SALT LAKE CITY - It's better to eliminate the risk, than simply warn a homeowner about it in David Martin's mind, especially when it comes to a child's safety.

The lure of the garage door is too much for many small children, who see potential adventure in riding the electrically operated door up and down. Dave Martin doesn't think this lure is going to go away. "You're not going to stop children from riding garage doors with signs or training, but you can make the garage door safer for little children!" Martin said. Martin has done just that, by building extra prevention into each Martin Garage Door. It is difficult for any child to hitch a ride on a Martin Door, due to the safety built into each section joint with Finger Shield™ and Low Profile Hinges. This prevention carries into other areas of the door; from the inside lift cable, to removing holes in the vertical track to having rolled edge tracks.
		David Martin doesn't think the lure of riding a garage door is going to go away for kids, despite warning labels or an education campaign, featuring coloring books. He believes manufacturers simply need to make each garage door safer.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission's latest report estimates over 20,000 accidents related to garage door use a year. The CPSC estimates that 8.1 percent of the approximately 17,691 garage door accidents or roughly 2,211 incidents occurred with children 14 and under.

		Putting a face on those numbers only makes the issue more real. For example, in a northern Utah community two kids thought it would be fun to ride a garage door at their home. One of the boys put his fingers in the section joint. When the door reached the ground he was trapped. He had to be rushed to the hospital, after his release. "Children can't read signs that say, KEEP CHILDREN AWAY and if they are told to stay away, they want to see why when mom and dad are gone," Martin said. Martin said, "every manufacturer should build prevention into each garage door they make."
Each Martin Garage Door is built so that it would be difficult for children to injure themselves on any single component of a garage door.

"It's an embarrassment to our industry to make a coloring book to go in the schools to tell the dangers of the garage door," Martin said. "Fix the door. Isn't that better than putting up a lot of signs that little children can't read or printing color books?"

Dr. Keith Martin, director of International Sales, further likened warning signs on the garage door to old medicine caps, which could be easily opened by children. He said pharmaceutical companies discovered it is better to put a lock-on cap on medicine bottles, than a warning label that children couldn't read.