Text-only version
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. To make things easier, I attached a stamped self-addressed envelope to each questionnaire. As of this afternoon, 23 of the questionnaires have been returned by mail, and one was answered over the phone. Eight states have sent accident records. New York sent me a postcard telling me they're currently processing my FOIA (shorthand for "Freedom of Information Act" request).
My goal was to see how accessible safety data is to consumers. If, say, I was a normal mom planning a summer theme park vacation, how would I comparison shop in terms of safety? What information is available to help consumers choose the appropriate park/carnival/ride for a nervous 4-year-old, or an adventurous 6-year-old, or a group of teenagers, or someone with arthritis? How can older people, overweight people, underweight people, tall people, short people, or people with a specific medical condition learn which rides are safe and fun for people like themselves? How can consumers learn how to avoid potential hazards on equipment they've never seen before?
If I were purchasing an automobile or a toaster oven or an over-the-counter pain reliever, I could look in Consumer Reports or contact the appropriate federal regulatory agency to learn about known safety issues. Those resources are useless when shopping for theme park vacations, however. There is no federal safety agency with jurisdiction, and Consumer Reports can't compare products unless they have reliable data that's uniform across all brands and categories. (I had a fascinating conversation with a Consumer Reports researcher who called me last year. I remember cracking a joke about Big Theme setting the gold standard for corporate political protection with a system that's so unbalanced even Nader's Raiders can't find a toehold.)
All I have, then, as that fictional normal mom shopping for a summer theme park vacation, is the Consumer Product Safety Commission's list of state amusement ride regulatory agencies. So that's where I started. Six weeks later, after approximately 100 hours spent typing letters, answering phone calls, and reading through regulatory logs, I've learned a little bit about parks in New Jersey, Texas, and a few other states. I still don't know anything at all about the accident histories of rides at 39 of the 48 top-grossing U.S. theme parks.
Florida theme parks are, of course, exempt from all reporting laws. California parks now report to the state, but the state can't provide a useful summary of safety records to consumers. The fictional normal mom shopping for a summer theme park vacation would have to spend several days in the Anaheim regulatory office reading through manila envelopes filled with accident reports from southern California amusement parks. If she wanted to learn about the safety of rides in northern California's parks, she would have to repeat the process in Sacramento. (Note: Saferparks is currently midway through this arduous process.)
Some of the states that answered my questionnaire don't require ride owners to report accidents. Other states don't keep records of reports, or don't consider the reports to be public information. A few states told me that they'd provide data upon written request, which I sent with my original letter, but I've not received any records. A few states are in the same boat as California. They've got the data and the willingness to share it, but they lack the time, money, and computer resources required to organize information in way that's easily accessible to the public. For example, California's regulatory program is required by law to be self-funding. Ride inspection fees are supposed to pay operating costs, but the years spent haggling over regulatory language have delayed inspections. Without any revenue coming in, DOSH doesn't have the money to computerize.
So, after six weeks of effort, my fictional normal mom shopping for a theme park vacation could compare and contrast the safety records for 9 of the top 48 U.S. theme parks:
- Six Flags Great Adventure (NJ)
- Morey's Pier (NJ)
- Six Flags Over Texas (TX)
- Six Flags Fiesta Texas (TX)
- Seaworld Texas (TX)
- Six Flags Astroworld (TX)
- Casino Pier (NJ)
- Six Flags Darien Lake (NY)
- Six Flags America (MD)
The data for those parks would range from non-existent (Casino Pier had an estimated attendance last year of 1,650,000 people, yet New Jersey shows no record of a single reported injury, not even a skinned knee), to poor (3 single-sentence records for Six Flags America: 1 death, 1 broken cheek bone, and 1 unspecified go-kart accident), to good (all the Texas parks and all the New Jersey parks except Casino Pier have extensive, useful safety records).
And so, the experiment continues. I've posted a lot of information on the internet in the long-awaited (by me, anyway) Saferparks Ride Incident Database. I'm learning a lot. The information will help me to help a lot of non-fictional normal moms who want to have fun without inadvertently endangering their children.
The greatest part of this work is learning to see past the salesmanship. I never gave fun houses a second thought when my kids were little. The Del Mar Fair would put them up on the kiddie midway, so I took my kids inside. Problem is, fun houses are a terrible idea for kids that age. They're filled with moving pieces of metal, unstable walking surfaces, distorted mirrors, etc. Fun houses are the last place you want to be with small people who are already unsteady on their feet and genetically compelled to put their fingers into every crack and crevice they see. Remember all those things that you were instructed to remove from your own house when you were child-proofing for toddlers? They all wind up in the fun house on the kiddie midway. And, not surprisingly, all the accident reports for fun houses involve children under 5. Don't take young children into the fun house.
The vast majority of ride-related accidents and injuries stem from ignorance. Park and carnival patrons don't know beans about the way amusement rides are designed to work. Most of the time the ride ends happily anyway. Sometimes it doesn't, though. The more we know before we get on board that ride, the better our odds for a happy ending. Giving the public easy access to ride safety records is the best way to prevent injuries. It's really as simple as that.
Special thanks to all the state regulators who took time to help with this project, and to the ride owners in Texas and New Jersey for blazing the prevention trail. If I were that fictional normal mom, I'd head straight for your states on my next theme park vacation.
