Originally Posted by
thumpism
Ah...the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Bless their hearts, they tried to safe us from ourselves and those devilish manufacturers. I hope every person who ever worked there has been forced to ride bikes with quick release front wheels and has to deal with them daily.
They didn't "pick" on this design. They simply mandated that any release were designed such that it would reset automatically when the brake was applied, or that the released brake still were functional. They left it to the brake makers to design around that requirement, and we now see that most release systems are in the lever, or have limited travel so there's still some brake functionality.
Understand that the CPSC doesn't mandate any designs. They set objectives to be met, and/or ban design features they deem problematic, and let manufacturers figure out solutions.