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5/14/08 Markey Press Conference 5-14-08
Accidents happen everywhere, even at amusement parks. No business niche or brand name is immune. Every year brings new tragedies, new shell-shocked and grief-stricken families -- always followed by the same tired old arguments from the theme park industry. Rides are safe, they say. State regulation is working just fine, they say. Multiple fail-safe systems protect your children from harm, they say. Tell that to Kaitlyn Lassiter and her parents.. more
4/19/08 Promote Your Park's Safety Culture Online
I've added a new feature to the Saferparks website that allows amusement park companies to register basic information about their safety programs and upload a logo or park photograph if they like. The information will be formatted into a park safety page with content wholly controlled by the park. more
4/4/08 A Fresh Look at Ride Safety
Imagine, just for a few moments, that we could strip away the biases and battle mentality from the issue of amusement ride safety. Forget what you know -- or think you know -- about patrons, theme park corporations, state ride safety agencies, carnival operators, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Pretend you've never heard of Saferparks or Disney or Congressman Markey or Congressman Stearns. more
3/26/08 Open Letter to Manufacturers - by Magdy Guirguis, State of Rhode Island
12/26/07 Federal/State Partnership Will Improve Safety - Guest Editorial by Mark Mooney
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission needs the funding and ability to assist state jurisdictions with amusement ride safety. Although the amusement industry has a very good proven safety record, Representative Markey’s bill takes a positive federal step toward improving amusement safety nationally. more
12/26/07 Fill Holes in State Ride Safety Programs - Guest Editorial by Kevin Russell
I am not a proponent of the CPSC, as I feel they are the wrong tool for the job...However, I have been involved with various state and local authorities over the years, between my years on the manufacturers' side and, later, on the park side. While there are some very good state ride programs, I haven’t encountered any that hit on all cylinders...If the industry truly wants to avoid any kind of federal intervention, then perhaps we need to fill in the holes in some of the state and local programs. more
12/18/07 Hearings Promised on Theme Park Loophole
Last Wednesday the House Committee on Energy and Commerce engaged in a brief, but passionate, debate over safety regulation for U.S. amusement park rides. The committee members were in rare form. more
11/23/07 Congress To Modernize CPSC, Strengthen Child Safety
Four leaders of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce have introduced a bi-partisan bill designed to overhaul consumer protection standards and implement major changes at the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Saferparks applauds Representatives Dingell, Barton, Rush and Stearns for moving children's safety to the top of the Committee's agenda. more
11/04/07 Consider the Wiggle Factor - Guest Editorial by David Collins
Over the past several years, I have been asked to do an ASTM F-2291 “Patron Containment Analysis” for ride manufacturers and for Authorities Having Jurisdiction. Recently I was doing a containment analysis for a ride that had a specially modified shoulder restraint system that was supposed to fit a patron with a minimum height of 44 inches. more
10/12/07 California's Carnivals Raise the Bar on Safety
On October 11, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 783, a bill authored by state Senator Tom Torlakson to modernize California’s carnival ride safety law. more
7/01/07 Another Death at Rye
On June 29, a ride operator was fatally ejected from the Mind Scrambler, a spinning ride at Rye Playland amusement park in New York. 21-year-old Gabriela Garin was the third person to be killed by a ride at Rye since 2004, and the second fatality on the Mind Scrambler. more
6/23/07 Regulatory Roulette
U.S. amusement park rides are exempt from all federal safety oversight. In the quarter century since Congress granted the exemption, only 27 states have created regulatory programs that require government officials to investigate amusement ride accidents. Human lives and limbs are too precious to entrust to this kind of patchy regulatory roulette, especially when we're talking about children. more
7/29/06 What's Your Child Safety Plan?
