the-As local voters passed the bond issue last year, art game equipment.But without this help, the kids don\'t have any game equipment at all.Janet Sumpter said: \"We will remove all (the area) playground equipment by 1999, which will be replaced by local parent groups, \"who supervised the efforts of the San Jose United School District Randol Primary School to redo the playground.The same is true of the Oakland United School District, which has pulled rock climbing poles and other unsafe equipment from more than 80 schools.Assistant Superintendent Robert Dias said that although the area had replaced all the heavily deteriorated playground safety mats, there was little money to buy new equipment.Most of the Gulf cities have started to create children.Safe playgroundIn November, Oakland voters passed the first measure, which offered about $3.About 40 children\'s play areas in the city were renovated in 5 million.San Francisco is working hard to redo the mission, Bernal and Portola amusement park.At Palo Alto, Brions Park has a full faceImprovements to elevators and other city playgrounds have been completed or are in progress last year.The new playground looks quite different from the one that started decades ago.There is no easier place to see this contrast than Los Gatos, where the Oak Meadows Park is right next to the Vasona Lake Park in Santa Clara County.Built in 1965, Oak Meadows Park has a playground every year on a gray afternoon last Monday.A silver air force jet trainer and a 10-The fireman\'s pole on foot is the main attraction for the children to climb up.A half-12-12 swingThe foot chain was used a lot.On the hard-The sand piled up in the center of the playground is a huge metal structure, a pair of 10-A little boy shouted as one of his feet slipped down, \"Mom, look at me sliding down the big slide!A bridge on the Los Gatos River connects Oak Meadows to county parks.In 1993, the county spent $230,000 renovating the children\'s play area, and three years later it was still a shiny fantasy of bright blue poles and wide sidewalks.The slides attached to the main game structure are about 6 feet high and made of fiberglass, so they don\'t heat up like metal slides in the South Bay Sun.For safety, the swing is placed elsewhere in the playground with rubber-Coating chain, about 7 feet high.Kurt DeVarona of Los Gatos and his 4-year-Old son MarcusAlthough his son likes two parks, DeVarona admits to nostalgia for Oak Meadow Park, unsafe swings, etc.\"There must be a medium of happiness between safety and fun,\" he said .\".This is the problem that entertainment officials face in their efforts to balance the safety and entertainment needs of young children.\"I don\'t know to what extent we can still ensure the safety of the children\'s playground without taking all the interest away,\" said Tony Acosta, interim director of parks in Auckland .\".\"Risk will never be zero.