Industry Self-Regulation

"Industry self-regulation" means that each manufacturer, ride owner/operator, and insurance carrier handles safety issues as they see fit. Safety records are privately held. No government agency is empowered to inspect rides, investigate accidents, audit safety records, or shut down unsafe rides.

Self-regulation of amusement ride safety is common in the United States. Thrill rides in Florida's theme parks are exempt from all public safety oversight. Most thrill rides operated in the states of the mountain west are self-regulated, as are rides in a large portion of the southeastern U.S.

The amusement ride industry has clear incentive to prevent accidents, but industry also has clear incentive to cut costs, cover up mistakes, and shift blame.  Those priorities often conflict. 

• Payroll cuts mean rides might be staffed with inexperienced, less qualified workers.
• High rider throughput quotas limit the type of restraints that put into kiddie rides and family rides.  For example, single lap bars do not restrain young children as well as seatbelts, but lap bars may be more profitable because they're quicker to latch.
• Marketing strategies designed to entice customers into the park also discourage riders from paying attention to safety.

Amusement parks are profit-driven companies, nothing more and nothing less.  If given the option, any business will plead (often quite eloquently) to self-regulate.  Yet public safety regulation is the norm in every other industry that profits from loading the general public onto high-speed vehicles.  Public safety regulation should be the norm in the thrill ride industry as well.

Self-regulation creates a clear conflict of interest after a serious accident occurs:

• Ride owners cannot perform thorough, unbiased investigations of accidents involving their own equipment and employees.   Imagine if we allowed drivers to determine the cause of their own automobile vs. pedestrian accidents.
• Police agencies are not trained, experienced, or granted appropriate powers to effectively investigate thrill ride accidents.   Occasionally the police will be called to the scene of a catastrophic amusement ride accident, but police investigations focus on determining whether or not a crime was committed.  Police agencies do not have amusement ride safety experts on staff.  Nor do they have budget or mandate to investigate the causes of, and preventative measures for, amusement ride accidents.  In most cases, police are not authorized to shut down a ride that might be unsafe to the public unless they suspect a crime was committed.
• Under self-regulation, ride owners and manufacturers decide whether to investigate an accident, and what information to include in the investigation.   Accident victims are usually excluded, as are non-employee eye witnesses.  Limiting legal exposure is an urgent corporate priority after an accident.  Most ride owners pick and choose what they're willing to investigate based on advice from their attorneys.  This defense strategy is understandable given the high stakes of personal injury lawsuits, but it results in an incomplete understanding of what happened in the accident.

Self-regulation may be real boon to business, but consumer safety gets short shrift. To learn more about the rules allowing carnivals and theme parks to sweep up after their own fatal accidents, read the following Saferparks editorials:

• Carnival Fatality Investigations by Steve Jr.
• Mission: Self-Protection