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Public Relations is a funny business. I mean funny strange, not necessarily 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.
Now, I happen to agree about the dangers of television. TV does far more damage to our children than amusement rides ever will. I also agree that amusement parks provide a whole lot of entertainment to a whole lot of happy consumers over the course of a year. But my agreement with the IAAPA party line ends when they start comparing thrill rides to garden hoses.
I imagine the PR folks from the IAAPA find that line very funny. Funny ha-ha, not funny strange. But it doesn't sound funny to a mom whose son was injured on an amusement ride. In fact, it sounds irresponsible. It sounds like the industry wants parents to relax their guard around amusement rides, to think of the rides as benign. It sounds like the industry wants to downplay the inherent mechanical hazard that amusement rides present to impulsive children. Public Relations is a funny business.
Garden Hose Statistics - A Closer Look
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission publishes a quarterly report, the Consumer Product Safety Review, which estimates the number of product-related injuries in a variety of categories. Their estimates are based on a sampling of 100 hospital emergency rooms around the country. The latest report estimated that "Amusement Attractions" sent 19,211 people to emergency rooms in 1998. The report did not have a category for "Garden Hoses", but it did estimate 59,392 injuries related to "Lawn and Garden Equipment".
I don't consider Lawn and Garden Equipment safe entertainment for my children, and I'm not sure why hedge clippers and cultivators would be compared, favorably or unfavorably, to kiddie rides. Of course, I don't understand a whole lot of things about Public Relations in general, and amusement parks specifically.
Mostly, I don't understand why the theme park industry fights and schemes and lobbies so hard to cover up what they tell us is an exemplary safety record. I don't understand how an industry which serves high-speed thrills to 300 million people every year can justify hiding known dangers from their customers. And I don't understand how an industry that refuses to disclose injury records without a subpoena can claim safety as its number one priority. You can't keep customers ignorant and safe at the same time.
So How Does IAAPA Promote Rider Safety?
If you visit the IAAPA's homepage, you'll see a happy 4-year-old child riding a carousel, illustrating the innocent joy that amusement parks bring to our world. Except that the IAAPA didn't bother to fasten their poster boy's safety strap, or tell him he shouldn't ride with one hand straight up in the air. But then why would they? Carousels are safer than garden hoses, aren't they?
If the PR folks from the IAAPA took time to read through the CPSC's hospital emergency room incident reports related to amusement rides, they'd find that children age 1-6 account for more amusement ride injuries than any other age group (24% out of a sample set of 874). "Fell from ride" was the number one cause of injury, with carousels and inflatable jumpers mentioned more often than any other type of ride.
Note #1: After this editorial was posted in 2000, IAAPA removed the photo of the 4-year-old on the carousel from their website. On Aug. 14, 2000, Amusement Business ran an editorial stating that IAAPA "has decided to stop [comparing amusement ride injuries with garden hose injuries] because some IAAPA members, as well as some media, felt the tactic gave the impression that the industry was not taking injuries seriously".
Note #2: In 2003, the amusement ride industry submitted six article to "Injury Insights", the journal of the National Safety Council. The articles listed several dozen recreational activities and everyday movements that are purported to be safer than riding thrill rides, including: playing shuffleboard or table tennis, bobbing your head, sitting down, sneezing, coughing, and having a pillow fight. So much for IAAPA's promise to take amusement ride accidents seriously.
