Strollers

'Tis the strolling season in Los Angeles; a time to park the car and saunter along select shopping streets and through scattered malls to view holiday displays. And thanks to the creative energies of imaginative window dressers and store designers, each year at this time it seems the city sparkles a little more for the pedestrian.

One intersection. Seven unsolved homicides. That's the tally for the cross streets of San Pedro and 84th dating to the late 1980s. The spot is typical of many in South and Central Los Angeles where extraordinary numbers of people are murdered and the killers are never caught. Unsolved homicides -- killings for which no suspect is ever arrested -- are stacked up block by block, mile by mile, in this part of Los Angeles.

Newell Rubbermaid Inc.'s Graco Children's Products unit is recalling some models of MetroLite and Duo Tandem strollers because a latch flaw might cause them to collapse, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said. The recall affects about 1 million Duo Tandem and about 143,000 MetroLite strollers.

Kolcraft Enterprises Inc. of Chicago is recalling about 115,000 LiteSport strollers that can suddenly collapse and hurt babies, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced. Locking mechanisms on either side of the stroller can break, causing the stroller to collapse. The company has received 22 reports of injuries to children, including cuts, scrapes and bruises to children's faces and limbs. Consumers reported the mechanism breaking on 124 strollers; in 31 cases, the stroller collapsed.

Pottery Barn Kids recalled 21,000 doll strollers after a toddler almost severed a finger in the toy, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said. The Mini Zooper strollers were sold exclusively by Pottery Barn Kids, owned by Williams-Sonoma Inc., from October 2005 to June 2007. The retailer reported two more cases in which youngsters were seriously cut. The toy strollers were made in China for Lan Enterprises of Beaverton, Ore.

A Jeep crashed into two women pushing babies in strollers across a Brooklyn street, killing the women and an infant girl and critically injuring a baby boy. The driver was critically injured himself after careening over the back of a truck nine blocks away while trying to flee, police said.

Fisher-Price Toys said that fasteners on the side canopy panels of its carriage-strollers could fail, allowing a child to fall out when the seat is reclined, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced Monday. The East Aurora, N.Y., company said no serious injuries have been reported, although it has received reports of two incidents when children fell from the Model 9110 combination stroller-carriages.

About 1,600 Phil & Teds Dash Buggy strollers, made in China and imported by Regal Lager Inc. of Kennesaw, Ga., are being recalled because the frame handle could fail to latch properly and break, posing a fall hazard to small children, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said. The recalled strollers have a metal frame with three wheels, a cloth seat and a canopy. The product was sold at independent juvenile specialty stores and online from July to September. Information: (800) 593-5522, www.regallager.

LDC Inc., a Camarillo firm that makes items for the telecommunications industry, has opened a plant in Moorpark where it will produce a new stroller for Weebok, the juvenile products division of Reebok International Ltd. LDC currently has only seven employees making splicing devices and other products, but is hiring an additional 15 at its new unit on Fitch Avenue. "If the stroller sells well, we'll have 25 to 30 working on it within six months," says Ron Vogel, LDC's president.

Sometimes the only way that parents with a young child at home can fit a run into their schedule is with a jogging stroller. Introduced about 20 years ago, these strollers now come in high-performance models that sport such features as fast-rolling bicycle wheels, hill-safe parking brakes, easily removable wheels and quick-folding frames. * A smooth ride and sun protection B.O.