Dateline investigates safety at amusement parks

I guess the statement that you are more likely to be hit by lightning twice than killed on a ride is true. I've been hit by lightning twice (Both minor zings), but the worst injury that I have ever received in a park was a minor bruise from being bumped by a cleaner's push cart.

With regards to reporting, in many respects I would like to see full numbers on accidents and causes. First, it would satisfy my own curiosity; and second it would encourage less safe parks to improve their records. I consider the current statistical information from the NEISS system to be worthless for reasons to complex to go into here.

I am quite concerned however, that the reporting that Markey and company want would amount to a shopping list for trial lawyers prepared at government expense.

I am somewhat familiar with the accident reporting requirements for injuries to employees of OSHA, and as I understand it Markey and company want much more than OSHA.

OSHA defines what constitutes a recordable accident as opposed to a minor first aid incident, no need to record each band-aid, then requires the employer to maintain records on each recordable accident. Basically a recordable accident is one that requires treatment by a doctor. The employer retains the records, and publishes a summary of the total numbers each year. The individual records remain in the employers custody available for examination by the OSHA inspector, but not the general public. The employer is only required by report directly to OSHA in the event of a death or an sccident which results in hospitalization of 3 or more employees.

If we follow Markey's logic, it seems that we should have every public accomadation where people may be injured report these injuries. This would include hotels, restaurants, swimming pools, malls, retail stores, churches, etc. While I don't know the numbers right off, I strongly suspect that several of these have more injuries and fatalaties each year than amusement parks.

If we do have reporting, let us please have it for the purpose of making parks even safer than they are, not for the purpose of a shopping list for lawyers. Also, we should consider if this is really a good way to spend our tax money, when we could support other things to save lives with the same money.

I think parks should be required to report accidents. And on the report the cause should be listed. I don't think they should have to post the report on a big billboard inside the park but should be made available upon request or posted on the parks website. I love amusement parks and I feel they are very safe. The drive into the parking lot is usually more dangerous than any ride. I do belive if the parks had to report then they would go that extra step to ensure safety. An unsafe park would be a defunct park.

Here are a few things that annoyed me about the show.
1. Talking about us enduring sapceship level G's. They forgot to mention that you don't even feel them for a second.
2. They said, "if somebody dies on a ride your about to board wouldn't you want to know?" It's not like people just die on a roller coaster and nobody hears about it.
3. Why should they have to report accedents that are RIDER ERROR?! If it's the parks fault then I think that they should have to be reported.
4. They said that 3000 people complained of back and neck pain after the rides at Disney. Boy who would have thunk it? They really need to have a sign outside the ride that warns people about that. Wait nevermind.....
5. And the most annoying thing in that show... BARRY NOVACK! God do I hate trial lawyers.

These are private companies who shouldnt have to make this information public, its akin to trade secrets. All the mandatory reporting would due is give a list of people for lawyers to solicit for future lawsuits. That already happens when you are in a motor vehicle accident. Law firms come to the police dept and get a copy of each report and mail out thousands of letters soliciting lawsuits on your behalf with the hope of shaking down some money no matter who's at fault. Government intervention will make nobody any safer but will make the parks less fun and lawyers richer and the price of admission higher. Any serious accident gets published worldwide now as it is, even somebody hurting a toe on a ride at SFGA gets major coverage. Politicians want to shake down theme park owners for campaign donations and lawyers want to shake down park owners for lawsuit money and their claim that they care about our saftey is full BS!!!!!!

what i'm worried about is that they will go overboard with inspections and ruin rides that are completely safe
this already happened with Kingdom of the Dinosaurs at KBF, it used to be individual cars on an omnimover(like Haunted Mansion) but CalOSHA made them put the cars into trains because they thought idiots or little kids would climb out and get run over somehow(??) but now they have to stop the ride in the middle for people to load/unload, and every time it stops a CM has to use a flashlight and check if everyone is still there, its pretty stupid

Actually 2Hostyl, I was using the NJ law as an example. Just about every state with a major theme park requires accident reporting, and I don't think something on the federal level should be required b/c I think that the individual states can do it just fine(I'm happy with the job Virginia is doing b/c I live there) Plus, all the traveling carnivals MUST report accidents to the CSPC.

