How the Oldest Amusement Safety Standards in America Were Built From British Research That Nobody Credits

It’s easy to forget that the devices that turn riders upside down at Six Flags and Cedar Point have their roots in a Norfolk workshop where a man by the name of Frederick Savage was assembling steam-powered carousels in the 1870s. Savage exported his fairground equipment all over the world, and his patented “galloping horses” mechanism continues to spin beneath kids at county fairs. However, the document trail hardly ever mentioned him when American engineers came together in 1978 to form what would become ASTM Committee F24. The borrowing took place in silence. For the most part, it remained silent.

The official narrative of the committee begins on a different shore. At Coney Island in 1884, New Yorkers paid five cents to ride the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway, which was traveling at a speed of almost ten kilometers per hour. Every industry retrospective reiterates this founding myth. Less attention is paid to the fact that British fairground builders, who had already spent twenty years figuring out how to keep working-class crowds alive on whirling machinery, contributed a significant portion of the early engineering vocabulary, safety instincts, and even basic mechanical assumptions.

The older ASTM literature gives the impression that American standards-setters in the late 1970s were reacting to an unidentified crisis. The decade had turned into what historians now refer to as the roller coaster arms race, with parks vying for looping inversions, faster speeds, and taller drops. Overall, injuries weren’t catastrophic, but they were increasing. Engineers required a point of reference. Frequently without expressing it, they arrived at European standards that were based on a century of continental and British manipulation.

The early standards were “pretty basic”—a few pages, primarily performance-focused—according to Harold Hudson, who began volunteering with F24 in 1979. With documents like F2291 for ride design and F2137 for dynamic force measurement, the true evolution occurred later. Former Walt Disney Parks chief safety officer and longtime F24 member Greg Hale has been forthright about the cross-pollination. He claims that the excellent work of the EN13814 committee served as the foundation for F2291. ASTM’s F2137 was then adopted by EN13814. The standards are now in harmony. However, the credit is more disorganized.

By reading press coverage, you can identify the gap. According to American articles, F24 emerged fully formed in hotel conference rooms in New Orleans. Seldom are the names of European engineers who have spent years measuring g-forces on continental rides mentioned. The way industries write their own origin stories, smoothing the edges and emphasizing the local heroes, suggests that the omission may be habitual rather than intentional.

You can still see British fingerprints if you stroll through any park in America today. The geometry of the lap bars, the frequency of inspections, and the method by which ride vehicles are tested for flammability under the more recent F3214 standard are all derived from a longer European discussion concerning public safety in mass entertainment. Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens has been in operation since 1843. North of the city, Bakken first opened its doors in 1583. They had time to learn things that were later codified in American parks.

It’s difficult to ignore how Britain and Europe continue to be marginalized in discussions about theme park safety. On paper, the standards are harmonized. The histories are not. Whoever writes the next anniversary feature and whether they bother to look past Coney Island will likely determine whether or not that is ever fixed.