Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/17/girl-flies-off-carnival-ride-at-indiana-county-fair-after-others-had-reportedly-complained-about-same-ride.html
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I will get on a permanently installed ride at an amusement park. You couldn’t pay me enough to get on these temporary installation rides at carnivals and fairs. The things should be banned.
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Even for permanent ones the regulations for inspection & maintenance differ hugely depending on what state you’re in. Some large states with major amusement parks have teams of specialists working for the government to define regulations and keep the parks honest with periodic audits and inspections. And in a lot of smaller states the responsibility gets passed off to a few folks in some random state agency. (Apparently in this case it fell to the “Indiana Department of Homeland Security,” but in a lot of places it’s the Department of Agriculture since I guess they’re often involved with county fairs already.)
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There’s a typo here. The article is filed under “Accidents” but it should be spelled, “Negligence.” Easy mistake to make.
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I was in Dallas and had just visited the Texas State Fair when there was a fatal accident. I’m with you. Amusement parks only.
CPSC Announces Corrective Action Plan For Popular "Enterprise" Amusement Park Ride | CPSC.gov.
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Yeah, it sounds like they’d gotten multiple complaints, and were happy to keep running the deathtrap, as long as people were still willing to pay for it. I hope the girl is okay, and the ride operators face a hefty penalty.
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As a fourth-generation carny that spent nearly 20 summers of my life moving around those temporary installation rides through most of southern Ontario and our exhibitions, I can state unequivocally that the issues are caused by terrible safety oversight and penalties in the US, not by any sort of engineering issue with said temporary rides. They’re built like tanks and it takes multi-year systemic neglect and mistreatment of those rides to end up in the state of being dangerous, something that would be obvious in five seconds to any ride inspector worth their salt.
The ride in question was a “Rok & Roll”, made by Chance industries from 1970-1972 or so, so it’s more than 50 years old now. In Ontario you would not only be required to have axle X-rays done to verify this thing was fit for service at that age, but also every restraint system would be checked yearly and a logbook available to review that daily safety checks had been performed. Literally zero of those things was done in this case, because most states don’t require anything of the sort.
Here in Orlando, a child died last year in one of those permanent rides you’re talking about because the operator modified the restraint system to allow larger patrons to board it and the Florida regulations don’t require examining them. in Orlando of all places!
Don’t ride rides in states crippled by shitty governments.
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Yeah, there’s also often differences between types of amusement parks. Water parks are often particularly problematic in many states. They just don’t have the same safety requirements, for some reason. I’m still a little haunted by what happened at Schlitterbahn in Kansas City a few years ago. They had built this crazy water slide, and it got a ton of press, and I wanted to go try it. And then a kid got decapitated by the poorly designed thing. And apparently his size had a lot to do with it, and I’m on the smaller side, and I just keep thinking that if I had gone and tried that slide like I’d been intending to, I might not have survived the experience. The lack of regulation of that industry in many states is frightening. And now I live in New Jersey, home of the former and notorious Action Park. So yeah, I probably shouldn’t have singled out the carnivals and fairs.
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(A.K.A. “Traction Park,” “Class-Action Park,” “Accident Park,” etc.)
My favorite horrible anecdote from that park was when they were testing the looping water slide and the first volunteer got a tooth knocked out, and then the second volunteer got a big cut from the first guy’s tooth, which turned out to be lodged into the side of the slide.
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Well, that deserves an article all its own.
We are currently visiting family in L’Occitane area of France and went to the Bastille Day celebrations in our little village. Not sure if it’s regional, France or all of the EU, but I can unequivocally state that the safeguards here are waaaaay more lax than even the smallest county fair in the US. Holy crap! Kids in the spinning-tilty merry-go-round thing all sliding off the bench into the center in a great jumble (and no one seems to care), bumper cars that hit so hard they actually lift the other car off the ground (!!!) and I didn’t see anyone ride the “whip you around really fast in a vertical circle ride”, but it was going fast in demo mode. Oh, and to make things even more dangerous, they blast smoke machines that smell like fruity vape juice during the rides, sometimes completely obscuring everything.
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The mayor looks a mess, but he did the right thing:
…and even the disappointed kids agreed with his decision.
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Those things may be designed by engineers, but they are (at leas potentially) assembled and operated by stoned 19 year old high school dropouts. Maryland actually requires inspections of those rides, and they tell stories of rides that failed inspections and were not allowed to operate and then killed somebody in another state.
The documentary “Class Action Park,” is worth a watch.
I’m glad the Department of Homeland Security is failing to protect us from these carny terrorists. 
Thank goodness I live in this state where nothing is funded and every interaction with anyone falls under the term caveat emptor.
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