Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Are your Christmas lights illegal? Maybe, according to the feds.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a regulation for Christmas lights on Monday, deeming some holiday decorations a “substantial product hazard.”
“The Consumer Product Safety Commission … is issuing a final rule to specify that seasonal and decorative lighting products that do not contain any one of three readily observable characteristics (minimum wire size, sufficient strain relief, or overcurrent protection), as addressed in a voluntary standard, are deemed a substantial product hazard under the Consumer Product Safety Act (“CPSA”),” the final rule said.
The ruling applies to a variety of Christmas decorations, including “stars, wreathes, candles without shades, light sculptures, blow-molded (plastic) figures, and animated figures.”
… The CPSC said there have been 258 deaths associated with Christmas lights between 1980 and 2013. However, fatal incidents have been on the decline, with an average of less than one fatal (0.9) incident a year since 2008. The number of people who die of alcohol poisoning in California every year is greater than the number of Americans who have been killed by Christmas lights in the past three decades.
Solar powered decorations are mysteriously left off the fed’s naughty list.
