UPRIGHT AND LOCKED
Not So Amusing
Don't expect state or federal regulators to investigate the still unexplained death of a 4-year-old who lost and never regained consciousness recently during a ride on Disney World's "Mission: Space" at Epcot.
Since 1981, amusement parks at fixed sites have had a special exemption from federal regulation that doesn't apply to any other consumer product. And state officials? Many states don't regulate rides or require public reporting of accidents. Florida does, but it exempts big parks like Disney.
Don't worry, says Beth Robertson of the International Association of Amusement Parks. Your chances of being injured seriously enough to be hospitalized overnight is one in 10 million ; of being killed, one in 790 million.
"What the industry does is divide the number of injuries and deaths into their guesstimate of the number of people who visit the parks times the number of rides they take," says David Moulton, spokesman for Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.). If you measure by miles traveled, park rides are safer than cars but more dangerous than buses, trains and planes.
News reports compiled at http://www.rideaccidents.com document five deaths on park rides in each of the past two years, and three so far this year. By various estimates, there were 5,500 injuries from park rides treated in emergency rooms in 2002. About 2,000 of those injuries were at so-called "fixed sites," while the remainder were on "mobile rides," such as those at carnivals and fairs.
A Markey bill that would end the special exemption died in a House committee last month. "All we are asking is that when something bad happens, a federal investigator be allowed into the park, make sure problems are corrected, and insure the correction is made to that same ride in every state," said Moulton.
Kathy Fackler, whose son lost part of his foot in 1998 on a roller coaster in Disneyland, says the amusement park industry has a good safety record . "So does the airline industry," she says. "But if there's a crash, do you want the airline investigating themselves?" Fackler, founder of La Jolla, Calif.-based Safer Parks , has safety tips and other consumer info at http://www.saferparks.org .
Markey plans to introduce other legislation this year that would require ride operators to be at least 18. Currently, massive machines in some parks are operated by kids still too young to drive a car.
fee watch
In Case of Bankruptcy . . .
If you end up holding a ticket on a U.S. airline that goes belly up, other U.S. carriers are required to try to get you on board -- but now they may charge up to $50 each way. On overseas flights, they may also pass along any fees charged by a foreign government.
