I've been tracking and writing about product safety recalls for several years, from my relatively safe and comfy perch in Chicago. To do this, I rely on recall notices posted by two federal agencies. Broadly speaking, the US National Traffic Highway Safety Administration governs on-road vehicles (mainly motorcycles and helmets, for RideApart's purposes), while the US Consumer Product Safety Commission covers off-road vehicles.
Think dirt bikes, ATVs, UTVs, and other powersports products.
The CPSC also covers a bunch of other consumer products that are well outside the scope of a powersports website, but which are nonetheless everyday objects that you probably interact with. Stuff like refrigerators, furniture, baby items, and so on.
Again, generally speaking, most reasonable people probably have both an expectation that products they choose to bring into their homes, for use by themselves and their kids, aren't going to have an unintended potential fire risk, for example. Or have handlebars that can cut you. Or be a completely different manufacturer of youth ATVs with handlebars that can apparently cut you. I could go on, just using examples in RideApart's archives of times that the CPSC has made it possible for us to get the warning out so readers can keep themselves and their loved ones safe.
But you probably already know what I'm going to say, even if you haven't heard the news yet. The US CPSC is one of the latest federal agencies under threat by the current administration, despite the fact that product safety doesn't care who you voted for, and is a thing that affects every person who uses those products.
Two-Pronged Attack
Are you familiar with the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS)? It's a program that was in place for 47 years, and collected specific data about injuries that brought patients to a range of 100 participating hospitals across the US. Considering that injuries are the number one cause of death for persons under 45 years of age in the US, that's kind of significant.
Or, it was. On April 11, those hospitals received notification that a joint initiative by the US Centers for Disease Control and the CPSC called the All Injury Program would be ending. How soon would it be ending? On April 18. That gave all parties involved exactly one week to wind the program down. If you're a person who's ever done any kind of project, you know that's not enough time to adequately tie up the loose ends of anything, let alone an almost 50-year-old data reporting program.
Why does it matter? This program provided data that the CPSC used to create and revise product safety standards, as well as monitor to see whether product safety recall investigations were warranted. And then, if investigation proved that products required safety recalls, they were able to use that data in the product safety recall process, as well. Pretty sensible stuff, right?
Except, now it's all gone. Done. Cooked.
But that's not all. After first hobbling the CPSC, two nonprofit organizations, the Consumer Federation of America and the National Consumers League, are sounding the alarm about leaked US administration documents that propose to completely eliminate the CPSC. If you've never heard of either of those organizations, you'll be pleased to know that they're both considered to be highly credible, transparent, legit organizations on Charity Navigator.
“Eliminating the CPSC would strip Americans of the only federal agency dedicated to protecting us from dangerous consumer products, leaving families, especially children, more vulnerable to death, injury, and exploitation. The CPSC delivers its life-saving results on an already tiny budget, protecting all of us with fewer resources than other federal agencies. The elimination of this agency will have an outsized, devastating impact on public safety," said CFA director of consumer product safety Courtney Griffin in a statement.
While RideApart's concern is powersports (and related safety recalls), as I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, the CPSC's remit is far broader than just our tiny little niche. As an example, here are some product safety recalls issued last week (at least, at the time of writing).
All of them, I'm sure, are things that most people probably want to know about and keep away from their families at all costs. Right?
- A furniture tip-over kit, meant to keep heavy furniture from tipping onto your kids, but which could actually cause serious injury or death
- Roller window shades that could strangle and entangle you or your kids
- Power banks that could catch fire
- Infant swings that could suffocate your babies
- A baby high chair that could entrap and/or seriously injure your kids
- Baby bath seats that could drown your babies
One of the youth ATV recalls I mentioned earlier in this piece was also just issued last week as well. Again, these are things that most people would probably want to know about, so they can avoid them and/or contact the manufacturer about getting a replacement that won't straight-up murder them or their loved ones. I don't think that's too much to ask; do you?
You want melamine in baby formula again? Because actions like these are exactly how you get melamine in baby formula. Yes, that's a food safety issue, but it's not unrelated, especially since the US Food and Drug Administration is also reportedly considering axing food safety inspections. It's like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle never even existed!
Companies exist to make money. That's not a value judgment; that's a statement of fact. Expecting them to police themselves for the greater good is naive at best and disingenuous folly at worst. If only there was a federally-funded organization that solely existed to try to keep consumers safe from unsafe products! Oh, wait. There was, but unfortunately maybe not for much longer.
If you're located in the US and you want to voice your concern about the CPSC going away, you can contact your members of Congress here. There's a handy lookup tool to find both your Representatives and your Senators, and you can also search by your home address if you're not sure who you need to call or send letters to (yes, letters; those tend to have more impact than email because they're more uncommon in 2025).
