Theme Park Safety
...states have been allowed to set their own safety standards.” (Barrat, 1998) This is somewhat nerve-racking when it comes to inspection because he also points out that “Six states have no licensing or inspection standards.” (Barrat, 1998) This is a pretty scary fact when you think about it because that means that there could be theme parks out there that do not conduct safety inspections and whose State never sends inspectors in to check out if the are following set standards. Inspections are an essential process of safety assurance. An inspection should be conducted at least before it the rides first use and then after that it depends on the States regulations but the important thing to note about inspections is that they should be detailed in writing. This way if people from the State come to inspect or if there happens to be some kind of accident then you have factual information that to the best of your abilities you made the ride safe. Inspections vary from park to park and ride to ride some theme parks do them everyday before opening, this is the best way to assure safety but obviously not all parks do this everyday. Another problem involving regulations and inspections is that in theme parks all rides are not exactly the same from park to park. Especially with the development of new designs it is hard to attach a specific set of regulations to rides because sometimes a ride is designed for a specific park and its specific area and although the State can provide some limited requirements that is exactly what they are inadequate. The best possible solution would bring us back to the procedures manual and this would allow the creator of a ride to come up with safety standards for it and detail out the inspection of the ride. So with or without State regulations theme parks would know exactly what to do with each specific ride to make it as safe as possible. Another contribution to safety are the employees at the theme parks. Each and every day these employees are expected to follow the proper guidelines to ensure guest safety. Through my experience I have worked mainly in the food-service sector of the amusement park industry but I have also done time on rides and I know that a lot of times employees at my park do not get trained properly on safety issues, do not pay attention when being trained on safety issues, or knowingly do not follow guidelines given to them in training because of laziness. These risk factors made apparent to me by my work in the industry are also known as “…at-risk behaviors…” (Lyon, 2001) “According to Consumer Product Safety Commission, some 10,400 ride-related injuries were treated in hospital emergency rooms in 1999.” (Lyon, 2001) A lot of these injuries could have resulted from these at-risk behaviors taken on by employees. It is apparent that employees play a key role in theme park safety and sometimes you have employees as young as fourteen years of age working at theme parks which probably means they have a higher rate of these at-risk behaviors because they do not realize the potential of danger involved in their duties. These at-risk behaviors are specifically defined as “…attention level, communication, and procedural practices.” (Lyon, 2001) These categories show what possibilities exist for employees to decrease safety. For instance lets say that you have a younger guy working a water slide and someone comes down the slide and gets startled by the drop into the pool and starts swallowing water and panicking, the young guy could be looking at a girl passing buy and not be watching the guest straight from their exit from the slide although it is very likely he will still get the guest out of the water they could have caused themselves many injuries while he was not paying attention from minor scrapes to strained muscled or even a broken bone. This would be categorized as an attention-level at-risk behavior. An example of a procedural practice at-risk behavior would be if an employee was trained on how tall a guest has to be to ride a certain ride. It is very possible that an injury would occur due to this employee not following exact procedures and letting somebody too small for the ride on. Although the employee thinks that they are making a little kid’s day they often do not understand the danger they can actually be putting the child in. Now let us imagine we are getting on a ride and the operator is going over the precautions to us it sounds like they told us everything but if their manager was there he would have stated a whole other paragraph that the employee left out before letting us on the ride. This type of mistake would be able to be labeled under the communication at-risk behaviors because the operator communicated with the guests improperly which. Also the operator is involved in a procedural practice at-risk behavior because while s/he did not communicate properly s/he also did not follow exact procedures learned in training by omitting a paragraph. This is a bad combination. So as you can see very little things can lead to injuries because of an employees neglect to do their jobs properly. Because of factors like low pay and young ages of employees it is easy to see why these at-risk behaviors take place many times the employees do not find things to be important and neglect the procedure or their attention because of they find it insignificant There are things that can be done to reduce at-risk behaviors all though you probably could never totally eliminate them. An example of eliminating some attention at-risk behaviors would be to make the operator more comfortable maybe give them a seat instead of making them stand or put them under an umbrella so they are not roasting in the sun. Another example would be to give them relatively frequent breaks or have them switch rides with other operators throughout the day to cut down on boredom and low energy. An example of reducing communication at-risk behaviors would be to use the same hand signals throughout the park so that guests would catch on and remember from ride to ride whistles are also a good way for operators to let a guest know they are doing something wrong without having to yell or scream. An example of reducing procedural practice at-risk behaviors would be to clearly mark the height requirement of a ride so that guests can figure out whether or not they can ride before they even get to the operator this also makes it easier for the operators themselves to say no. Little things can often reduce at-risk behaviors as you can see and know you know what at-risk behaviors to look for from employees when at an amusement park. It is not a bad idea to read signs as well. Many parks have safety regulations posted on signs in waiting lines read them while you are there do not depend on the ride operators to tell you everything because they could be partaking in any one of these at-risk behaviors. As I mentioned earlier it is not possible to ever get rid of all at-risk behaviors so there is always some risk out there put forth by ride operators that an injury may still occur. One issue that is raised when it comes to safety in parks is security. “Rising fears of terrorism have changed the way many parks and attractions approach security issues.” (O’Brien, 2001) This quote was made in correlation with the September 11th attacks. “In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, amusement [and theme] parks around the country became acutely aware that, as places where large crowds gather, they also might be targets.” (Miller, 2002) This shows that security has become a major issue within safety in theme parks. Before the attacks many theme parks were not all that worried about security as an issue. The fact that the attacks occurred has caused a trend in upping of security around the United States in many parks. Examples of this can be found in major parks where the park executives have hired more uniformed officials and started doing searches and using metal detectors at entrance gates. This trend is currently filtering into smaller parks slowly but surely. It may take years for this trend to take effect in every park but rest assured major theme parks have already started dealing with and are still taking care of the issue. This is one aspect of safety that most major theme parks are not messing around with and most of them have assured security safety as best as they possibly can at this point. Let us assume that an injury does take place in a park. I know from my experience that if an injury occurred that we as managers deemed could possibly turn into a lawsuit we would call a code 22 over the radio. Automatically the owner and his assistant and vice-president would come running to the location of the accident. This way from the very beginning they could deal with the problem and hopefully prevent a lawsuit. This shows me that lawsuits are a big concern for parks because even if they win them they still spend a lot of money doing that. The International Amusement and Leisure Defense Association was created just for this reason. This association was created in the late 20th century to deal with lawsuits that occur in amusement and theme parks. In an article members of this association were interviewed to see what they think owners and executives should do in the case of an accident. They say that it is ok for an owner to go to the location and apologize for the accident like the practice my employer put into use. “There is nothing wrong with communicating with an injured family or person that you are sorry the accident has occurred, and then communicating with them afterward to see how they are doing.” (IALDA, 2001) Another issue brought up in this interview is rider responsibility regulations which ...