How small is too small - choking hazard's for the under 3's

[Tangle]

I know the warning symbol is meant to help, but I've become a little cynical after seeing "Not suitable for 0-3 - risk of choking hazard due to small parts" applied to a colouring in book and a (single piece, 8" diameter) frizbee... It's left me feeling very much as though the warning is applied to items that the producer doesn't want to test - not only to items that are genuinely unsuitable.

So how small does something need to be before it really is a choking hazard?

I bought a little skittle set for a friends DS from a website. Box says not for 0-3. Had a look inside and the pieces are smaller than I'd anticipated, but not tiny (I guess the balls are about 1.25" diameter, skittles 3" long and about 0.5 or 0.75" diameter.
What do you think? I know they tend to follow common sense rather than the letter of the rules, but I don't want to give their DS something that is actually dangerous.

my ds (2) plays with a lot of things that are deemed not suitable for under 3's e.g. jungle in my pocket animals, counters and dice, etc but he is not prone to putting things in his mouth so I do let him have them (supervised of course).

Generally the size of a grape or smaller - anything bigger they wouldn't be able to swallow to cause them to choke. V often things are labelled not for under 3s just because they haven't been tested - and manufacturors wont pay extra to test if it not worthwhile, cost effective etc. I just go completely with commen sense and ignore what ti says on the box!

do you have an old fashioned (!) film canister? the kind that 35mm film comes in? dp used to work at a science centre and anything that fit inside a film cannister was considered a choking hazard.

I thought it was anything that could fit in a small test tube was a potential choking hazzard.

Tangle - the thing with the warnings is that companies don't want to pay to have their toys tested as ok for under 3's so it's easier and cheaper to just stick a warning on (i've had the colouring book one too ). It's akin to 'may contain nuts' as it would be a very expensive lawsuit if any traces of nut got into the product - must be a nightmare for allergy sufferers, at least we can apply common sense with toys

as a rule of thumb, make a circle using your thumb and 1st finger with the tips touching, then slide your 1st finger tip to the 1stjoint in on your thumb.

If things fit into this circle they are a potential hazard.

Frustrating, isn't it - I can see why cost is an issue, but the current situation makes the whole thing pretty meaningless...

So getting back to trying to work out whether things are OK or not, I think the skittles would slide into a filmcanister (or through the finger/thumb loop), but are 2 or 3 times the length. Does that mean they are a choke hazard or not?

Probably not, but only you know the child.

My 2 year old rarely puts things in her mouth so I don't worry too much but a skittle would be fairly easy to remove should they shove it to the back of their throat.

My niece has choked on a kinder egg blue egg toy holder thing and a 10 pence piece. The first happened when I was looking after her (at her house). I didn't know it was in her toy box and I saw her put it in her mouth from the other side of her room. I raced over, looked in her mouth, it was gone! She was turning purple and almost stopping breathing. Thank god, I knew first aid and whacked her on the back across my knee. After what seemed a lifetime she was sick and managed to dislodge it. She was 2 at the time. The WORSE experience of my life and was totally traumatised by it.
After this, I never take a chance and I'm definately normally in the more laid back school of parenting.
My sis in law then tells me a few weeks later that a similar thing happened with a 10 p piece.