The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates that there are approximately 180,000 serious ladder accidents in the US each year. Stepladders are one of the most common types of ladders in use, and it is estimated that they are involved in over half of all incidents. Therefore, it is important to determine the root causes of these accidents and what, if anything, can be done to improve ladder safety by way of design and standard testing requirements. Herein, we discuss common failure modes experienced during use, current design standards promulgated by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) A14 Standards Committee, complications which are not explicitly addressed in these standards, and design and manufacturing practices employed in stepladders produced for the US market. Finally, we propose a number of potential safety improvements to the current design of and safety standards for stepladders, though further research may be necessary to quantify specific design recommendations.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.