Markey enlists Lassiters to promote safety bill

I think the point of wanting the legislation is the fact that most states don't have any proper criteria for investigation of accidents or inspections. Why is it that the Dept. of Ag are the ones in Fl and Ky to due inspections? Are we to believe they know all the in's and out's of these rides? It seems there needs to be uniformity for all parks to have the same sort of regulations, not some hit and miss kinda crap. Granted too much government can be a problem in some parts of life, but when it comes to Corporations I think we definitely need someone on our side to ensure that they aren't skimping on safety for their Bottom Line!

Every legislator needs his or her "pet cause". Markey ran into a problem because all of the good ones were taken.

When all is said and done he will have contributed nothing to the safety of amusement parks across the country but he will be perceived to have done so much good.

Basically, isn't that the goal of a politician?

Most states? By what count? Of course the agriculture departments do the inspections (how "due" you misspell a two-letter word!), since in most states the rides being inspected most are at county fairs. The department that oversees this is of little consequence. It could be the department of taxation. It doesn't matter.

As Dave already alluded to, there are uniform standards, generally ASTM. There's nothing "hit or miss" about it.

Who do you think writes that ASTM? It is all written by the Amusement Park Inustry, that is why they don't want that re-written. And don't bring the silly game of semantics into internet conversations, it's juvenile. And the count is 22 or 23. So you think it wouldn't matter if a "bean counter" goes behind parks to make sure their maintenance dept. is doing the right job? How about 3rd party certification.

And no there hasn't been a settlement.*** This post was edited by Raphael 5/16/2008 10:03:42 AM ****** This post was edited by Raphael 5/16/2008 1:05:10 PM ***

You want national legislation for something that would REALLY protect children? I would suggest Washington look into playground safety. There are FAR more injuries (including sever injury and death) on our nation's playgrounds than there are injuries in our nation's amusement parks.

Why aren't legislators jumping on that bandwagon? Because there is nothing sexy about, "child falls off 15 foot slide onto pavement below and breaks neck." But, make it "Disney ride to blame for child's lost limb" and you have something that networks will carry and a politician can get face time for.

Of course the amusement parks are going to heavily influence the ASTM standards. They and amusement ride builders are basically the only folks that know anything about what they do. Sure, you might have some influece from steel manufacturers, physicists, etc but who else can write the standards? Certainly not politicians.

It's a point of checks and balances. People will be as Lazy as you Allow them to be, that goes for Corporations as well. If there is someone coming in behind them more then likely they will be more conscientious in their programs. However it isn't all parks, so what to do with the ones that don't care enough. And I don't know the statistics on your example, but from witnessing parents, they're pretty wrapped up in thier own selfishness that I would think that would be more of a supervision problem. And if you seem to think there needs to be something done ,then by all means, start doing something.

Supervision plays a role in playground safety but most injuries occur from falls, entaglements, etc. Those are products of either poor design or poor mainteneance, not unlike amusement park injuries.

But, where is the outcry about playground safety? There isn't one. Why? It ain't newsworthy.

Start your crusade. It sounds like either yourself or someone close has been a victim of this. But it is easier to tell if a playground is in poor condition or not; not so with amusement parks.

OMG, did anyone read the comments that followed the story?

The woman who fell off the ride and was killed at Dollywood because the NECK RESTRAINT wasn't closed properly? (Talk about misinformation!)

The woman whose son was "obviously" too short for the ride and nearly fell off. His parents had to hold onto him to keep him from slipping under the restraint? (Obviously, this woman needs a Congressman's help to keep theme park employees from forcing her and her son onto rides for which he's too short. Maybe Markey can put in a line item in the next budget to get this woman a brain.)

Sure we could let the Feds regulate amusement ride safety. These would be the same Feds who gave us the hammer and toilet seat that cost over a thousand dollars each. Plus the 12 pages of a manual devoted to the description of said hammer. With the Feds in charge, I'm sure a few parks would be inspected and given the go ahead to open around late-August or so.

I wouldn't feel too bad about the kid not being able to go to the mall. Every month it seems we hear about half dozen or so people being shot at some mall or another. Maybe Markey could look into safety at shopping centers for his next project.

