Inside the Fascinating World of Amusement Park Rides, Regulations, and Height Requirements
A recent encounter with the same ride having different height requirements at two different parks had me asking a basic question: why?
Amusement park rides are like airplanes. They’re largely safe. They have to be. On an airplane, you’re traveling thousands of miles in the air for hours. It sounds unreal. But people are irrational about air travel. If you read about a plane crashing, the statistics don’t matter. All you can do is imagine “oh, that could be me,” the next time you fly.
“Years ago, the Consumer Product Safety Council said more people get hurt with billiard cues than they do on amusement rides,” said B. Derek Shaw, a lifelong thrill seeker, former VP of the American Coaster Enthusiasts, and part of the editorial department at the amusement trade publication Amusement Today. “However, when it happens on amusement rides, even if a roller coaster stops on the chain as it's designed to do if something's not quite right, that gets sensational news.”
But accidents happen, as with airplanes. Sometimes it’s deadly, like in 2016, when a 10-year-old child in Kansas was decapitated on a “world’s largest” water slide. That ride was closed, and a follow-up investigation found serious negligence on the park’s part.
In the United States, amusement park rides are not federally regulated—it’s left to each state. 44 states do have a system for regulating park rides, according to the The Global Association for the Amusement Park Industry (IAPPA), but even a young child might be able to point out something that’s missing: what about the other six states?
Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, and Utah do not have oversight for park rides, and thus, according to the IAPPA, “these states contain few, if any amusement parks.” The group argues federal regulation would be less effective, and so the status quo has remained. In more extreme cases, like Disneyworld, there is no state or federal oversight, with everything left to Disney itself. (This was a point of contention during the feud between Disney and Florida governor Ron DeSantis.)
“We believe strong local and state regulation is the most effective government oversight for the industry,” said David Mandt, spokesman for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, in a statement to Insurance Journal about the idea of broader regulation. “The states need the flexibility to create and enforce laws relevant to the attractions in their state, and that’s what they have done.”
How many times have we heard a version of that line before? Nonetheless.
I became interested in the regulation of amusement park rides after an incident with my oldest daughter. She’s always been on the shorter side, and we’ve had countless conversations about how she might not be tall enough for this or that. It’s been a sore subject, and I’m happy that she’s now tall enough to ride most anything she wants.
What she wanted to ride over the 4th of July holiday was something called The Zipper. The Zipper looks wild. You cram into a little cage and not only does the ride whip you around, but people on the ride can swing their cage back and forth and spin around.
“I just think it's a fabulous ride,” said Shaw. “It's my second favorite portable ride on the midway. It's a thrilling ride. I still ride it whenever I can.”
At one amusement park, the height requirement for The Zipper was 50 inches. My daughter is, thankfully, now 51 inches tall. Unfortunately, the line for the ride was long and slow moving, so we punted on it and walked somewhere else with a friend of hers. Days later, we were at another amusement park and saw The Zipper again. This time, though, The Zipper’s height requirement was…52 inches. So, what the hell?
“Minimum height requirement for the Zipper is 48 inches,” said Joseph Filoromo, supervisor at the Amusement Ride Safety Division within the Bureau of Ride and measurement Standards at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. “The owner may exceed that height requirement but not allow shorter. Manufacturers normally dictate the height requirement.”
A couple of things might have happened. It’s possible the first park was sticking by the original height requirements, while the second park decided to increase them. It’s also possible they were operating different versions of The Zipper. The most recent build of The Zipper, made by an amusement ride manufacturer called Chance Rides, lists the height requirements as 52 inches in The Zipper’s official documentation.
Chance Rides did not respond to a request for comment about height requirements.
“It constantly amazes me how many parents try to intimidate ride operators into putting their children on rides that they are too small to safely ride.”
The Zipper itself has a fraught history, with several people dying in the 1970s when the cage opened in the middle of the ride. I cannot fathom how traumatic that would be to see in-person. The United States Product Safety Commission (CPSP) ended up issuing a report discouraging the public from riding The Zipper until a fix was found.
