Help Consumer Reports give an early warning on unsafe products.(Recalls & Safety Alerts)

Consumers Union is launching a product-safety initiative to uncover and quickly expose dangers and design flaws in vehicles, appliances, electronics, children's products, and various household goods. And we're calling on all 7 million subscribers to our Web site and print publications to alert us to potentially hazardous products they've purchased.

"It's about consumers helping other consumers," says Don Mays, senior director of product safety for Consumers Union, publisher of CONSUMER REPORTS. "While our testing has always factored in product safety, we want to expand the early-warning systems for dangerous products by hearing from the people who use them every day. We want to be more proactive than reactive. We want to understand emerging hazards and investigate design flaws that have the potential to do even greater harm."

By cataloging verifiable reader experiences and injuries, Mays says, Consumers Union will be in a stronger position to urge government agencies such as the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to undertake recalls and get unsafe goods off store shelves and out of consumers' hands, and defective cars off the road swiftly. It also enhances our own ability to develop targeted testing programs to look for safety shortcomings in particular types of products.

HOW TO FILE A REPORT

There are two ways to contact us. The easiest is by going to our Web site at www.ConsumerReports.org/safety. Or you can write to: Consumers Union, Product Safety Initiative, 101 Truman Ave., Yonkers, NY 10703. All correspondence should include the brand name and model number of the product, when and where you bought it, and a phone number or e-mail address where we can contact you, if necessary. Please tell us about only those products with which you have firsthand experience.

Another important note: While we are urging consumers to share their experiences with us, it's crucial that they report product-safety problems to manufacturers and the appropriate government agencies as well. Information on how to contact important federal safety officials appears in the box at the bottom left of this page, as well as on our Web site.

VEHICLES AND EQUIPMENT