Imagine a traveling carnival arriving on a Wednesday night at the edge of a county fairground. By Thursday morning, kids are waiting in line with tickets, the Tilt-A-Whirl is spinning, and the Ferris wheel is whirling. The safety inspection sticker attached to the side of some of those rides may refer to a check conducted in a different state during a prior season by an inspector who hasn’t been anywhere near this specific town, something that the majority of those families are unaware of and have no practical way of knowing.
That is not a hypothetical situation. It is a well-documented aspect of the real regulation of portable carnival rides in the United States, which is molded by a patchwork of state laws that are so inconsistent that neighboring states may operate under completely different regulations, or in some cases, none at all.
Since Congress subtly eliminated the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s jurisdiction over fixed-site amusement rides in 1981 by burying the measure into an agriculture appropriations bill, not much has changed on the federal scene. The CPSC’s supervision of traveling carnival rides was still in place, but there was a big catch. Regular inspections are not carried out by the agency. It conducts post-accident investigations. This implies that the federal agency that is supposedly in charge of carnival ride safety doesn’t turn up before someone is harmed; rather, it shows up after. Much of the risk exists in the space between those two times.
The situation becomes even more fractured at the state level. Only around 20 states have what safety researchers refer to as full government oversight, which means that a state agency must conduct routine inspections and have the power to look into accidents, according to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. There are no inspection laws at all in six states, including Alabama, Mississippi, Wyoming, and Utah. Without a state official ever physically inspecting the equipment, a traveling carnival can enter those states, put up its rides, and begin operations. In those jurisdictions, the operators or their insurance companies bear the majority of the administrative load, which results in a structure where the firm under evaluation is generally in charge of producing its own compliance documentation.
The movement of the carnival creates a practical issue that the legislation hasn’t fully addressed, even in areas that do require inspections. When a ride crosses a border two months after it was inspected in one state in the spring, it is not immediately re-inspected. Certain grace period arrangements allow operators to continue using their previous credentials until an inspector physically catches up with them in their current location. These arrangements can be written into statutes or simply allowed through underfunded enforcement. It can take some time for tiny state offices to keep track of dozens of carnivals traveling through dozens of counties on erratic timetables. Occasionally, the season comes to an early end.
The difference with, instance, Illinois, one of the nation’s tougher examples, is difficult to ignore. Every amusement ride must pass inspection by the Illinois Department of Labor before it can begin operations and then every year after that. Rides are granted permit decals upon approval, operators are required to file applications, and it is illegal to operate without one. Carnival personnel are also subject to background checks by the state. That degree of organization is significant. Additionally, the states that surround Illinois do not all adhere to the same standard, and it is by no means ubiquitous.
In the past, the business has resisted more stringent government regulation. The large trade association spent around $11.3 million opposing more federal regulation, according to lobbying data going back to 1999. After a 1988 catastrophe, a Florida congressman recounted having to confront “the carnival-industrial complex” when he suggested more stringent inspection regulations. Operators typically argue that accidents are unusual in comparison to the number of rides taken, and they are right when they say that serious events are statistically rare. Over a 20-year period, the Center for Injury Research and Policy found that 1,350 children yearly needed emergency department care due to injuries sustained on mobile rides. This is a modest percentage when compared to the hundreds of millions of rides that are taken each year. That does not negate the significance of the fraction.
