Toledo paper says Ohio and Michigan short on ride inspectors

Typical scare article from The Blah, nevermind that it is in the best interest of the amusement operators that people do not get injured or killed.

Who says print can't scare like TV news.

Didn't come across as a hatchet job to me. It basically said places like CP and PKI do a good job of maintaining their rides but some of the traveling outfits don't. To which all I can say is, "Well, duh."

Something not mentioned is that a shortage of inspectors can be a problem for the parks. A park can have a new ride all ready to go and have to wait for the inspector in order to start it up while customers complain because it is just sitting there.

I've yet to see any state adequtely fund a ride inspection program. There are eight inspectors in California. Four for Northern, four for Southern. Now, a permanent ride owner can hire a state approved QSI (Qualified safety Inspector) to do the annual inspection, but the state people will make an additonal scheduled on site inspection plus an unannounced one. It doesn't always work out that way. I know that during the Big Thunder investigation that two of the four state inspectors were tied up for six weeks straight. That left the other two to cover SoCal (which has two thirds of the rides in the state). Ideally, the state should have at least ten to twelve inspectors per region in addition to the QSI's.

this was also in the Dayton Daily News