Washington, DC -- Today another child tragically died after riding a roller coaster at Disney’s MGM Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida, and U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) renewed his call on the Congress to immediately pass federal legislation to end a massive loophole in safety regulation of theme park rides.  Rep. Markey’s bill, the National Amusement Park Ride Safety Act, was introduced in the spring of 2005, and would extend federal oversight over amusement park rides, which now enjoy an exemption from current consumer product safety laws and regulations. 

“This is another tragic wake up call for the amusement park industry,” said Markey.  “When families visit our amusement parks, they expect fundamental safety measures to already be in place.  Instead, the industry keeps stonewalling these common-sense safety protections, leaving the prosecution of responsible parties as the only deterrent left, and by then, it is often too late.”

The nation’s leading safety agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), oversees the safety of carnival (“mobile”) rides, but a loophole prohibits the CPSC from overseeing the safety of park (“permanent”) rides.  Markey’s legislation would allow the CPSC to perform its intended mission – preventing accidents before they occur by ensuring that safety corrections found necessary on one ride in one state are implemented on all similar rides in all states.

“Most people don’t realize that the number of fatalities per passenger mile on roller coasters is higher than on passenger trains, passenger buses, and passenger planes.  We cannot wait until the next accident happens, we need to address these loopholes in amusement ride safety now and stop playing roller-coaster-roulette with the lives of Americas families,” said Rep. Markey.

The National Amusement Park Ride Safety Act has the support of the Consumer Federation of America, the National SAFE KIDS Campaign, Saferparks.org, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and Kids in Danger.  It will close the special-interest loophole that prevents effective federal safety oversight of amusement park rides.  It would restore to the CPSC the standard safety jurisdiction over “fixed-site” amusement park rides that it used to have before the Roller Coaster Loophole was adopted.  Markey’s bill also authorizes appropriations of $500 thousand annually to the CPSC.  It would restore CPSC’s authority to:

1. Investigate accidents;
2. Develop and enforce action plans to correct defects; and
3. Act as a national clearinghouse for accident and defect data.

For further information, visit http://markey.house.gov.