Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/717873
ByKathleenFoody,Erik Schelzig and Claire Galofaro The Associated Press NASHVILLE,TENN. Insome parts of the U.S., the thrill rides that hurl kids upside down, whirl them around or send them shooting down slides are checked out by state inspectors be- fore customers climb on. But in other places, they are not required to get the once-over. The grisly death of a 10-year-old boy on a Kan- sas water slide and a Ferris wheel accident that injured three little girls at a county fair in Tennessee this sum- mer have focused attention on what safety experts say is an alarming truth about amusement rides: How closely they are regulated varies greatly from state to state. "Fifty states in the United States of America and no two inspect rides the same way. That's wrong," said Ken Martin, an amusement park safety consultant who has been one of the loudest critics of the nation's patch- work of state laws. "We're not close to being in the same book, state to state. We're not even on the same page of the hymnal. We cer- tainly aren't singing in key." Twenty-nine deaths on amusement rides or water slides have been reported to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission since 2010, spokeswoman Patty Davis said. The amusement park in- dustry has successfully lob- bied against federal over- sight for decades, and the CPSC doesn't regulate rides at permanent parks like the one in Kansas. It over- sees only traveling carnival rides, like the Ferris wheel that broke in Tennessee. Even then, federal investi- gators don't conduct rou- tine inspections; they re- spond only after accidents. So whether a ride has to be inspected before thrill- seekers hop on depends on what state it's in. Six states — Mississippi, Alabama, Nevada, South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah — have no laws at all that require inspections, according to Saferparks, a nonprofit group that pushes to improve safety. In most cases, the ride operators' in- surance companies require only annual inspections, Martin said, and the insur- ers set the criteria. Kansas and Tennessee are among the many states that have light regulation. Kansas mandates annual inspections but allows a park to perform its own, us- ing private, licensed inspec- tors. The state does random audits of the paperwork. Tennessee follows a simi- lar self-inspection protocol. The state relies on private inspectors hired by opera- tors or accepts inspections conducted on traveling rides in other states. On the other end, New Jersey is considered one of the toughest for its cadre of state-trained inspectors and engineers who rou- tinely inspect rides. Penn- sylvania, likewise, has a rig- orous system that includes more than 1,000 state- trained inspectors. Martin and others say the federal government should operate something equiv- alent to the Occupational Safety and Health Admin- istration, which protects workers on the job. He says the government has a duty to set uniform standards for rides, such as manda- tory inspections and train- ing protocols for inspectors. But David Mandt, a spokesman for the Inter- national Association of Amusement Parks and At- tractions, a trade group, said that injuries are rare and that a federal program of inspectors would cost taxpayers millions. DEATH, INJURIES Thrill-ride accidents spark new demands for regulation ROGELIOV.SOLIS—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE Amusement device inspector Avery Wheelock inspects the safety pins on a children's merry-go-round at the Mississippi State Fair in Jackson, Miss. By Paul J. Weber The Associated Press AUSTIN, TEXAS A federal judge in Texas has blocked the Obama administration's order that requires pub- lic schools to let transgen- der students use the bath- rooms and locker rooms consistent with their cho- sen gender identity. Inatemporaryinjunction signed Sunday, U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor ruled that the federal education law known as Title IX "is not ambiguous" about sex being defined as "the bio- logical and anatomical dif- ferences between male and female students as deter- mined at their birth." The judge said the or- der would apply nation- wide. The ruling, he said, was not about the policy is- sues of transgender rights but about his conclusion that federal officials simply did not follow rules that re- quired an opportunity for comment before such di- rectives are issued. "This case presents the difficult issue of balancing the protection of students' rights and that of personal privacy ... while ensuring that no student is unneces- sarily marginalized while attending school," he wrote. Therulingwasthesecond recent setback for transgen- der advocates. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Virginia school board can block for now a transgender male from using the boys' rest- room while justices decide whether to fully intervene. Texas and 12 other states challenged the White House directive as unconstitu- tional. The judge also sided with Republican state lead- ers who argued that schools should have been allowed to weigh in before the White House mandate was an- nounced in May. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, had argued that halting the Obama order before school began was necessary be- cause districts risked los- ing federal education dol- lars if they did not comply. Federal officials did not ex- plicitly make that threat upon issuing the directive, although they also never ruled out the possibility. 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