U.S. Injury Statistics for Amusement Rides & Devices

Injuries related to the use of amusement rides, waterslides, go-karts, and inflatable amusement devices are tracked by the Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Information Surveillance System (NEISS). Users should note that the NEISS sampling algorithm was designed for common consumer products, and may not be as accurate for products with non-random distribution, such as theme park rides.

A table summarizing ride-related injury estimates for years 1997-2006 is included in the Saferparks Database. NEISS data includes information (e.g., victim's age, medical diagnosis, affected body part, narrative description) that can be used to identify and understand common ride-related injury patterns. Saferparks has incorporated pertinent NEISS records into the Saferparks Database as an additional resource for accident prevention analysis.

In addition to the federal data, some state agencies provide publicly available data on ride-related injuries . Saferparks has used those pieces of data to analyse and illustrate common hazard patterns. The graphs found on this website reflect samples from various state records.

In 2001 the amusement park industry trade group, IAAPA , began producing its own annual injuries-per-ride-cycle figure for mechanical amusement rides (roller coasters, Ferris wheels, etc.).

• Each year IAAPA asks client parks to report the number of riders they've processed through the turnstiles of their mechanical amusement rides, and the number of customers they know of who were treated by a doctor for injuries caused by any of those rides.
• IAAPA has contracted the National Safety Council to tally up the numbers into an aggragated count of the number of patron rides taken each year at participating parks, and the number of injuries parks reported knowing about. The National Safety Council publishes the results every few years.
• IAAPA's tally system does not collect any information useful for analysis of accident patterns or development of prevention strategies. The system deliberately excludes collecting any information that would identify the ride,the park, the age/size of patrons involved, the accident scenario, or the injuries sustained.
• IAAPA's honor-system tally of customer injuries that have been reported back to client parks is lower than the CPSC's estimate of the number of amusement park patrons actually treated for ride-related injuries in emergency rooms.