General product safety duties: the obligation that catches what sector rules miss

A residual duty is broad by design

Specific product legislation hands you something concrete to build against: a scope, stated objectives, often a standard. A general safety duty hands you none of that. It asks whether the article presents risks beyond what is acceptable given how it will be used, and leaves the business to work out what that means for a bookshelf, a garden tool or a novelty item. Absence of a prescribed test does not shrink the obligation; it moves the burden of defining an adequate assessment onto the manufacturer. In practice firms borrow from standards written for similar goods, from injury data, and from what comparable products do, then record why the chosen approach was reasonable.

Foreseeable misuse belongs in the assessment, not in the excuses

General safety regimes are framed around how people actually use things, not only how the instruction leaflet says they should. A child reaching an article intended for adults, a stool used as a step, a cable run under a carpet, an appliance left running unattended: these are predictable, and an assessment that considers only correct use is incomplete. This is where design review and complaint data earn their keep. The question worth putting in review is not whether a misuse is sensible but whether it is likely enough that a careful manufacturer would have anticipated it. Recording the misuse scenarios you considered and set aside is worth as much as recording the ones you designed out.

Instructions, warnings and packaging are part of what you sold

Where residual risk cannot be engineered away, information becomes part of the safety case: assembly steps, warnings, age guidance, maintenance notes, disposal advice. That information gets judged on whether it genuinely reaches and works for the user, so language, legibility, placement and whether it survives the product's life all count. Translations bought cheaply and never reviewed are a recurring weak point, as are warnings printed only on packaging that gets discarded. Enforcers and courts look at everything the buyer received. Treating documentation as a marketing task started after design freeze is how otherwise sound products end up with an indefensible position.

Traceability is a safety obligation wearing different clothes

Being able to identify which units carry a fault, where they went and who supplied the components is what makes a proportionate response possible at all. Without it, a problem confined to one production run becomes a problem across everything you have ever shipped. Batch or serial identification on the article, records tying batches to component lots and to customers, and retained supplier records are the mechanics. Enforcement bodies routinely ask a business to name its immediate supplier and its immediate customers for a given item, and an inability to answer tends to be treated as a failing in itself rather than as an administrative inconvenience.

The duty keeps running after the goods leave

Signals appear after launch through warranty claims, complaints, returns coded as faults, retailer feedback and incidents users report, and the expectation in these regimes is that a manufacturer notices and acts rather than filing them with customer service. Someone has to review the signals against a threshold agreed in advance, with an escalation route for when a pattern looks like a safety matter rather than a quality irritation. Precisely what the duty demands, and what has to be reported to whom, differs by country and by product. Take this page as orientation rather than legal or safety advice; the national market surveillance authority holds the operative answer.

Frequently asked questions

Our product has no specific regulation. Does that mean it is unregulated?

Almost certainly not. General safety duties exist precisely to reach goods that no sector instrument names, and horizontal rules on substances, packaging, labelling or electrical safety may still apply. The absence of a specific instrument changes the shape of the work, because you define the assessment instead of following a prescribed one, but it does not remove the obligation or the exposure that comes with putting goods on a market under your own name.

How do we decide whether a residual risk is acceptable?

By reasoning it through and writing the reasoning down. Assessments generally weigh severity of harm, likelihood under realistic use, who the users are, whether the hazard is obvious or hidden, and what protective measures are practicable. Comparing against standards written for similar goods and against injury statistics supplies an external reference point. What counts when the assessment is challenged is less that the conclusion proved right in hindsight and more that competent people made it deliberately on the evidence available.

Does building to a standard prove the product is safe?

It helps a great deal and is often the strongest evidence available, yet it does not settle the matter alone. A standard addresses the hazards its authors had in mind; a novel design, an unusual user group or a foreseeable misuse outside its scope can leave a real risk untouched. Manufacturers who lean entirely on a standard sometimes miss exactly the hazard that makes their product different. Use the standard, then ask separately what it does not reach.