The Korea Consumer Agency said on the 6th that 29 out of 30 sliding doors (96.7%) installed in multi-use facilities in the Seoul and Gyeonggi regions do not have protective devices to prevent entrapment.
The Consumer Agency conducted a survey of 30 sliding doors installed in 19 multi-use facilities, including children's libraries, comprehensive social welfare centers, and lifelong learning centers, in the Seoul and Gyeonggi regions, where there is a high population of children and the elderly. The survey found that none of them had protective devices installed to prevent hand or foot entrapment, as required by the Korea Industrial Standards (hereinafter referred to as KS standards). Only one out of the 30 doors had the protective device installed at the front or bottom of the door.
Among the 30 sliding doors, 24 (80%) had gaps between the moving door and the fixed door frame that were narrower than the KS standards, and 22 (73.3%) had gaps between the moving door and the floor that were also too narrow. This heightens the risk of accidents where fingers or feet could become trapped. According to KS standards, to prevent entrapment accidents during door operation, safety dimensions must be secured between the moving door and the fixed door frame and between the door and the floor (less than 8 mm or more than 25 mm).
Additionally, the narrow detection range of the sliding door opening sensor also increases the risk of collisions with the door. Among the 30 sliding doors, 16 (53.3%) could not detect pedestrians within the KS standard range. Twenty-nine doors (96.7%) either did not have collision prevention barriers installed or had them installed too low. According to KS standards, to prevent collisions between pedestrians and the moving door, door opening sensors must detect pedestrians and objects within a vertical range of 1,000 to 1,500 mm from the door's opened width, and a protective barrier of at least 900 mm in height must be installed in front of the fixed door.
However, the KS standards are not mandatory requirements that sliding door installers must comply with. Nevertheless, recent safety accidents involving sliding doors have been continuously occurring, primarily affecting children under the age of 10 and the elderly over 65. Therefore, it is necessary to establish mandatory installation standards to prevent safety accidents related to sliding doors. The European Union (EU) has established installation standards to prevent safety accidents caused by sliding doors, mandating that new installations comply with these standards since April 2013.
In response, the Korea Consumer Agency recommended that the management entities of facilities that fall short of the KS standards take corrective action based on the survey results. It also plans to propose the mandatory implementation of installation standards to the relevant government departments to prevent sliding door safety accidents.