Limitations of Current U.S. Ride Safety Oversight

• Far too many states still lack even the most basic emergency response regulations for thrill rides.
  • Ride owners are allowed to handle fatalities and major accidents on their own and re-open the ride to the public with only a cursory self-inspection.
  • The blatant conflict of interest erodes public trust in the industry and in our government.
  • After an accident involving the death or serious injury of a paying customer, ride owners have a natural incentive to suppress safety-critical information that may expose them to liability. Incomplete examination of evidence creates missed opportunities for correction and improvement of potential hazards.
  • Lessons learned from private-sector investigations are considered confidential. They are not publicly shared.
• Few state agencies have in-house staff capable of thoroughly investigating accidents on complex thrill rides or accidents with more obscure/complicated causation.
  • Amusement ride regulation at the state level often takes a narrow focus dictated by statute, resources, and core business of the regulating agency. That leads to wide variation in the scope/direction of accident investigations, and often leaves holes in understanding. For example:
  • The Ohio Dept. of Labor's ride safety program lacks trained electrical inspectors so amusement ride grounding/wiring is no longer inspected by state safety officials.
  • By contrast, the Louisiana Fire Marshal's Office has jurisdiction over electrical safety, but not operational safety. When a patron was struck and killed by an amusement ride at a Louisiana amusement park two years ago, state investigators were called in to rule out mechanical failure, but were not allowed to complete the investigation into cause because the accident stemmed from human error and was, therefore, out of the agency's statutory authority.
• The best state regulatory programs can effectively handle major accident investigations, but only as localized events.
  • There isn't any reliable system to ensure that problems identified and fixed in one jurisdiction are addressed nationwide.
  • Wide variation in state and local laws can lead to different fixes for the same problem, which further increases the complexity of maintaining, inspecting, and using amusement rides.

Limitations of Current Federal Oversight