Thrill Ride or Horror Show?

June 22, 2007 — -- Fans of amusement park rides would rather flirt with danger than experience the real thing.

But every summer, people are injured or killed while spinning, soaring or free-falling on different theme park rides.

Already this summer there have been at least a few dozen theme park accidents, raising questions about the safety of the rides. Thursday night's incident at the Six Flags Amusement Park in Louisville, Ky., in which a 13-year-old girl's feet were severed at the ankle when a cable snapped on the Superman Tower of Power ride, was just the latest.

In May, riders were left hanging upside down for more than an hour on a roller coaster at a theme park in Arkansas, and six people were hospitalized after a similar incident at a Six Flags in Vallejo, Calif., left riders suspended 70 feet in the air for four hours.

As advances in technology and engineering allow theme park rides to get faster and more adventurous, are they getting more dangerous? And are the the number of accidents increasing?

To the frustration of safety advocates, those questions are difficult to answer, because there are no clear statistics on accidents at amusement parks.

According to the most recent numbers compiled by the Consumer Products Safety Commission, in 2004 there were an estimated 5,900 injuries for mobile rides, such as those found at traveling carnivals, and fixed-site rides, which exist at larger amusement parks like Six Flags and Disney World.

Although mobile rides are regulated by the CPSC, fixed-ride parks are not regulated by the federal government, and local regulations vary from state to state. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania heavily regulate theme park rides, but eight states, including Arizona and Wyoming, do not regulate or inspect them at all.