Las Vegas-area thrill seekers can expect high standard of safety on roller coasters

The stories are riveting, and sometimes tragic: This summer a succession of accidents, injuries and deaths on amusement rides have been reported coast to coast.

Are roller coaster and other amusement rides safe? That's a relative question, say the engineers and inspectors who are charged with making them as risk-free as possible.

There is risk in all activities, and amusement rides are safer than driving, they say. If the rides are safe anywhere, they are doubly so in Clark County, engineers and the director of the county's Building Department say.

"Clark County is probably the most regulated county in the country for amusement rides," said Steve Pruitt, principal engineer for Ride Safety Test Engineers, a Los Angeles-based company.

That doesn't mean there have never been accidents. A 3-year-old girl was killed after being wedged under a thrill ride at Pistol Pete's Pizza Restaurant, now Peter Piper Pizza on Nellis Boulevard, in February 1997. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Division, the girl was in the octopus-style rotating ride with a 6-year-old boy, and the single restraint bar could only be adjusted for the larger rider.

The girl stood up while the ride was in motion, despite warnings from the operator, and slid out of the seat. She fell under the car and was dragged for three-quarters of a revolution before the ride could be stopped, the division report stated.

The death is the only amusement-ride related fatality in Clark County that the federal agency has recorded since 1977, the earliest date for which figures are available.

Rick Howard, Peter Piper operations director, said that since the accident the chain has removed all amusement rides from their restaurants.

For the county the tragedy sparked a change in the code governing the way restraints are set for rides. County commissioners now give inspectors the right to require a restraint system that adjusts to the girth of each rider, said Robert Weber, director of the county's Building Department.

The Building Department is responsible for inspections of about 100 amusement-ride operations in the unincorporated parts of the county. The department also inspects the popular roller-coaster and theme rides at the casinos in the county.

The state is responsible for regulating nonfixed amusement rides, such as the rides that arrive and leave with temporary carnivals and fairs. Cities regulate the rides within their limits, so the Stratosphere Tower rides, for example, are inspected by engineers working with the city of Las Vegas.

Weber said the county has some of the toughest rules in the country to help avoid amusement ride accidents and injuries.

Engineers, both those who work for the county on a contract basis and those who do not work for the county, agree with Weber's assessment.

The county has "one of the strongest, best managed and best operated ride inspection systems in the country," said David Collins, an inspections engineer with Team IX, based in Los Angeles. Collins inspects rides in Clark County on a contract with the Building Department.

"In the last couple of years one of the things I've noticed is that the inspections people have gotten a lot more strict with anything to do with motion rides or anything that carries people," said David Chancey, an inspector that examines welds in many of the valley's most popular rides. "In general the inspections and the criteria of inspections are very strict.

"They're strict, but they need to be strict," Chancey said.

One of the strengths of the county's regulatory system for rides is its flexibility, Collins said. The county not only will change the code after an accident, it also reviews regulations passed throughout the country to see if they should be applied locally, he said.

As a result Clark County's rules are "models for state legislation," Collins said.

Most rides are very safe, he said.

"No man would knowingly build an unsafe ride, because they would be out of business in a heartbeat," the engineer said. "There is no incentive but to do a good job."

However, the Consumer Products Safety Division's records indicate that there is a risk. Nationally, there have been an average of about 4 deaths per year for riders of amusement rides since 1987. Injuries are much more common -- the federal agency estimates there were 9,200 injuries that required emergency room treatment in 1998 alone. Only about 74 of those injuries required hospitalization, the division reported.

The federal agency does not track injuries by locality, but Weber expressed confidence in the rides. "We think they're safe."

The county's code covers design evaluation, operations standards and training, actual operations and maintenance schedules. Higher-risk or critical components get special attention throughout the process, he said. The operations and maintenance logs are audited at least once a year, and the third-party engineers inspect the rides at least once a year as well, Weber said.

The rides also are subject to random spot checks throughout the year, he said.

"What we hope to do is find problems when they're small and take corrective action," Weber said.

Subjects of the county's inspections include the roller-coaster and amusement rides offered on the Strip. Since the resorts began building the amusement rides in earnest in the late 1980s, the rides have become one of the biggest draws for families visiting the valley.

At times inspectors have closed rides for short periods. Building inspectors closed New York-New York's Manhattan Express roller coaster shortly after it opened in January 1997 because of problems with tension rods -- rods that work as braces to minimize vibration and protect the tracks.

The $18 million thrill ride has been operating as designed for about a year.

"Safety is our only priority," said Dan Bradley, New York-New York's advertising director. Bradley said none of the 5 million riders since the ride was inaugurated have been hurt.

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