Florida’s amusement ride safety proposal doesn’t go far enough, expert says

ORLANDO, Fla. — The draft framework released by politicians yesterday seeking to prevent future amusement park ride deaths doesn’t go far enough to tighten loopholes in laws that caused a 14-year-old to fall off a thrill ride in March, a safety expert said.

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Ever since a video of Tyre Sampson slipping out from under his safety harness went viral, lawmakers, family members and the general public have been calling for changes. An investigation placed the blame at the hands of the ride’s operators, saying unauthorized adjustments were made to the seat Sampson was in to allow the 383-pound teen to ride. The manufacturer placed the weight limit at 287 pounds.

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The draft framework released Wednesday made an effort to crack on down where current laws failed. The proposal, backed by Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried (D), called on lawmakers to change seven key aspects of Florida’s statute:

• Increase signage posting requirements, from signage required by the manufacturer to all rider requirements and exclusions, like height and weight restrictions.
• Create minimum standards for ride operator training and retraining.
• Increase reporting requirements for maintenance and changes to a ride’s safety systems and restraints.
• Require permanent rides to obtain a 3rd-party review and certification.
• Ban safety sensors from being able to be adjusted beyond the manufacturer’s original settings.
• Require amusement parks to notify the government whenever emergency services become involved, instead of when a patron requires hospitalization.
• Add inspectors to the government payroll that will make unannounced visits to parks to inspect for safety and temporarily shut down unsafe rides.

While some local lawmakers cheered and called for a special session to address the framework, amusement park ride safety expert Brian Avery, a 30-year veteran of the industry, said the draft needs more work.

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“That framework is a step in the right direction,” Avery said. “After some review, there are details that need to be included and gaps that should be closed.”

Avery suggested the following changes and inclusions to each of the seven bullets laid out by Fried’s proposal:

Signage

Avery considered the new signage requirement to be a half-step, using vague language instead of specifically spelling out what should be displayed at the entrance to every ride.

That means writing height, weight and disability restrictions (including risk of adverse health events like heart attacks and back injuries) into the law instead of suggesting they’d be included through an umbrella term. He also took issue with the fact that the law wouldn’t require an operator to have a way to ensure the manufacturer’s restrictions were being followed.

“You need to make sure that you have devices to measure for height and/or weight through scales and whatnot to ensure that your riding public is meeting the requirements that are posted,” he said.

Training

Avery didn’t have any issues with the training section, only hoping that international standards would be presented and taught.

Maintenance

Instead of making the reporting requirements stricter, Avery wanted any adjustments to a ride’s safety and restraint systems banned without a manufacturer’s consent. Once an adjustment is made, he said, the ride should be re-inspected before passengers are allowed onto it.

Third-party testing

Avery spelled out issues with the way the law currently works, rather than aiming at the proposed testing requirements. He said the bar to obtain an annual permit to operate a ride (name, address, manufacturer’s name, serial number and proof of insurance) is “virtually nothing.”

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He also said the Florida law leaves wiggle room that should not exist: rides must only be within “general conformance” of safety requirements.

“A ride either meets the safety standards or it does not, there should never be some vague middle ground,” he said.

He also said the Department of Agriculture should require ride manufacturers or owners to submit hazard analysis reports to the state, instead of an affidavit of general conformance. The former includes supporting documentation that the latter does not.

“One would think that a hazard analysis for a 400-foot tower with tilting seats would have been a necessary step in determining hazard patterns and mitigation,” he said.

Restraints and safety systems

This section was one of Avery’s shortest responses, but most concerning. Sampson was able to slip out of his chair not just because the restraint had been adjusted, but also because there was no seat belt to act as a fail-safe.

While he was pleased with what was written, he noted that this section did not require seat belts or other secondary safety systems on thrill rides to ensure riders stay in their seats if the harness fails.

“It is an egregious misstep not to have that language and to go that far with respect to these type of thrill rides,” he said.

Accident reporting

Avery repeated assessments made by himself and other industry insiders that allowing theme parks to self-report injuries was a bad idea, regardless of whether the injury required hospitalization or not. He linked his response to an Orlando Sentinel interview with the attorney of a Brazilian boy whose foot and leg were crushed by a Universal Studios ride in 2019. The report by the theme park called the boy’s injury “foot pain,” the Sentinel wrote.

Amusement ride monitoring

Avery said he was pleased by the proposed inspections into ride operations. However, he said the devil was in the details of this proposal.

“It does not describe an initial pre-certification inspection process, and fails to establish both routine and scheduled observations in addition to the unannounced visits, which should set a minimum for annual observations,” he said.

His point: unannounced visits still don’t guarantee a ride will be inspected.

In response to a follow-up question, he said the state of Pennsylvania was the best at enforcing safety requirements at theme and amusement parks. Part of the laws Eyewitness News reviewed called for monthly inspections of rides, far more often than the annual minimum Avery suggested.

Pennsylvania’s laws also apply to all parks, not just smaller operators. Florida law exempts this framework and many other laws from applying to companies like Disney and Universal.

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“A ride is a ride at the end of the day - and just because you are a large park operator with more rides, it does not make you accident-proof,” Avery said. “Please have a legislator and/or regulator explain how a fixed site ride at a smaller park is more dangerous than one at a larger park.”

A message to Fried’s office to follow up on some of Avery’s concerns was not immediately returned.

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