Why the Leisure Industry’s Biggest Safety Gaps Exist in the States With the Most Theme Parks

The peculiar thing about theme parks in the United States is that the states with the greatest number of them are frequently the ones with the least amount of oversight. With billions of dollars in revenue and tens of millions of tourists each year, Florida, California, Ohio, and Texas are the center of the leisure sector. However, the regulations governing what happens next can vary significantly depending on the state you’re in when a ride breaks down. A fire marshal could look into it. or a representative of agriculture. There are times when no one has any actual engineering experience at all.

It wasn’t always so disjointed. When Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1972, both mobile carnivals and permanent amusement parks were subject to federal regulation. Less than ten years passed during that time. After two Texas accidents and two conflicting court decisions, Congress changed the law in 1981 to exclude permanent parks from CPSC’s jurisdiction. Federal regulations still apply to mobile carnivals at county fairs. The thousand-foot coasters in the billion-dollar parks are not. Nearly no one outside the industry seems to be aware of this inversion.

How at ease the major operators are with this arrangement is an interesting question. The industry continuously and covertly advocates against federal regulation. Their statistical argument appears to be convincing. In the United States, the odds of suffering a serious injury on a fixed-site ride are approximately one in fifteen and a half million. The trade associations like to point out that driving to the park is more likely to result in injuries than riding inside. That’s most likely accurate. However, it’s also the type of statistic that silently accomplishes a lot of work by condensing a complex image into a single reassuring figure.

Because the states with the highest park concentrations also have the weakest regulatory framework. Disney and Universal are based in Florida, which essentially allows the biggest operators to self-inspect; the state only intervenes for smaller venues. The Department of Insurance in Texas is given the task. Ohio, which has experienced a number of high-profile incidents, uses an advisory board to conduct inspections. In isolation, none of these systems are flawed. However, there is no shared baseline, no national standard, and no central organization that rigorously gathers incident data. The IAAPA report is optional. The parks themselves provide the data that it publishes.

Walking through any large park in July gives you the impression that the danger isn’t really mechanical. The majority of incidents, according to industry researchers, are caused by falls, heat, pre-existing medical conditions, and rider behavior rather than failed steel. That’s probably accurate. Dehydration on a 95-degree day, an inebriated rider unclipping a harness, or a visitor disregarding height or health warnings are just a few examples of how people are often the true threat, according to Pinkerton consultants who study park security. However, that framing has grown a bit too handy. It diverts attention from topics that the industry decides not to standardize.

Orlando is one of the places where the contradiction is most evident. A few miles away from traveling carnivals that operate on a fraction of the budget, some of the most intricately designed, instrumented, and meticulously maintained rides on the planet are under federal supervision. It’s difficult to ignore the ridiculousness. It remains to be seen if the public will eventually take notice as well and if another high-profile tragedy compels Congress to reconsider the issue. For the time being, the lines continue to form, the rides continue to operate, and the regulatory map remains as haphazard as it has been for forty years.