Philadelphia Injury Attorney Blog

In 2008, over 300,000,000 people visited United States Amusement Parks and Water Slide Parks and it is estimated that they enjoyed over 1.8 billion rides. An informal fixed site amusement ride injury survey estimated that there were 1,309 ride-related injuries in 2007 with only 35 of these injuries reported as serious. While the amusement park and attraction industry is in the business of creating fun, unfortunately the accuracy of reporting ride injury statistics is debatable. The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that over 5,000 serious accidents occur at fixed amusement park facilities. It is important to note that the ability to gather accurate information regarding amusement park injuries is seriously hampered by a loophole in the Consumer Product Safety Act of 1981 known as the “roller coaster loophole”. This loophole prohibits the CPSC from regulating the safety of rides that are fixed to a specific site. Although multiple attempts have been made to introduce legislation regarding amusement park safety on amusement park rides, they have failed to become law. The majority of regulation and inspection of amusement rides is left up to state or local municipalities and therefore, the reality of this situation is that the oversight varies from good to none. Due to the seriousness of the lack of regulation and lack of legislation with “teeth”, many theme parks unfortunately present hidden dangers to unsuspecting visitors.

At the experienced Philadelphia personal injury amusement park accident law firm of Reiff and Bily, we understand that families and children enjoy visiting amusement parks and hope that each one of the owners and operators of these amusement parks takes all steps necessary to protect their guests from any undue risk or negligence to make sure that their visit is safe. When Injuries happen at amusement parks many conflicts and complexities of law arise requiring experience and technical expertise. There is most likely a combination of common negligence, product liability, and premise liability law to be explored and prosecuted against the wrongdoer by an experienced amusement park accident lawyer.