Amusement Ride Safety Regulations and Standards

MYTH: The United States amusement industry is unregulated and lacks standards.

REALITY:

The amusement industry is a responsible, regulated one. Besides a thorough set of internal checks, each facility is subject to one or more layers of independent examination.
According to the CPSC, 43 of the 50 states regulate parks. The seven without state oversight are Ala., Kan., Miss., Mont., N.D., S.D., and Utah. These states contain few, if any amusement parks (Mont. and N.D. have no parks).
A nonpartisan, scholarly review of existing state law concluded that “the vast majority of states are properly exercising their traditional police power over public safety” in this area.
In addition, ASTM International, an independent standards-writing body, has developed ride safety standards in conjunction with the industry and other interested parties for more than three decades.
Where applicable, biodynamic data is included in the standards development process, thus producing ride system guidelines that can safely accommodate the broadest segment of the population.
The ASTM International standards undergo frequent review and revision to keep up with the latest technologies, and have been enacted into law by many states.
If laws in specific states need to be augmented, then we encourage such action and recommend using the detailed ASTM International ride safety standards to evaluate these regulatory needs.

MYTH: Under today’s regulatory system, amusement rides are intolerably unsafe.

REALITY:

Under today’s regulatory system, amusement rides are exceptionally safe, and independent data shows that there is virtually no safer form of recreation.
In 2007, U.S. amusement facilities with fixed rides hosted nearly 300 million guests who took 1.8 billion rides. Based on these figures and the latest data from the federal government and other independent sources on amusement ride injury statistics, the likelihood of being injured on a ride seriously enough to require overnight hospitalization for treatment is 1 in 9 million. The chance of being fatally injured is 1 in 750 million.
To gain an additional perspective on this matter, IAAPA developed an annual nationwide mandatory incident reporting system for U.S. facilities with fixed-site rides. The system is independently run by the National Safety Council.
Data for 2007 has been collected from a statistically-valid sample to provide an annual injury estimate for the overall fixed amusement ride sector in the U.S. The result is an estimated 1,309 injuries in that year.
In short, based on independent data, the number of patrons who experienced an incident while on a ride was miniscule – essentially one one-thousandth of one percent, or 0.00001.

MYTH: Current federal law contains a “roller coaster loophole,” as Congress stripped the CPSC of its authority to regulate fixed rides in 1981.

REALITY:

Congress indicated no intention of providing the CPSC with jurisdiction over fixed-site rides during passage of the agency’s initial authorizing legislation on “household products,” thus the matter was unclear from the beginning. In 1981, Congress held hearings aimed at improving the agency’s focus, which included formally clarifying its position of state regulation for permanent rides.
Like several court cases prior to that time, Congress recognized that fixed rides could not be considered household products and further that, unlike CPSC-regulated items, such rides are not within the consumer’s control and are constantly maintained by a team of experts.
In short, they concluded that the facility buys the product and the consumer buys the associated experience.
Subsequently, over the last 25 years, Congress has periodically raised the issue of ride safety and each time has concurred with its original decision that oversight of fixed-site rides can best be achieved through the present regulatory framework.
During this entire period, right up through today, parks and attractions have continued to report incidents to state and local bodies throughout the country, as well as working with government officials and inspectors in a partnership to ensure the safety of their guests.

MYTH: Amusement park rides should be subject to federal regulation in order to ensure adequate safety.

REALITY:

We doubt the federal government could do more to improve on the already extraordinary safety record that the industry has achieved under the current oversight process.
A blue-ribbon national panel of experts, convened at Cong. Edward Markey’s request to study the matter of ride safety, agreed with this assessment, stating that “it is unlikely a federal agency could match” the success of the present system.
In addition, an independent and scholarly review on this subject, contained in the Seton Hall Legislative Journal, reached the same conclusion and went so far as to say that enacting federal oversight of fixed rides would represent “nothing more than a shiny, high publicity mirage whose primary effect will be to disguise a grossly under-funded and ill-equipped regulatory scheme dressed up with a glossy public relations outfit – a truly modern example of an emperor without clothes.”
Of course, this industry and state governments will continue to devote multi-millions of dollars each year to providing an ever-safer guest experience, as they always have. But it makes no sense to dedicate over-stretched federal dollars, even Cong. Markey’s minimal $500,000, to what is already a thorough and capable regulatory process.
The CPSC has acknowledged that any effort to expand the agency’s jurisdiction to include fixed site rides would require doubling the agency’s current staff of 450 and budget of nearly $68 million.
This view is further supported by the fact that public documents and other relevant data consistently show that only a small percentage of those mishaps that do occur are caused by factors subject to governmental ride operations oversight, namely either staff or mechanical error.