I'm amazed at the last comment. Woman who forced son on ride? Hardly comparable. But wouldn't that be somehow the responsibility of a ride op letting too small of a person on the ride?*** This post was edited by Raphael 5/16/2008 2:09:41 PM ***

Raphael, It seems you believe everything everyone says or political cause. More regulation isn't going to help anymore than the existing regulation just as much as one more gun law isn't going to help the existing laws.

The reason the Dept of Agricultrue is in juristiction of this is because statistically there are more Carnivals and Fairs than fixed site rides. They know what they are doing or either hire those who do to do these inspections.

Like has been pointed out, Yeah S**T happens once in awhile it''s going to no matter what inspection, regulation, requirement ect you put on it. ITS VERY BAD PR TO HAVE A ACCIDENT, Parks aren't fighting like you hear they are. They may try to quiet or not even let the press know about stuff but thats in their best interest as well. ALMOST ALL cooperate fully or risk getting shut down with those in charge of inspection and investigation.

Just because it's the Department of Agriculture that ride inspections fall under doesn't mean it's the same people that judge pigs at the county fair. It's a separate branch of the department that does ride inspections. Would it make you feel safer if the same people did the same job and called it the "Department of Ride Safety"?

You can't have a government official inspect every ride every day. There is no amount of jurisdiction or regulation that would have prevented the SFKK accident.

I'm a state certified amusement ride inspector. I'm sure that I could do a better job at writing standards and regulations than a random government bureaucrat.

Thanks, kpjb, for pointing that out.

If you look closely at the state that have regulatory programs, you will find that they encompass almost all of the states that have fixed amusement rides. The state programs fall into several different categories. In general, amusement ride regulations are handled by one of the following:

o Department of Insurance
That's what Texas does. The State does not have its own inspectors or inspection program, but they require operators to have insurance, and they require annual inspectors by qualified third-party inspectors. Which is easy enough to do because that is usually a requirement of the park's insurance carrier anyway.

o Department of Labor
Very common. The department of labor usually includes OSHA so it's a natural fit for safety inspections. The bad thing about this is the states that use the Department of Labor often do not have dedicated amusement ride inspectors. This seems to be especially common in New England.

o Building and Elevator Inspections
Common where the Authority Having Jurisdiction is a County or City, as is the case in Clark County, NV or New York City, NY. (New York rides are inspected by the Department of Labor, but the State does not, or at least did not, have jurisdiction over rides in the City). Again, this sometimes means the inspectors are not dedicated amusement ride inspectors.

o Department of Agriculture
This is extremely common, and probably related to the fact that Agriculture already does inspections, particularly weights and measures. Every state that I know of that has amusement rides in the Department of Agriculture has a separate division dedicated to amusement rides. Examples include Ohio, Pennsylvania...and Kentucky.

In any case, any State that has an inspection program will either require a third-party inspection or perform its own third party inspection, or both. Any state that has such a program will insist that such inspectors be qualified. In many states, that qualification is defined by an engineering license, or (as in Missouri) an engineering license or certification by NAARSO and/or AIMS. That's right, there are TWO industry associations which offer inspector training and certification programs...AIMS is an association of manufacturers, and NAARSO was started by regulatory inspectors. In addition, California and Pennsylvania have separate certification programs for their inspectors. In Pennsylvania, every ride MUST be inspected by a Commonwealth certified inspector (such as kpjb) on every operating day. I don't have a Pennsylvania certificate, but I have attended their school (and in fact gave a lecture there this past spring) and can tell you that it is an intensive school not unlike the NAARSO school. So regardless of the department having jurisdiction, amusement ride inspectors are, in fact, specially trained and qualified to serve as amusement ride safety inspectors.