However, I do think Florida needs to lift the exemption on accident reporting, b/c its the major parks most people go too. And I do think that the Federal Goverment should require states with theme parks to require some type of accident reporting.

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Join CRAMB (Coaster Rider's Against Markey's Bill) today.

www.angelfire.com/my/cramb

RCTFreak said "And I do think that the Federal Goverment should require states with theme parks to require some type of accident reporting."

And this is different than reporting directly to the Federal Government how?!? Basically, KF just wants to make sure that EVERY park in the USA has to report the accidents, and this you advocate. So I dont see your beef with her....
me
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"Nobody writes about the planes that land." Steve Salerno Washington Times 7-10-01

If I was Cedar Point I would be pretty upset that they used Raptor footage to promote the show. To my knowledge, nobody has ever died on a rollercoaster at Cedar Point as a result of an accident. Anyone confirm that?

The lady in the report did take her kid back on BTMR recently. She doesn't hate the industry, but would like them to clean their act up. I agree that most amusement rides are safe, or I wouldn't ride them. But, I am worried that certain park chains like Disney are "hiding" injury information to not scare people away. Afterall, if attendance goes down, then the stockholders start getting worried. Somebody said there were only 60 injuries like that was something to be proud of, and why should we do anything more to prevent it? If this were your family member who was injured, etc. statistics wouldn't mean a damn thing to you. Lastly, many of the people reading this site are teenagers who are in excellent health (I hope). When you start to get older, your body starts to deterioate. But, there are still many older people who ride, simply because they've grown up on themeparks like Disney etc. While a ride like Inidiana Jones may not injure a young person, an older person can be more easily injured.
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Batwing-Bow Down

Personally, I like the idea of a non-governmental agency to handle nationwide incident reporting (in a discussion on the topic in an amusement ride safety discussion group, I actually nominated Saferparks.org to be the data collection body :) ). I'm thinking in terms of a voluntary system that ought to take reports based on an ASTM reporting standard. Which, since ASTM is law in many jurisdictions, means it would be voluntary in the same way that radio stations "voluntarily" participate in the EAS.

That said, it would be a dramatic improvement (and Kathy Fackler would be ecstatic) if the states required incident reporting, as many states do (you can read some state reports on http://www.saferparks.org ). Even better would be if the reporting requirements were standardized, but I don't see that happening. That would make national incident reporting dead easy, where right now it is darned near impossible.

Intamin Fan, you hit the nail on the head. Right now, if someone is hurt in the Magic Kingdom on a ride, the only way anybody will ever find out about it is if one of the 'Net-connected Disneyphiles saw it happen. There is no official reporting requirement there of any kind, and almost no State oversight. We only know that the rides are safe because Disney, Universal, or Busch says so.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

i think its funny that a lot of the attack was on Disney!! personally, i wouldnt waste my money on any crappy disney park....but anyway, i do think parks should report accidents....its god for the public to know if the ride is safe :)


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ROLLERCOASTERS....BETTER THAN OXYGEN BABY!!!!!!

First off, Kathy Fackler isnt liek Markey. SHe in no way hates the industry. Her main goal is for more amusement park reporting, for basically the safety of YOUNGER children, who dont know how to handle themselves on a thrill ride.

Many of you say that parks shouldnt have to report an acccident if its a rider error. What is a rider error though? Should Fackler's son be counted a s a rider error? He was only 5. how could he have known he was doing anything wrong. What if a mentally retarded person goes on a rollercoaster. Theres no warning sign saying "no retarded persons". What if he/she sees nothing wrong with sticking your finger in the track. Is that rider error? You cant say it is, but its not really park error either. What to do about that?