“When the doors are closed the padded lap bar comes down across the laps of the riders,” wrote the CPSC. “When the doors are opened, the lap bar swings away from the rider eliminating any protective barrier and making it possible for the rider to fall out of the car. The Commission staff is evaluating the possibility of an engineering ‘fix’ to ensure that the car doors will not open while the ride is in motion.”
The Zipper was eventually fixed, and now it’s a staple across the country. But incidents like this are every parent’s worst nightmare, and they’re hard to shake.
Most parents, I think, has done the “okay, make sure to stand on your tippy toes” or said “stand tall!!” when their kids are getting ready to get measured for a ride. And many parents, myself included, have watched as their kid sneaks onto a ride because an operator was busy, overwhelmed, or didn’t catch they were an inch short. I would not do this with an especially dangerous ride, but it’s happened. I do not regret, for example, sneaking my youngest onto a slow-moving train ride when she was two!
“It constantly amazes me how many parents try to intimidate ride operators into putting their children on rides that they are too small to safely ride,” said Dennis Sutherland, a safety inspector for amusement rides. “Ride size requirements are set for the safety of the riders.”
OK, point taken.
Sutherland started as an amusement park mechanic in 1980, while acting as an area supervisor during the park’s operating hours. That lasted nearly a decade, and during his tenure, a co-worker became a safety inspector for an insurance company that works with the parks. Sutherland tagged along for the inspections and found a calling.
For a long time, there was no formal path to become trained in this trade, but in recent decades, states have passed legislation requiring rides to have state operating permits. Folks doing due diligence for the insurance companies, the de facto experts in the field, then organized and started crafting formal training seminars in the 90s.
“I worked doing inspections part time with several inspection companies through the 90s and then started my own company and started doing inspections full-time around the year 2000,” said Sutherland. “I was fortunate that safety was a high priority at the amusement park I worked in. I was able to take that experience and use it while I was starting out.”
Everyone I spoke to underscores that broadly, rides are now safer than ever, which goes hand-in-hand with ride operators scrutinizing a child’s height more than ever.
These days, what goes into determining the height requirements is itself a science.
“There are multiple factors involved in setting ride heights,” said Sutherland. “Rider heights are set by the ride manufacturer and depend on many things. Ride types fall into several types, kiddie rides, family rides, thrill rides and extreme rides. All of those will have different height requirements and restraint systems by the ASTM [American Society for Testing Materials] standards.”
You can actually buy and then read the consensus standards for amusement design:
“With twists and turns at speeds that can carry riders up to 150 miles per hour (241.4 kilometers per hour) and heights that have been known to reach an astounding 456 feet (139 meters), amusement rides are marvels of modern engineering, granting enjoyment for the users of the rides and devices without compromising their safety. This level of safety, of course, is assured through the proper installation and management of the rides and their components, for which ASTM F2291 has long been a point of reference.”
In general, Sutherland noted, an amusement engineer or designer comes up with the hook for how their ride will work, then references the ASTM standards to make it safe. For “kiddie rides,” it’s more straightforward, because a “kiddie ride” will not exceed 1G of acceleration of side force, meaning a restraint belt will be sufficient.
“Generally a 36-inch minimum is the accepted minimum for a child to ride alone on kiddie rides,” said Sutherland. “Anthropometric height data say 36 inches is a child 2.5 to three years old, so they have control over their body and can understand basic instructions.”
Anthropometry is, essentially, the study of the human body to develop standards.
“The larger and faster rides become even more difficult to set rider heights and their restraint systems,” continued Sutherland. “The ASTM design standards set the limits on acceleration, side forces, speed and duration of direction changes so seats need to be designed to accommodate those forces and fit as large a group as possible. If you designed a seat for a high speed ride that twists and spins and turns you upside down that a 36-inch child would fit in you probably couldn't fit someone over 60 inches into it. So those seats are designed to fit a range of much larger riders and the designers will determine both the minimum and maximum size of the riders.”
