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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. Permanent park rides and carnival rides are regulated under separate statutes in our state, for both practical and political reasons. The park regs are quite recent, but the carnival safety regulations were drafted almost four decades ago. Nixon was president, the Beatles were still together, and the Zipper was the newest thrill ride on the market.
SB 783 will bring the old carnival regs up to current standards and address some long-standing problems in implementation and interpretation that have sparked repeated conflict between state inspectors and the carnivals they regulate. In doing so, it made sense to look at past reports from the carnival side, as well as broader safety issues that have arisen within the industry and the regulatory communities in the 38 years since California’s carnival regulations were drafted.
The new law requires that carnivals comply with ASTM F770, the industry standard for amusement ride ownership and operation. It improves tracking of accidents, brings insurance requirements into line with regulatory norms, and authorizes fines for serious safety violations.
Major mechanical failures and mid-cycle falls/ejections were singled out for automatic reporting in the new legislation, regardless of whether the riders were lucky enough to escape serious injury. Those two accident categories carry a higher than usual risk of death or serious injury, and should be tracked carefully. Mid-cycle falls and ejections primarily affect young children, and incidents of this sort don’t always trigger remedial action on the part of manufacturers. Careful study of these hazard patterns is critical to prevention, whether we’re relying on parents, ride operators, or manufacturers to prevent future accidents. Child containment has emerged as a key area of concern, and so far there don’t appear to be any easy answers. The more incidents we have available for study, the sooner effective solutions can be developed. I’d rather study 95 near misses and 5 serious accidents than wait until we amass 100 reports with tragic outcomes. I hope the industry feels the same way.
The specific language defining the new reporting requirements will be crafted during rulemaking next year, with ample opportunity for all carnival owners to weigh in as part of the advisory team. The general idea behind the reporting change is to ensure capture of information on the most critical incidents, and to reduce conflicts between regulators and ride owners. In today’s world, carnival operators may not always know whether an injured customer went to a doctor, but operators should know if a rider comes out of their amusement ride at some point other than the designated load/unload areas. They should know if their machine suffers a major mechanical failure while customers are riding.
SB 783 earned the support of the carnival industry and most of the Republicans in the California legislature, passing the Assembly unanimously and the Senate by a three-quarter majority. That’s quite an impressive feat for a regulatory bill, even in my uber liberal state.
The newly-formed California Portable Ride Operations trade group, headed by Sam Johnston and represented by Boyd Jensen, deserves special praise. CALPRO wasn’t wild about the bill initially, but instead of working to kill it, they rolled up their sleeves and worked with Senator Torlakson to craft a good solid bill that everyone could live with. The carnival owners got personally involved, showing up en masse at the first policy hearing where they thoroughly charmed the committee chair, Senator Migden. Citizen democracy and mutual respect – what a way to conduct the people’s business!
We still have rulemaking to get through, but I’m encouraged and inspired by the carnival industry’s response to this year’s bill – and, since I’m spreading compliments around, I feel the same way about the permanent park industry’s good faith compliance with the somewhat more controversial 1999 law.
It cannot be easy for companies to allow the government access into the most sensitive parts of their business, yet California’s carnivals and amusement parks do so with good grace. The regulatory programs governing amusement rides, in our state and others, have expanded our collective knowledge of safety issues and focused additional resources on prevention. The public records produced by those programs generally reflect well on the industry.
Safety regulation isn’t fun. It’s a necessary evil. The amusement ride industry serves up high speed, high elevation thrills to millions and millions of children. A single failure can be catastrophic to the people involved. The risks are real, even if they’re packaged to the public as fantasy. This is a serious business. Serious players will thrive, even if they have to open their safety books to public scrutiny.
Regulation isn’t fun. I don’t like asking for it, lawmakers don't like enacting it, and I’d guess that government inspectors don’t particularly enjoy enforcing it. The best we can do, in my opinion, is work to focus safety laws properly and take every advantage of the information earned to help prevent accidents from happening again.
Saferparks extends sincere thanks to Senator Torlakson, Governor Schwarzenegger, the California carnival operators, and everyone who played a part in passing SB 783. See you next year in rulemaking.
