Posted
[Ed. note: This is fully intended to be a critique of what passes as "news." -J]
The New York Daily News has posted a hit piece on the amusement industry and its safety record, wrapped in hyperbole and a genuine link-baiting headline. It's a poor attempt at journalism by every account. Start with the (long) headline:
The safety of summer thrills: Amusement park risks nearly impossible to know because of terrifying patchwork of state laws or almost no regulation
This makes several illogical assumptions. First, it seems to suggest that states are responsible for each other, which is not the case. It also suggests that deeper regulation, likely federal, would cure a more widespread problem. The fact is that injuries on fixed-site rides have remained a rounding error relative to the increasing number of rides given. IAAPA has often quoted the odds of serious injury on an amusement ride at 1 in 24 million. Compare that to the odds of being struck by lightning, at 1 in 700,000.
Senator Ed Markey's silly crusade, "for the children," has been going on for nearly two decades now, and one congressional committee after another has reached the same conclusion: Federal oversight is an unnecessary expense that does not make rides safer.
Let's not forget that injury is not in the best interest of the companies that operate rides. Hurting and killing people, obvious as it may seem, is not in the best interest of operators. The bigger risk is, and always will be, the drive to the amusement park.
Read more (if you can stand it) from The New York Daily News.