It's a slippery slope.

ba-dump-bump ching!

It is hard to figure out what stuff to put in that is fun and challenging but not overly dangerous.

The records I keep indicate that most kids get hurt by running on asphalt and falling, period.

As far as appartati, the simple horizontal bar is hands down the largest source of injuries. Usually, a kid will be doing spins and lose his or her grip, fall on the bare ground underneath (the wood chips get kicked away) and break a collarbone or elbow.

Kids will get hurt, and then parents and lawyers will scream about the deathtrap playgrounds, no matter what is there.

That thread has provided many actual, genuine LOLs today. It has brought out the best in the writing styles of many MeFites.

danf: interesting stat about running on asphalt.

OMG, I just remembered the name of this death-defying acrobatic maneuver popular among limber 2nd graders. Penny-drop. So you hung from some jungle gym/monkey-bar contraption, upside down, the underside of your knees gripping the bar. Then you somehow thrust off and did a flip before hitting the gravel below, ideally on your feet, but sometimes not. I remember in second grade a girl having to be taken to the hospital because of a bad a penny-drop. Penny-drops were eventually forbidden by my elementary school -- anyone seen doing them was in big trouble

Not only did my elementary school have all of the "dangerous" playground equipment, but they also had to keep us in from recess a few times because of bears.

Bah. If kids don't learn how to fight off bears during elementary school, when will they learn?

We had a fort in my school (age 7-10) which we had built ourselves from scrap wood and nails nails nails. We also had access to hammers and nails nails nails to keep building. It was huge in size, had two towers, crickety floors, stairs, off-balance-bridges, loose boards and lots of nails nails nails everywhere, and eventually some parents had it torn down and replaced with some safe "Fort-toy" crap which was only half the size, and that we all hurt ourselves jumping from in protest.

(ok, so we didn't really get hurt but we did those football type fake falls and yelled "ow ow ow" and complained about hurting ourselves every recess for weeks.)

I liked that thread too.