A Little OT, perhaps

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On the topic of machine safety, we have had a number of amusement ride fatalities or system failures in Australia over the last few years. There are standards (AS) around these types of rides, and I am absolutely blown away by how relaxed they seem to be. I'm sitting here designing end of line packaging machinery to PLd/PLe, so someone doesn't lose a hand, meanwhile these rides that can easily kill people seem to have a dodgy single channel e-stop on the operator panel. No speed, stress or balance monitoring? It's mind-boggling! I don't understand why they do not fall under the machine safety directives when they have so much potential to kill people.

Having said that, the majority of these rides seem to be fairly old, and I'd like to think new equipment is designed with more advanced safety features.

Jeev said:

Having said that, the majority of these rides seem to be fairly old, and I'd like to think new equipment is designed with more advanced safety features.

Click to expand...

Most machine safety starts with OSHA.

OSHA only deals with employee safety on the job.

Since amusement rides are not ridden by employees OSHA has no authority over them - it usually falls to the state licensing bureaus.

As aabeck states, rides usually come under the jurisdiction of a state inspector in the US. The worst are the fair rides that get put up and taken down every week. Appears there are cursory inspections and the inspectors rely on the operators. Two fairly recent incidents around me are a boy being electrocuted because of a ground fault on an ungrounded ride and the mechanical failure where a set of carschairs came flying off the ride due to rusting. If standard design practices were followed, then you can imagine how much of the structure had to be eaten away for the failure to happen. I guess no one was looking at that or no one cared.

Another aspect I just thought of - since the rides are not designed for employee use the manufacturing of them falls into a void.

Unless a buyer demands - the controls and components don't need to have UL, CSA or other approval.

And unless the ride is built in the state it is bought in, the stare licensing would not get involved - and maybe not even if it is sold to someone within the state.

Plus if the state department also covers vending machines and gambling devices the inspector may inspect rides using vending machine standards and experience.

This is when I wish Ron was still around.... he was a carney and new a lot about rides

I found this https://www.saferparks.org/regulation/agencies

Looks like there are several states that your kind just 'on your own' not sure if ski slopes would fall under this.... kind of a slippery slope (pun intended)

https://www.saferparks.org/sites/default/files/documents/State-Comparison.pdf

I tend to think of ski lifts as a type of elevator as opposed to a ride. Does anyone know if ski resorts fall under amusement park regulations?

I just checked the Michigan state website:

Ski lifts are licensed under a ski lift/tow rope license, by the state Licensing Bureau completely separate from any elevator/escalator licensing and regulation.

And the annual registration charges for each chair, tow rope and surface lift.

http://unofficialnetworks.com/2018/...als-chairlift-rollback-caused-by-human-error/


http://www.economy.ge/index.php?pag...eb-biuro-veritasis-pirvelad-daskvnaze&lang=en