I think the safety issue is that with this style, the contents are right at a child's eye-level. They'd be much more tempted to play with this draw. I think you'd have to invest in a good child lock. With a regular drawer style, you could have it a slim profile be the top drawer. Less likely for them to easily see the contents. They might not even know what's kept in there. You could even have push release instead of a handle so it appears there is not even a drawer there. Same could be done for the vertical unit. I'd still want to use a child lock though, if I had a kid around. The knife blocks vary in price A LOT. Just saw 7 pce sets online for $69 on sale, $199, $274, $549... I would hope they include knives! You might be better off grabbing a bunch of the RETRATT blocks from Ikea.

https://www.galvinhw.com.au/grace2/product.php?pid=4469 I found Galvins in Perth and Adelaide had the best range of pull, very well designed and so easy to use. No jammed fingers. I had 52 something similar to this. I could open with little finger when hand were dirty. Mine were rounder so looked like a full stop on the edge of the cabinet rather than overwhelming the line of the cabinets.

I was about to say all our handles are the same size, but they’re not. They’re all proportional to the drawer width. A combo of 165 on 440, 230 on 590 & 760, and 355 on 960. I remember I probably drove the cabinetmakers nuts cos I couldn’t make up my mind about what, to them, may have been a such minor issue! Handles! I feel for you/know what it’s like. :-)

If the handles have a decent pull on them, then they should be fine. Aesthetically, if all handles are the same, then it should be fine. You have the shaker detail so that will compensate for being a small handle.