May Not Want to Wear Crocs on Escalators

"Several times a week people are injured on metro Atlanta escalators, reports to Georgia regulators show," leading some to argue that escalators are "inherently dangerous". They question the "blame recently heaped on Crocs-type shoes, which several children were wearing in highly publicized accidents across the country, including at Atlanta's airport."

“If escalators were designed properly and met all the standards, it wouldn’t matter that they were wearing Crocs,” said Scott Anderson, a Houston petroleum engineer who petitioned the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1997 to require closing dangerous gaps along the sides of escalator stairs. In 1996 — long before Crocs were on the market — Anderson’s 4-year-old son lost three toes when his tennis shoe was sucked into an escalator."

The National Elevator Industry Inc., an escalator trade group, maintains escalators are "inherently safe and that injuries "are rare compared with the number of riders." Read more.