Baby Safety (Or a Lack Thereof)

I have a little bit of a rant, my friends.  This isn't about people who endanger their children, though that could certainly be its own post.  This is about companies that endanger our children without thought of the consequences.

You know the scenario: You are out and about with your baby when you smell that telltale scent of 'diaper needs changing.'  So you go to the store's bathroom, pull down the changing station, and prepare to change that diaper.  Now imagine my surprise the other day when I went to secure the safety strap (You use them, right?  Concrete floors are hard.) and found that our local Wal-mart cut off the safety straps.  This was clearly not negligence, a simple lack of knowledge about broken equipment.  The straps were intentionally cut off close to the base, and I found this to be the case in the other bathroom.  I've found plenty of broken or otherwise unusable safety straps at other changing stations.  

Another common scenario:  Your family is going out to eat, and you request a high chair for your baby.  Many times this works fine.  But there have been cases where restaurants have had to search through their chairs to find one with working safety straps.  Now, I know that there are plenty of moms who don't use them.  I see it all the time, especially with older babies.  But when my daughter was six months, she didn't always sit up well, and at ten months, she likes to try to lean over and reach stuff she drops.  Darn skippy I use those straps!  We should not have to search through a stack of high chairs to find one that is actually safe.

I don't understand how companies can do this.  Aside from obvious lawsuits (it's only a matter of time for our local Wal-mart), these are babies.  How can you play with the safety of little babies just so you don't have to spend a few bucks on a new high chair?  It is truly sad.

I wish more places would copy our local La Siesta restaurant.  When I pointed out a broken plastic piece on a high chair, the waitress was horrified and took it to the manager immediately for replacement.  We haven't had a broken one since.  Much better than the server we had at O'Charley's who put two broken high chairs back on the stack without a word.

Anyone else run across this problem?