Disneyland Installs Warning Signs on Ride Cars

Disneyland is placing safety warning signs on ride cars throughout the park in the aftermath of the September accident on Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin that left a 4 1/2-year-old Los Angeles County boy with severe brain damage, state officials said Friday.

The park installed new cautionary signs Thursday night on Alice in Wonderland cars, hours after a 15-year-old boy from Mesa, Ariz., broke his foot and leg on the attraction. Disneyland also recently added signs to the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, where a La Jolla boy’s foot got crushed between two train cars in 1998.

On Friday, an attorney for the family of 4 1/2-year-old Brandon Zucker said Disneyland has replaced signs on the steering wheels of the taxicabs in the still-closed Roger Rabbit ride. The signs used to read, “Spin, Spin, Spin,” but now they caution passengers to stay inside the car and to keep their arms and legs inside, said attorney Thomas Girardi, who inspected the ride earlier this week.

“They are starting to come to grips,” Girardi said of Disneyland officials. “They are going to finally have to put these [warnings] on the rest of the rides. But you would have thought they would have done something about it before, since they knew about these problems.”

Disneyland spokeswoman Chela Castano-Lenahan disputed Girardi’s charges.

“Disneyland is a very safe place,” Castano-Lenahan said. “More than 21 million guests have ridden the Roger Rabbit attraction and we are only aware of one other incident with a 13-year-old girl who stepped off, and the unfortunate incident with Brandon. Disneyland is a very safe place to be.”

Castano-Lenahan would not comment on the new signs or any other safety measures until after the state finishes its investigation of the accidents on the Roger Rabbit and Alice in Wonderland rides.

“It’s premature to comment before the investigations are complete,” she said.

Disneyland has not added any safety restraints to the Roger Rabbit ride, Girardi said. Some have urged the use of more than a single lap bar on the ride, calling for seat belts, shoulder harnesses or doors. The Zuckers wants Disneyland to add seat belts, said Brandon’s therapist.

“If signs are all they do, it would send [the Zuckers] over the edge in being insulted,” therapist Elinor Silverstein said Friday. “How could they think signs are enough? Signs would not have stopped their son from being thrown out of that ride.”

Occupational safety inspectors, who oversee amusement parks, plan to interview the Arizona teenager injured on the Alice in Wonderland ride, Fryer said.

Anaheim police said the 15-year-old boy was dangling his leg outside the car when his leg became pinched between one of the ride’s caterpillar-shaped cars and a guardrail. State officials inspected the ride Thursday and recommended that Disneyland add the warnings before reopening the attraction.

Park officials told the state Thursday they had signs already printed as part of planned safety campaign, Fryer said.

Inside each Alice in Wonderland car, two signs--one in the front seat and one in the back--now warn: “For your safety, remain seated with your hands, arms, feet and legs inside the vehicle. Supervise children.”

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Correspondent Sean Kirwan contributed to this report.