Kenversations™
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What Causes Accidents and Injuries
By far, the most common factor is intentional guest misconduct, such as entering restricted areas, climbing on things, horseplay, standing up on a ride when riders are supposed to be seated, getting out of attraction vehicles, reaching out of the vehicle, or otherwise reckless behavior.

Also, assaults can and do happen in theme parks.

Guests can also cause accidents and injuries through a temporary lapse in judgment, inattentiveness, confusion, failing to heed directions, and ignoring warnings. Disneyland Park’s Indiana Jones Adventure is rough and bumpy. The warning signs clearly indicate this, yet people have ridden it and then complained about those very things. People who can’t handle being bounced around a little shouldn’t ride it.

Operator error can cause accidents. People aren’t perfect. At a major theme park, the staff is dealing with tens of thousands of people, many of which do not understand their language, interacting with complicated machinery with moving parts, and live animals. Most problems, however, are not caused by operator error.

Mechanical failure can cause accidents. Failure can occur due to shoddy parts, shoddy installation, lax maintenance, or by freak accident. Things wear out, or don’t always function as they should. Very few theme park accidents are the result of mechanical failure.

However, there are usually several layers of safety that prevent injuries even if something goes wrong.

From what I can tell, the fatal Disneyland Columbia accident involved the breakdown of several layers of safety, any one of which could have prevented the accident. Thankfully, procedures were revised to prevent that sort of accident from ever happening again.

What Can Be Done to Keep Your Theme Park Visits Safe
Let me make it clear that I do not consider myself a safety expert, nor am I writing on behalf of Disney or the theme park industry in general. Just like every other edition of my column, I’m offering these observations based on experience. I’m a theme park fan, a serial Walt Disney World tourist, and Disneyland has been a frequent, regular part of my life for over fifteen years through the annual passport program and "serving time" as a Disneyland cast member. I’ve followed theme park design and the theme park industry closely for most of that time. Consider these tips from one theme park fan to another.

Park Management
The only way the management of a theme park can guarantee that nobody will ever get hurt at a park is to close it.

Seriously, are there things that theme parks can do to increase safety? Yes.

First, park security needs to be empowered and encouraged to throw out violent people. Guests who assault other guests or cast members should never be rewarded for their behavior. They shouldn’t be treated as wronged customers who are expressing their frustration when they’ve crossed that line. They should be thrown out at the very least, and perhaps banned and prosecuted as well.

Park security also needs to be empowered and encouraged to throw out otherwise destructive or negligent guests. When the choice comes down to ticking off a person with problematic behavior, or inconveniencing or compromising the safety of a majority of the park guests, the choice should be clear.

Theme parks also need to be sure they are attracting, hiring, properly training, and retaining competent maintenance personnel and operators. As painful as it might seem in the short term, this will probably require paying higher wages and treating employees well.

Mostly, though, the power rests with the park guest.