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On May 23, 2004, 7-year-old 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. This Scrambler was set up to operate in a dark tent with disco lights, limiting the operator's ability to observe the riders. Witnesses say that Stephanie turned around to wave at her friends and may have been kneeling on the seat when she was thrown off the ride.
No one who works in the amusement ride industry could have been surprised by this accident; tragedies like Stephanie's have become predictable. Young children are at highest risk of ejection from rides with industry-standard lap bars due to size and their inability to comprehend the consequences of an action as simple as pulling up their legs. The industry standards committee (ASTM F-24) does not consider this to be a problem they need to solve. In fact, the new design standard adopted last year codifies the use of exactly this kind of system on full-sized rides, regardless of the age of the intended riders. Restraint design need only take into account "the adult or child physical characteristics", not the child's intellect, maturity, life experience, or developmental characteristics. The new standard requires that restraints for rides like the Scrambler "hold secure against opening except by intentional action"; they are not required to be child-resistant or fit closely against small patrons.
Each time a young child is killed or maimed by a standard-compliant thrill ride, the industry whips up its personal responsibility rhetoric to shift the focus away from ride's inadequate restraint design. "What was the mother thinking?" is always effective. Having been there, I am uniquely qualified to answer that:
- The mother was thinking that amusement rides are the safest form of family entertainment, because that's what the industry PR machine tells her.
- The mother was thinking that thrill rides offer only the illusion of danger, because that's what the industry PR machine tells her.
- The mother was thinking that rides approved for use by young children must be designed with restraints that actually restrain young children -- after all, that is a requirement (and, in fact, the entire point) behind the restraints designed into every other vehicle and product her child uses.
Here's what the mother wasn't thinking about because the personal responsibility experts in the amusement ride industry never bothered to tell her or any of the rest of their 300 million customers:
- Amusement park rides are the only products marketed to children that are exempt from all federal standards for child-safe design.
- Amusement park rides are the only commercially-operated high-speed vehicles exempt from all federal standards for child-safe containment systems.
- Many commercially-operated amusement rides present a very real danger to the smallest passengers, and provide only the illusion of a restraint system.
Maybe the mother was thinking that thrill rides have multiple fail-safe systems, because that's what Harold Hudson's Brain Injury Association report said. A professional astronaut mommy on the payroll of Six Flags confirmed his statement. The National Safety Council published his findings in their magazine. And Harold's report was right. Most rides do have multiple fail-safe systems to protect the machinery from breakage. Unfortunately, the containment system as a whole does not have to be fail-safe, or even plausible. On some rides the most vulnerable cargo is protected from breakage solely by the whim of a young child.
The industry knows this and has steadfastly refused to do anything about it. The industry doesn't have to. Rides are profitable just as they are, and a compliant Congress continues to keep pesky federal safety officials from investigating fatal ejections at amusement parks. Those lap bars that work so poorly for children are quick to open and close, which speeds up queue lines and maximizes rider capacity. With 300 million customers, a few crushed children aren't going to hurt the bottom line, but slower queue lines will.
This industry actually brags about its high rate of usage failure. A few years ago, I attended the IAAPA trade show in Orlando. The new president of Disney's theme park division was the keynote speaker. At one point during the inspirational portion of his speech, he quoted the industry-standard line that 70/80/90% (I forget the exact number he used) of all accidents are caused by rider misconduct or equipment misuse. The industry greeted his statement with applause, and it was clear from the flow of the speech that this was his intent. This man was talking about his own customers, families who paid hard-earned money to patronize Disney parks and wound up losing children or parts of their children in machinery accidents there. Those tragedies were the basis for celebration by the amusement ride industry. To be in that room at that moment sickened me.
In any system where humans interact with machinery, human error accounts for most of the failures. That doesn't mean that machines are smarter or better or more responsible than humans; they're just more predictable. Although the federal government does not regulate the safety of amusement park rides, the feds do closely regulate the safety of high-speed airplanes. 80% of all airplane accidents are attributed to pilot error, yet the aviation industry doesn't exploit those statistics to ridicule pilots or impugn their character. The airline industry simply does its job by hiring human factors experts and focusing prevention strategies where they're most needed. I cannot imagine a room filled with hundreds of airline industry executives cheering over the number of deaths and injuries caused by pilot error.
There's an expression that I've found to be helpful in my life: "Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig." I've spent six years of my life trying to get the leadership of this industry to make child-resistant containment systems for thrill rides a serious priority. New ride designs seem to be ambling in that direction, but the existing rides don't ever have to change. Rides like the Scrambler and the Wipeout and the Sizzler are so well-engineered that they can remain fully operational for up to a century, and their lap bars will continue to latch and lock according to design -- six inches above the laps of little girls like 7-year-old Stephanie Dieudonne.
I'm tired of waiting for this pig to sing. I'm tired of phone calls from reporters telling me that yet another child has been hurt or killed by a thrill ride restraint system designed for 170-pound adults. I'm tired of hearing the same well-rehearsed lines from the industry leadership. Parents are on their own when it comes to identifying child safety hazards on amusement rides and steering their children away. Ideally, we should be able to make informed decisions about whether a piece of machinery is designed and operated in such a way that it's safe for our child, but most parents know nothing about ride design and even less about the operational history of kiddie containment failures. To the extent they think about it at all, parents choose a park they trust and assume that the federal government is keeping a watchful eye on safety. Parents are trusting the wrong people; that's why we keep seeing these accidents.
Parents need to learn how to recognize and avoid the industry-standard single point failures that bring profit to amusement parks and suffering to so many families. It's not all that hard to locate them. Just look for the crushed children. Listen for the phrase "personal responsibility". And if you happen to be attending the IAAPA trade show, note the line that draws the loudest applause.
Note: On June 3, 2004 RideAccidents.com reported that the New York Dept. of Labor had completed its investigation of the accident. The Mind Scrambler will undergo safety modifications before it reopens, including the addition of seat belts to each of its cars. The park will also assign an additional ride attendant to operate and monitor the ride from a second station within the ride area. In addition, changes will be made to the lighting in the dome-like enclosure in which the ride operates, giving ride attendants a better view of the ride area and the ability to see potential hazards posed by riders' behaviors.
Epilogue: On June 29, 2007 the manager of the Mind Scrambler's 2-person crew was fatally ejected in much the same way as 7-yo Stephanie. According to witness statements, the young woman boarded an open car after loading guests. She was kneeling backwards rather than sitting properly with her seatbelt latched. The crew member at the operator controls yelled at her to sit down, but then started the ride anyway. She was swaying and dancing to the music as the ride accelerated. The lights added to the ride as a safety feature after Stephanie's death were only designed to stay on during start up and slow down. Once the ride reached full-speed the lights went off. This was the point at which the ride operator was ejected from her seat and hit repeatedly by the ride. The second operator station installed after Stephanie's accident was not manned at the time of the ride operator's death. Employees reported that it was rarely, if ever, used. Despite the fatal accident on the Mind Scrambler three years prior and the death of another 7-year old child at the same park two years earlier, the ride owner had never implemented a formal documented training program or provided operators with a ride operations sheet as required by industry standards. The ride had passed state inspection despite these deficiencies. OSHA investigators might have insisted on mitigation of these chronic problems following the death of the ride operator, but Rye Playland is owned by the county and, therefore, exempt from OSHA oversight.
