Some States Keep Close Eye on Ride Safety

If California follows in the regulatory footsteps of some other states, Disneyland and other amusement parks would face tough scrutiny of ride safety.

New Jersey, for instance, home to three big amusement parks that draw a combined 8 million visitors a year, has stringent laws: All injuries must be reported to the state, and the public can find out the injury record for any park or ride. Park officials also must immediately report serious accidents to a state official who has the authority to close the ride until it can be determined safe.

“It just makes sense,” said Bill Connolly, head of the division in New Jersey that inspects amusement parks. “We inspect buildings. We inspect elevators. We inspect boilers. Amusement park rides are complicated mechanical devices.”

In Ohio, rides are inspected three times a year and park injuries that result in hospitalization must be reported to the state.

The laws have allowed them to spot injury trends, authorities in the two states said, and move to protect the public from flawed rides.

And right here in Southern California, Six Flags Magic Mountain voluntarily has a county inspector come in to check safety, and pays for his time.

After years of fighting off regulation, Disneyland executives Thursday announced their support for some state oversight of their pioneering amusement park, which draws 13.6 million visitors a year. They would not say whether they would agree to rules similar to these two states or to any outside inspection, such as 38 other states have. Right now, Disneyland’s rides are not inspected by any authority and injuries are for the most part kept confidential.

In Florida, Walt Disney World is exempt from an otherwise tough state inspection program, along with the two other biggest amusement parks, Universal Studios and Busch Gardens. Those parks simply file an affidavit that their park is up to state standards. Disney officials have broached the possibility of a similar plan in California.

“There’s no accident reporting for those exempt facilities,” said Isadore Rommes, Florida’s bureau chief of fair rides and inspections. “If there’s an accident there, it’s unknown to us.”

Since a fatal Christmas Eve accident at Disneyland, the issue of amusement park safety has focused attention on regulation.

Officials at most of the state’s major theme parks, including Paramount’s Great America, Universal Studios, Knott’s Berry Farm, Six Flags Magic Mountain and Six Flags Marine World, now say they are willing to consider some form of state regulation. None of them would commit to reporting injuries to the state.

“We feel strongly that state inspections, if properly implemented, are a benefit to our park and parks throughout the state,” said Timothy Chanaud, spokesman for Great America in Santa Clara. “As a company, we own and operate theme parks in four states and Canada. All of them are subject to state regulation. . . . State inspections will help to reassure our guests and park guests throughout the state.”

A spokeswoman for Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, which draws 3 million visitors a year, says the park has not supported state regulation.

“We’re in favor of things that make parks safer,” said Ann Parker, director of community relations for the Boardwalk. “I don’t know that having that [injury] reporting system would make parks safer.”

But ride inspection officials in both New Jersey and Ohio say injury reports have enabled them to detect problems on certain rides and get them corrected.

In Ohio, the inspection of injury reports at a water park last year resulted in the permanent dismantling of a water slide.

After a girl complained of a head injury at the park last summer, a state ride inspector reviewed the park’s incident reports and discovered a “high number” of similar head injuries on the slide, said Dave Groff, chief of the division of amusement ride safety in Ohio’s Department of Agriculture. A review of the slide found a flaw that caused parkgoers to strike their heads while sliding too rapidly into a sharp turn.

As a result, he said, the water park’s officials “brought in an engineer and what they came up with was to get rid of the slide.”

Ohio, thought by many in the industry to have one of the nation’s best inspection programs, requires that all injuries resulting in a hospital admittance be reported to the state. Each of these injuries is then investigated by state inspectors.

Such injury reports “give the state the necessary information to determine whether the inspection program is doing what it should be doing,” said Ron Fussner, corporate director of loss prevention for Ohio-based Cedar Fair, a chain of amusement parks that includes Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park. And Fussner, whose chain also owns a park in Ohio, said he had no problem with such reports being available to the public.

In Ohio, where most amusement parks close for the winter, rides must be inspected before a park’s opening each year and again during the season. In addition, inspectors make at least one surprise inspection, said Deborah Abbott, an Ohio Department of Agriculture spokeswoman.

“If they find a situation, they stay there and work with the park until it’s fixed,” she said.

During the off-season, inspectors review injury logs and other safety records, she said. Inspectors receive at least 80 hours of additional training each year.

Fussner said Ohio’s inspection program “has been a very good benefit to not only us, but the public. The more sets of eyes you have out there, the better off you are. We would be facetious to say we go out there and spot everything you can spot.”

Connolly, chief of New Jersey’s inspection division, said such inspections and injury reporting are crucial to protecting the public.

Inspectors have tracked down such easily fixed problems as a rash of injuries to children in a giant inflatable house, he said. They discovered that the attraction’s owner was allowing too many children of widely different ages in the house at the same time.

After a series of accidents in the state last year, lawmakers stiffened the fines for safety violations and made it easier for inspectors to revoke a park owner’s permit. New laws also hold parkgoers responsible for their behavior.

Unlike California’s other major theme parks, Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia already undergoes quarterly, voluntary reviews by a Los Angeles County inspector--and pays the cost of the inspector’s time.

“We don’t build or operate things without their approval,” said Andy Gallardo, the park’s spokesman. “We value the extra set of eyes as a prudent safety measure.”

Park officials submit welding reports that show whether weakened points on the rides have been repaired during the previous 90 days as well as other inspection reports. If the inspector believes too many welds have been made on a ride, a design engineer is called in to assure that the ride is still structurally sound, said Fady Mattar, assistant superintendent of building for the county.

The inspector spends two weeks reviewing the park, Mattar said, looking for cracks, riding the rides and watching to see that lap bars are secured on passengers. The park pays the county $130 per ride inspected.

The inspection does not include a review of injury records, Mattar said, but he believes such outside oversight provides an important function.

“We check what they do,” he said. “They know we are watching.”