Most people understand that children need special protection from some of the design elements that make amusement rides so exciting: heights, open containers on moving vehicles, fixed metal restraints sized for adults, accelerations in multiple dimensions, intense physical and emotional experiences based on speed and surprise, and potential exposure to machinery hazards. more
6/21/06 Fall Hazards for Children
Last Sunday afternoon at a California carnival, Sophia Castillo entrusted the life of her little boy to an amusement ride and the people who make their living selling excitement to the masses. Six-year-old Reuben met the 42" minimum height limit for children riding alone, a measure set by the ride's manufacturer and, presumably, enforced by the ride's operator. Witnesses say the child appeared to panic when his car reached the summit. He fell to his death as his mother and the ride operator looked on. more
5/30/06 Scoring Safety
Last month Saferparks added a new feature that scores and compares amusement ride safety regulations in the fifty U.S. states based on a set of benchmarks. The scoring system is intended to help normal (non-industry) folks differentiate between the states that actively oversee the safety of amusement rides and states that don't. more
1/11/06 A Rational Study of Ride-Related Human Error
Dr. Kathryn Woodcock and Janet Tsao, researchers from the School of Occupational and Public Health at Ryerson University in Canada, have published results of a two-part study on amusement ride-related human error. "Rider Responsibility and Amusement Ride Accidents: An Observational and Consensus Study of Rider Behaviours", can be read in its entirety in the Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 49th Annual Meeting (2005). more
12/26/05 Child Safety Through Communication
Seven days before Christmas, another little girl died after falling out of a spinning amusement ride with a fixed lap bar restraint system. This 9-year-old was killed by a Wisdom Sizzler at a carnival in Texas, one of the many states without a ride inspection or accident investigation program. more
11/26/05 Glorious Dreams and Acts of Faith
Our local coffee house tacks up the daily horoscope column from the newspaper and I've taken to reading mine while I wait. Today's advice inspired this piece: "There's nothing more real to you than your consistent, long-held dream. It's gloriously fixed in your mind even when everything else in your world is changing." Sweet inspiration indeed for a Saturday morning at the latte store. more
7/12/05 Federal Reporting of Pet Injuries
A new national accident reporting regulation for the airline industry took effect in May. The system provides consumers with easy access to accurate data on deaths and injuries related to air travel so that they can make informed decisions about risk before purchasing tickets. more
6/18/05 Mission: Self-Protection
When a paying customer dies on a U.S. thrill ride, the patron's dead body is turned over to public authorities, taken apart, examined piece by piece, and documented in minute and intimate detail. The findings, in their entirety, become public record...By contrast, special laws need to be passed in order for the government to perform any kind of inspection of the machinery on which the paying customer died. more
6/5/05 Carnival Fatality Investigations by Steve Jr.
Early last year, I wrote about the unexplained death of Monique Mendoza, a 22-year-old Arizona woman who lost consciousness and died while riding a Wisdom Sizzler owned and operated by Steve Broetsky's carnival Frazier Shows. According to the police report, the ride owner's son, Steve Jr., inspected the ride following the woman's death and cleared it to reopen 45 minutes later. more
3/23/05 The Five People You Meet at ASTM
I read Five People on the way to an ASTM F-24 industry standards meeting, a twice-yearly event where you'll find whole rooms (including the bar) filled with people dedicated to amusement ride safety. more
1/31/05 The Biomechanics of Pediatric Injury
Saferparks recently submitted a proposal to the ASTM F-24 committee suggesting changes to the design standard for rides and devices (F2291). The changes are intended to reduce the risk of containment failures involving young children in new rides by requiring a child safety analysis as part of the ride analysis. more
8/5/04 Giving Parents Tools for Risk Reduction
Imagine a situation where a group of people is responsible for protecting children from a potential danger. We could be talking about any group of people and any flavor of danger, but for this example, let's choose thrill rides. more
7/25/04 Protect Your Children from Thrill Ride Dangers
Originally published in The New York Times
Each year, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, 10,000 people are injured on mechanical and inflatable amusement rides. Half of those accidents involve children under 14. more
5/28/04 Single Point Failure: The Whim of a Young Child
Stephanie Dieudonne was fatally ejected from a Scrambler at Rye Playland amusement park in New York. The first grader was riding alone on an open seat built to accommodate three riders, with a fixed lap bar "restraint" that was not designed to restrict the movement of young children. more
5/24/04 Saferparks Letter to the House Commerce Committee
