Amusement Ride Safety Regulations and Standards

MYTH: The U.S. amusement industry is unregulated and lacks standards.

REALITY:

• At the end of the day, the safety of park guests and the employees that welcome them is of paramount importance to all players in the theme park industry.  Thrills simply cannot be enjoyed without trust; and that trust has been earned with a tradition of safety excellence at parks around the world.  
• The amusement industry is a responsible and thoroughly regulated industry with several layers of safety monitoring occurring internally, locally, industry-wide, and at the state level.
• Fourty-two (42) of the 50 states regulate parks.  The eight without state oversight are Ala., Ariz., Kan., Miss., Mont., N.D., S.D., and Utah.  These states contain few amusement parks and a few have none at all (Mont., N.D.).
• In addition, ASTM International, an independent standards-writing body, constantly evaluates and revises ride safety standards in conjunction with the industry and other interested parties for nearly 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.
• 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; data reported by the National Safety Council shows that there is virtually no safer form of recreation.
•  In 2005, U.S. amusement facilities with fixed rides hosted more than 300 million guests who took over 1.8 billion rides.  Based on these figures, 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 additional perspective on this matter a annual nationwide incident reporting system for U.S. facilities with fixed-site rides was developed.  Data is collected and reported to the National Safety Council (NSC) for analysis.  The sample used by the NSC consists of all IAAPA members operating fixed-site amusement rides in the U.S. and are required to submit annual incident reports to the National Safety Council.  Participation in the survey is mandatory.
• Data for 2005 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 1,783 injuries in that year.

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, 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.
• For several years the CPSC has reported on fixed-site amusement ride injuries with its national survey of U.S. hospital emergency rooms, called the NEISS system.  The CPSC continued to report on fixed-site amusement rides from 1997 to 2004, following significant changes made to the sample used in the NEISS system.  In 2006 the CPSC concluded that the data culled from the NEISS survey could not accurately produce statistics for a product with non-uniform distribution, such as fixed site amusement rides, and ultimately decided to discontinue reports on fixed-site amusement rides.
• 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 the request of Congressman Edward Markey to study the matter of amusement 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 Congressman Edward Markey's minimal $500,000, to what is already a thorough and capable regulatory process.
• In June 2006, a spokesperson for the CPSC said 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.