Sole request to Crocs: Redo design

Japan has asked Crocs Inc. to look into changing the design of its footwear after complaints that children wearing the colorful plastic clogs have had their feet injured while riding escalators.

The Trade Ministry said Friday that it issued the warning after it had received 65 complaints about Crocs and similar products getting stuck in escalators last year. Most of the cases involved small children.

Similar complaints have also been made in the U.S. The Washington Metro -- one of the nation’s largest transit systems -- has even posted ads warning about such shoes on its moving stairways. The ads feature a photo of a crocodile, which is the company logo, but don’t mention Crocs by name.

There are reports from around the world of instances in which children have had toenails and even toes torn off while wearing Crocs-style footwear on escalators. In Singapore, a 2-year-old girl wearing rubber clogs had her big toe severed in an escalator accident last year, according to local media reports.

And at the Atlanta airport in June, a 3-year-old boy wearing Crocs suffered a deep gash to his toes. The incident was one of at least seven shoe entrapments at the airport last year, and all but two of them involved Crocs, airport officials said in September.

Niwot, Colo.-based Crocs pointed out that the Japanese government has also asked the escalator industry to improve awareness about safety issues.

“The ministry found that there were a number of factors that led to a specific incident in Japan last summer,” Crocs spokeswoman Tia Mattson said. “Those included escalator maintenance, footwear and user riding behavior. . . . We continue to be supportive of escalator safety initiatives and we will consider any recommendations the ministry has for footwear manufacturers.”