The question also came up about the ASTM standards and who writes them. Amusement ride standards are the responsibility of Committee F-24, which handles a number of standards relating to amusement rides, most critically the F 2291 standard, which is the world design standard. There are nearly 500 members of the F-24 committee, and they are not all industry people who would prefer to avoid regulation. Just thinking back to the last committee meeting in Orlando, I know there were representatives of manufacturers, major parks, smaller parks, a couple of people who have been involved with all three, attorneys of various affiliations, independent inspectors, jurisdictional inspectors (including the inspection division chiefs of more than one state), representatives of foreign standards organizations and regulatory bodies (such as TSSA in Ontario), carnival owners, industry organizational representatives (including OABA, AIMS and IAAPA), academic experts, and even consumer representatives including Kathy Fackler and myself. Sure, I am outnumbered by the Disney lawyers, but the structure of the committee is such that decisions are made by consensus, and any negative vote must be supported by an argument that must be addressed by the committee. If you don't like the way the standards get set, then do something about it. ASTM membership actually costs less than many season passes. It's not for everybody, but the point is, the ASTM standards have a much broader base of influence than you might think.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Ok then, help me understand this, if nothing could have prevented this,Why? did the maintenance mgr say in depo that they never lubricated the cables on ride at all, and why were there so many valley breaks in the cable, and why was it so rusted and why didn't these Ag inspectors catch all this that the maintenance people weren't doing the right job, ( because the are Ag people not engineers). So offer some words of wisdom for this. I'm sure we all know this is not every chain or park, but when one operates like this what is it you're supposed to do? And you're right you can't have the State inspect every day, but if you can't rely on the park to do the basic recommendations from the designers then what?

What you're missing here is that this park DOES have government regulation. They DO have standards to follow. They just DIDN'T. Nothing can prevent negligence.

Volvo can have the safest cars in the world, I can get a government regulated inspection of it at normal intervals, but if I intentionally drive it at 100mph with flat tires, it will still wreck.

So now why don't you help ME understand two things:

1) How would this piece of legislation have helped Kaitlyn Lassiter?

2) If CPSC regulation is the answer, why did a CPSC-regulated Chance YoYo collapse and injure 24 people at a California fair yesterday? Do you think their injuries hurt any less because the ride has a government stamp on it?

No one's arguing that these rides don't need inspected properly, especially me since that's my job. This piece of legislation will help no one and prevent nothing. It's useless. Period.

So nothing would have been able to make sure that this ride was maintained and inspected properly? Is that what you're saying? Your Volvo reference is comparing apples to rocks. There is a ride which is supposed to have qualified maintenance people caring for it then an agency that "inspects" the ride annually, so how is it that this cable was so deteriorated? seems to me there should be a way to figure out something so menial as rust and major amounts of splintering wire rope.

It's not apples to rocks. It's machinery that the government requires to be inspected that ultimately is in the hands of an individual operator.

You totally avoided my question.

I'll ask again.

How would this piece of legislation have helped Kaitlyn Lassiter?

If CPSC regulation is the answer, why did a CPSC-regulated Chance YoYo collapse and injure 24 people at a California fair yesterday? Do you think their injuries hurt any less because the ride has a government stamp on it?

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seems to me there should be a way to figure out something so menial as rust and major amounts of splintering wire rope.

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There is. The proper procedure is in the owner's manual. Doesn't help if no one reads it.

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so how is it that this cable was so deteriorated?

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Was I not clear enough in the first paragraph of my last post? Go back and read it again.

So who is there to make sure that they are reading this stuff? That is the point, if there were some type of mandated 3rd party inspection requirement then I feel this parks faulty maintenance program would have been caught and Kaitlyn would still be walking with what God gave her, not man made. Whether this falls under CPSC or not, there needs to be some criteria enforcement. ENFORCEMENT! Peolpe will be as lazy as You let them. If management isn't doing the right job then the minions beneath will slack.

Lassiter is spelled Lasitter*** This post was edited by Raphael 5/17/2008 2:44:25 PM ***

How would you enforce it, then? I'll repeat what I said above since it doesn't seem to be getting through.

This park DOES have government regulation. They DO have standards to follow. They just DIDN'T.

Do you suggest a federal official watches the inspector read the manual? How would they know if he understood it? How would they know if that person gives a crap? You can't watch 100% of people 100% of the time.

So I'm asking again. Seriously. How would you enforce this?

No one is arguing that there should be no standards and no regulation. They're saying that this legislation of Markey's is useless, and that the industry as a whole is overwhelmingly safe.

So then why is it the ones that work for the Dept of Ag don't know what they're doing ?who is it that is watching them to make all these parks as safe as can be? And whose responsibility is it to correct this? I think I've already stated that a 3rd party yearly inspection is my logic.*** This post was edited by Raphael 5/17/2008 3:10:30 PM ***