On May 13, I met with majority staff from the House Commerce Committee regarding the committee's persistent refusal to consider any form of federal safety oversight for U.S. thrill rides. We discussed the fatal ejection in Massachusetts and the problems inherent in a system that relies on local entities to correct industry-wide safety problems. more
5/4/04 Piecemeal Public Safety - New Victim, Same Old Song
On May 1, 2004, 55-year-old Stanley Mordarsky of Bloomfield, Connecticut, was hurled to his death from an open car on Superman Ride of Steel, an 80 mph roller coaster designed by Intamin for Six Flags New England. more
2/19/04 Saferparks: The Next Generation
Welcome to the new face of Saferparks. The cosmetic and organizational changes to the website reflect both a renewed commitment and a shift in course. Despite my best intentions and fervent prayers, Saferparks' 2003 Agenda did not lead to a sustainable retirement. more
8/03 Lack of Data Hampers Safety Efforts
Originally written as an article submission to the National Safety Council
Thrill rides expose millions of excited children and adults to heights, speeds, forces, and machinery hazards that aren't encountered anywhere else in daily life. Common sense and rational science tell us that the physiological effects of those rapidly-evolving technologies should be closely monitored. more
12/2/02 Kiddie Restraints
On Thanksgiving weekend, the ASTM F24 World Standards Task Group issued what they hope is the final ballot on their new Standard Practice for the Design of Amusement Rides and Devices. more
10/02 Piecemeal Public Safety: Self-Regulating the Brain Bleed Question
The biggest problem with self-regulation is the absence of a central, impartial authority to investigate allegations like those being raised by amusement ride patrons who claim to have suffered brain injuries while riding high-g rides. more
7/13/02 Letter to IAAPA: Strength In Standards - Guest Editorial by David Collins
You are asking in your Chairman's Letter for all of us to work as neighbors to keep a fire (Federal regulation) from spreading. The easiest way for this to happen is not to put huge amounts of energy and money into defeating the attempts to inspect and follow-up on accidents in the industry. more
7/4/02 The Politics of Child Safety
I've been spending time lately putting together a new website. My critics will be happy to hear that the new project has nothing to do with safety or the amusement ride industry. It does, however, have a lot to do with children. more
5/14/02 Disney's Safety Report
On June 4, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman, Paul Pressler, held a 3-hour press conference to announce the publication of Disney's first annual Report on Safety. more
3/17/02 Operation "Enduring Freedom of Information"
On February 16, 2002, Saferparks mailed out a regulatory questionnaire and request for accident records to the 40 U.S. states that have regulatory laws governing amusement rides. more
2/19/02 The XYZs of Gs: Saferparks Weighs In on the Great G-Force Limit Debate
For several years now, Saferparks has managed to avoid the Great G-force Limit Debate. However, recent events have moved the issue into the mainstream. In January, the medical community alerted ER physicians to watch for neurological injuries related to high-g rides, and called for more research. more
11/15/01 After Regulation, What's Next?
The first section of California's amusement park safety regulations was adopted by the state on Halloween. Despite the last-minute dilution of the accident reporting requirement, the Administrative Regulations represent a big win for consumers. more
10/27/01 Bleat After Me: Rides Are Safe
In Animal Farm, George Orwell's classic tale of organizational control, barnyard beasts take over their farm under the leadership of a pig named Napoleon. The sheep are taught to drown out public debate by bleating a patriotic slogan each time an animal questions the prevailing wisdom of the group's leader. more
6/24/01 What If the Mommies and the Enthusiasts Are Both Right?
Thrill ride safety has been in the news lately, and my e-mail volume has risen accordingly. The bulk of the messages fall into one of two categories: ride enthusiasts who fear the government and parents who fear for their children's safety. more
3/27/01 Nuisance Lawsuits Can Cause Brain Damage In Children
Nuisance lawsuits are a big headache for American business. Spend five minutes talking to a corporate executive or a small business owner, and you'll hear stories of greed and deception that will make you want to cry. more
12/3/00 All I Want for Christmas is "Beyond First Aid"
Politics can make you crazy. So can theme park lawyers. The theme park industry and I have been arguing over public reporting of amusement ride accidents for almost two years now. more
9/8/00 A Simple Solution: Just Show Us Your Safety Record
I have the perfect solution to industry's dispute over the CPSC figures that show yet another annual increase in ride-related injuries at amusement parks. Why don't we, the people, mandate that amusement parks have to report ride-related injuries to a central database managed by a regulatory agency. more
1/30/00 Let's Compare My Garden Hose to a Himalaya
Public Relations is a funny business. I mean funny strange, not funny ha-ha. The International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) likes to tell people that amusement rides are safer than garden hoses or television. They especially like to tell people this after somebody dies on an amusement ride. more
Saferparks welcomes editorial submissions by e-mail.
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