TV sets falling on kids...

[Rob Williams]

Saw this story over at Daily Tech about how there's an increasing number of kids who get hurt from TVs that fall right off the stand. I think this is more common with older TVs which are more front-heavy, but the risk of having it happen to any TV is totally real. Even an LCD can fall right off the wall if it's not completely secured.

http://www.dailytech.com/Increasing+Number+of+Children+Injured+by+Falling+TVs/article15122.htm

It seems like a simple thing, but it's definitely good to be safe rather than sorry.

 

[madmat]

That's what happens when you take the TV out of the console. Those old, huge, console TV's were space and energy hogs and ugly as sin but there's no way they'd ever fall on anyone unless you were doing something epically stupid.

 

[Rob Williams]

Well, that's the thing... these are front-heavy, but if it's just sitting there on a stable surface, it shouldn't fall over. Honestly, I can see issues with TVs mounted to the wall more than I can old-school tube TVs. It's far too easy to screw up installation of a wall-mount than it is to set a TV on a stand.

 

[Kougar]

Except when the stands themselves collapse... I've been hearing about that for awhile as well. Some consumers bought the cheaper stands that weren't rated for the size screen of the LCD/plasma TV they put ontop of it... and a random bump by someone (or just time) was all it took before they collapsed. Or they were just crappily made to begin with and broke regardless, I've heard of both occuring.

Since many use a thin plate of glass to support the TV the former occurs more frequently though.

 

[Rob Williams]

Except when the stands themselves collapse... I've been hearing about that for awhile as well. Some consumers bought the cheaper stands that weren't rated for the size screen of the LCD/plasma TV they put ontop of it... and a random bump by someone (or just time) was all it took before they collapsed.

More reason for people to stop being so cheap. There's no excuse for not getting a decent mount (of course, unless it costs more than the TV). I wouldn't risk hanging up an expensive TV to a cheap mount. Just not worth it.

 

[Ben]

TV's fall over easier than you might think. Yes a tube TV is a heavy mother fucker, but if the stand wasn't designed for it, it can easily tip. As Rob said, the TV's are front heavy, which puts a lot of weight on the front of the stand, its doesn't take too much work to push a set off when its already leaning forward. This is why I personally put two pieces of wood beneath the front of any TV stand just to prop it up a bit. I forgot to mention that carpet also plays a role here. There are so many different carpet types, and without the wood to give the stand a solid base, it also can weaken the stand and a TV can tip. LCD's in my mind are worse than CRT's since they are very light (relatively) and very thin. I've almost knocked several of them down myself without trying when I used to work in retail just by trying to push in cables in the back.

 

[Rob Williams]

I think a lot of it has to do with the stand itself. If it's huge, there's not going to be a problem. If it's depth is on par or smaller than the entire depth of the TV, then there's going to be obvious issues. Huge tube TVs need a very stable surface, one that even if you bumped into, the TV wouldn't move (I used to have something like this).

As for LCDs, I'll never show how I have mine sitting. It's on a crap desk, raised with a thick book underneath so it's closer to being eye-level. I've almost knocked it flat over before. Shows how much respect I have for the thing ;-) I secretly want it to die so I can upgrade.

 

[Altrus]

....the picture they use seems more like a reason to not climb on furniture than a danger from tvs.....

Thats a really cheap particle board dresser also.
The kid is climbing up it using the drawers, anything on top of it would have fallen......

 

[slugbug]

When we were kids we knew better than to climb on furniture and knock TVs over onto ourselves. We did however try to suck water out of the bath tub with a vacuum. My sister and I were lucky we didn't kill ourselves.