Fbirder, this is health and safety gone mad. How can you think of banning shoe lace finger slings out of hand?
Surely the way forward is to put in place a proper licensing system, backed by legislation requiring that any piece of string, twine, cord or the like over three inches in length be registered with an appropriate authority.
All manufacturers of string-like articles, including shoe lace manufacturers, hobbyist shoe lace makers etc. must be required to give each shoe lace/ piece of string its own serial number so that they can be properly tracked and suitable records of ownership and transfers of ownership can be kept. Anyone cutting a piece of string into shorter lengths must also register each shorter piece of string created and its new length.
In addition to eliminating a nearly non-existent health hazard, their will be an additional side benefit of everyone knowing exactly how long a piece of string is by referring to a convenient database.