Ride manufacturers want as many people to have the opportunity to get on, because it makes everyone more money, but this is in tension with safety standards. If one person is injured, let alone killed, on an amusement park ride, the consequences ripple out to everyone, not just that individual park or a single ride. It has devastating effects for the whole industry. There’s good reason to be conservative on safety.
Yet, parents will do their best to sneak around restraints. When I was researching height requirements in anticipation of our trip to Disneyland, I came across a message board thread about whether people should buy their children taller shoes.
“Anyone done this? Am I crazy for considering it?” reads the post. “Anyone know which shoes have the tallest soles? My boys are just shy of getting to do some great rides! My 4 yr old in 43 inches! And my almost 3 yr old is 39 1/2! Oldest boy is well over 50 inches…”
Most people discouraged the person from going forward with the idea, pointing out that Disneyland and Disneyworld are careful about these requirements. Plus, trying to trick the ride operators opens the child up to public humiliation and rejection, because it’s entirely possible they’re asked to remove their shoes and then get told no.
Nonetheless, some people recommended crocs for extra height.
“The kids were generally great and would listen, I loved working with them,” said Christa Paolucci, a video game community manager who spent four years as a ride operator at Riverfront Park in Spokane, Washington. “I have core memories from the parents. The biggest one is from when I was operating the Scrambler, it's a weird one with both a minimum and a maximum height requirement. This mother wanted to bring her two kids on, but her son was way too small. It turns out another operator had let them on multiple times earlier in the day.”
Truth be told, we took advantage of a similar situation when my youngest daughter was two years old—that train ride I mentioned earlier. She was an inch short for a ride that moves at the speed of molasses around a tiny circle, so my wife picked her up, carried her through, and plopped her on the train. Once she’d ridden once, she easily rode it a million times, and the operator never blinked at her coming through again.
“One of the bigger issues is consistency of enforcement with the operators themselves since it tends to be younger operators,” said Paolucci. “Sometimes they won't want to be assertive with parents and will cave, but you could tell that this kid would literally slip right under the handlebars of the ride. The mother screamed at me, I cried, [and] she came back at the end of my shift, but was so embarrassed she sent one of her kids down the hill to apologize for her.”
The mother ended up sending the son with a soda she’d purchased for Paolucci.
“After graduating high school I worked at the same amusement park here in Seattle my dad had worked at 20 years earlier, doing the same kind of supervisor/maintenance role,” said Drew Sutherland, the son of the safety inspector quoted earlier in this piece.
Drew pointed out how the rules help give the operators clear rules to fall back on. There is no ambiguity. If you do not meet the height requirement, you do not ride.
“When the ‘Why can't my kid ride?’ question came up,” said Drew, “ it was easy to point to the big clearly printed rules and the infamous height requirement, and if a parent pushed further, I would compare it to things like car seats, only safe within certain height/weight ranges. If that didn't work, I'd point out the other rides that they could go on safely. It helped a lot that the rides were physically separated. ‘Kiddie land' was at one end of the park by the ferris wheel, merry go round, bumper cars, and the arcade. That kind of separation helps a lot, but isn't always an option at a traveling show or one with multiple ride owners packed together.”
That second point—the design of the park—is huge. It even applies at Disneyland, where the park design lumps together rides that would be appealing (and rideable) in the same vicinity. Watching other people get on rides absolutely breeds jealousy.
All of this, big and small, is important, because the rides always evolving, too.
“I think the manufacturers are trying to push the envelope a bit,” said Shaw. “But again, doing it in a safe constraint. They're just trying to make it taller, faster, more aggressive, more exciting.”
And with a little luck, my kids will keep getting a little bit taller along the way, too.
Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.
Also:
My biggest disappointment at the amusement parks we went to over the 4th holiday was a lack of “giant drop” rides. I absolutely love those scary bastards.
The tough part about enrcouraging your kids to try rides they’re nervous about is when it backfires, and then makes them not want to try any rides for a while.
I am patiently waiting for my oldest to become a rollercoaster kid, because I absolutely adore thrill rides, and I’d love nothing more than excuses to ride more.
This an amazing piece! We just had a theme park visit and this is so cool to read afterwards.