Legislators Push for Mandatory Inspection of Theme-Park Rides

Recent deaths on amusement-park rides in California and Texas are prompting calls for tougher and more uniform regulation of the multibillion-dollar industry.

Legislators in both states are pushing for more rigorous state oversight of rides that shoot park-goers down water-filled flumes, whirl them in the air or send them jouncing through simulations of off-road adventures. And a current and former U.S. senator say the time may have come to revamp the nation’s patchwork of consumer safeguards, which vary widely from state to state.

“These are troubling incidents and need to be addressed,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said last week through her spokesman. “We are seeking to determine whether that should be on a national level, as has been previously proposed, or through a comprehensive state-by-state oversight program.”

Visitors to New Jersey amusement parks enjoy rides that undergo independent inspections once a year, and they can check state records of previous injuries.

Injury Records Kept Secret in California

In California, however, the identical rides are subject to no regulation, and injury records are confidential. The December death of a Washington state man at Disneyland’s Columbia Sailing Ship led to the introduction in Sacramento this year of a bill to tighten California’s oversight of amusement parks. Cal/OSHA on Thursday fined Disneyland $12,500 in that occurrence, saying the amusement park’s repeated misuse of equipment and failure to train a key employee led to the fatal accident.

The safety standards in other states are a confusing patchwork. Florida’s state inspectors examine rides at most parks, but not at the three biggest--Walt Disney World, Universal Studios and Busch Gardens. Those parks simply file an affadavit that their rides meet state standards. And, unlike smaller parks and carnivals, they are not required to report accidents to the state, said the state’s top inspector.

In Texas, where a woman drowned last Sunday when a raft overturned at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, amusement parks must hire outside inspectors and file safety reports with the state, but are not subject to state inspection.

Two days after the accident, a Texas legislative committee passed a bill to stiffen state requirements and provide funding for state oversight inspections.

Feinstein said her office is reviewing the Disneyland and Texas fatalities and the death of a park-goer at Paramount’s Great America in Santa Clara last September “to determine the most appropriate way to ensure the safety of visitors to these parks.”

And James Barber, president of the National Assn. of Amusement Ride Safety Officials, said he favors a mandatory, uniform federal inspection standard for all states. Barber said, though, that he opposes having federal inspectors examine rides.

“It’s too easy for any company, even a big one like Six Flags, to slip up,” said Paul Simon, who as a Democratic senator from Illinois pushed unsuccessfully for national regulation of theme parks in the mid-1980s.

The idea of federal standards has detractors as well. Texas State Rep. Terry Keel, who coauthored his state’s new ride-safety bill, said he prefers having states regulate rides. “I do think the states will do it better,” he said. “What works in California might not work in Iowa.”

As it stands, the federal government has no power to oversee amusement parks except for mobile carnival rides. In fact, no one knows exactly how many ride casualties there are each year. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the only agency that keeps tabs, relies on coroners to tell it about amusement-park deaths.

Certainly, the number of deaths is considered to be very low--48 known fatalities from 1973 to 1997, on rides that are visited by tens of millions each year.

The commission’s injury counts are based on reports from 101 selected emergency rooms nationwide. According to projections based on those reports, an estimated 7,200 injuries occurred on park and carnival rides in 1994, 7,500 in 1995 and 8,300 in 1996.

Industry spokesmen defend their in-house inspection and safety programs, noting that it is in the parks’ interest to keep visitors safe.

Last Sunday’s accident at Six Flags Over Texas occurred just two days after the park sent off its most recent inspection report--a clean bill of health--to the state, according to a Six Flags spokesman.

In the accident, the raft’s 12-person fiberglass seating unit separated from its inner-tube base and flipped in about four feet of water. Less than a year ago, state records show, 10 people were injured on the same Roaring Rapids ride when five rafts jammed together.

The overturned boat trapped Valeria Cartwright, a 28-year-old Arkansas woman, underwater until she died. Ten other people were injured in the accident on the generally tame ride that simulates a white-water adventure.

Some passengers were able to escape, police said. Others were yanked loose by bystanders and staff who dove under the raft. But rescuers were too late in reaching Cartwright, a counselor for troubled teenagers who leaves a 4-year-old daughter.

When the raft struck a sidewall and flipped, Cartwright and a sister, Monica Davis, hit their heads, said Colletta Moore, another sister. “Both of them were knocked out,” she said. Someone was able to free Davis, who floated to the surface and was pulled from the water.

“I was shocked to hear of this. A raft has never flipped like that. It’s never separated like that,” said Paul Ruben, North American editor of the international trade magazine Park World. “They need to figure out what caused this and take steps so that it doesn’t happen again. And not just on that ride. The entire industry is going to have to take appropriate action.”

The vote Tuesday by the Texas legislative committee, in which they approved, 6-3, the heightened state oversight of rides at amusement parks and fairs, had already been scheduled. It was prompted by the death last year of a 15-year-old girl who was flung from a roller coaster called the Himalaya at a county rodeo.

Unlike parks in California, Texas amusement parks must file quarterly injury reports with the state.

Texas records show 14 people have been injured on the River Rapids ride since 1989, most recently last June.

Raft rides identical to the Roaring Rapids ride exist at all of Six Flags’ 13 parks nationwide, including Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia. Numerous other parks have rides by the same manufacturer, Intamin AG of Switzerland.

An Intamin raft ride will be installed at Disney’s California Adventure, to open in Anaheim in 2001.

Amusement-park representatives have long held that their parks are safe, and say the latest accident does not necessarily mean federal regulation is necessary.

Since the Six Flags Over Texas raft ride was installed in 1983, more than 20 million visitors have ridden it, park spokesman Brent Gooden said. The park is investigating several factors in last Sunday’s accident, he said, from the raft’s splitting from its base to whether the water level may have been too low.

John Graff, president and chief executive of the International Assn. of Amusement Parks and Attractions, said such accidents are of “grave concern” to his industry. He said the safety record of theme parks and raft rides is excellent.

California Bill Calls for State Inspections

The December death at the dock of Disneyland’s slow-moving Columbia Sailing Ship led to the introduction of a bill to oversee rides in California, which is one of 12 states that do not regulate permanent amusement parks. A bill aimed at regulating them died last year after fierce lobbying by the industry. The legislation had been introduced by Assemblyman Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch) after a student was killed and 32 classmates injured in the 1997 collapse of a water slide in Concord, Calif.

Torlakson has introduced a new measure this year that would have state inspectors examine rides and would require parks to report serious injuries to the state.

In the Disneyland accident, a man was killed when a cleat, a forked metal plate generally used to moor boats, tore loose from the Columbia while it was being docked and struck him in the head.

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Ride Fatalities

Ride-related deaths are rare nationwide, with 36 from 1987 to 1998* More than half the deaths were at amusement parks. Roller coasters and whirling rides were the most dangerous.

By Location

By Attraction

Roller coaster: 9

Whirling rides: 9

Ferris wheel: 7

Train: 7

Bumper boat: 1

Capsule: 1

Log (water) ride: 1

Sleigh ride: 1

Unknown: 10

* As of June 1998, he most recent data available.

Source: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission