Data

Accident Reports from State/Federal Regulators

In 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2017 Saferparks submitted public records requests to U.S. state and federal safety agencies that regulate amusement rides, asking for data on ride-related accidents and injuries. A few additional requests were submitted during that time, targeted to specific agencies for specific purposes. The resulting records were harmonized and incorporated into the Saferparks Database.

  • The processes, agency responses, data formats, and harmonization strategies were all non-uniform, resulting in a hodge-podge of U.S. accident data pertaining to amusement rides and devices.
  • Note that reporting criteria, level of detail provided, equipment types included, and years covered vary widely by year, jurisdiction, industry sector, and a variety of other factors.
  • In almost all cases, the accident descriptions were provided by the owner/operator of the ride, and may lack detail. Some records include information from regulatory officials based on investigation or discussion with the owner/operator.
  • In aggregate, the regulatory records provide some insight into the ways in which patrons are hurt using amusement rides and attractions, but the data set cannot be used to estimate injury rates or compare states, parks, rides, or years.
  • The bulk of the data is clustered around the early to mid 2000s and the early to mid 2010s. The Saferparks Database splits the aggregated records into two data sets by date.

2017 Accident Data Set

Legacy Accident Data Set

Documentation

Hospital ER Sampled Data from CPSC

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) samples data on ER-treated injuries related to consumer products through the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS). NEISS data is a probabilistic sampling used to estimate national injury rates. The medical data is patient-focused and can be useful in analyzing patterns of amusement ride and device-related injury.

2018 NEISS Analysis

Other NEISS Analyses

Contact

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