Senator Bob Menendez wants beachgoers protected from flying umbrellas

NEW JERSEY -- New Jersey's senior U.S. senator wants federal officials to take more aggressive action to protect beachgoers from wind-swept beach umbrellas.

Bob Menendez held a news conference Monday in Manasquan to once again call on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to improve its regulations and develop an aggressive campaign to educate beachgoers on the dangers the umbrellas can pose if they're not properly staked in the sand.

But the Democrat stressed that he wasn't calling for a ban on umbrellas.

A woman was speared in the leg by a beach umbrella last summer in the Jersey Shore community of Seaside Heights. Another woman was killed by a flying umbrella in Virginia in 2016, and an umbrella nearly impaled toddler last month in South Carolina.

CPSC statistics show that more than 31,000 people were treated at hospitals for umbrella-related injuries from 2008-2017.