I. The Statutory Framework

The regulation of amusement rides in the United States is a matter of state law. No federal statute provides comprehensive oversight of amusement ride safety. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 directed the CPSC to establish an injury tracking system for amusement rides, but the agency’s jurisdiction over fixed-site amusement parks has been limited since 1981, when Congress exempted permanently sited rides from CPSC authority in what the legislative record calls the “roller coaster loophole.” The result is that amusement ride safety regulation falls almost entirely to the states.¹

The states have responded with substantial uniformity. The majority of states have enacted amusement ride safety statutes that define the term “amusement ride” and establish inspection, registration, and insurance requirements for any device that meets the definition. The statutory language varies in minor details but converges on a single operative formula. Kansas Statutes Annotated § 44-1601(a)(1) provides the representative definition:

“Amusement ride” means any mechanical or electrical device that carries or conveys passengers along, around or over a fixed or restricted route or course or within a defined area for the purpose of giving its passengers amusement, pleasure, thrills or excitement.²

Texas Occupations Code § 2151.002(1) provides a definition that is functionally identical: “a mechanical device that carries passengers along, around, or over a fixed or restricted course or within a defined area for the purpose of giving the passengers amusement, pleasure, or excitement.”³

Illinois’s Amusement Ride and Attraction Safety Act, codified at 430 ILCS 85/2-2, defines “amusement ride” as “any mechanized device or combination of devices… which carries passengers along, around, or over a fixed or restricted course for the primary purpose of giving its passengers amusement, pleasure, thrills, or excitement.”⁴

West Virginia Code § 21-10-2(a) defines the term as “a mechanical device which carries or conveys passengers along, around or over a fixed or restricted route or course for the purpose of giving its passengers amusement, pleasure, thrills or excitement.”⁵

New Jersey’s Carnival-Amusement Ride Safety Act, N.J.S.A. 5:3-32(a), adds the category of “any passenger or gravity propelled ride when located in an amusement area or park in which there are other rides.”⁶ A playground slide is a gravity-propelled ride. A swing is a passenger-propelled ride. The statute draws no functional distinction between these devices and those it regulates. It draws only a geographic one.

The statutory pattern is clear. An “amusement ride” is any device that (1) carries or conveys passengers (2) along a fixed or restricted course or within a defined area (3) for the purpose of giving those passengers amusement, pleasure, thrills, or excitement. Any device that satisfies all three elements is, under the plain text of these statutes, an amusement ride. Any owner operating such a device without registration, inspection, and insurance is in violation of state law.

II. The Exemption as Confession

Legislatures are not careless with exemptions. An exemption is enacted when the drafters recognize that the general rule would otherwise capture something they do not intend to regulate. It is, in legal construction, an admission that the exempted activity falls within the scope of the statute. If it did not, no exemption would be necessary.

Kansas Statutes Annotated § 44-1601(a)(2)(C) provides the following exemption from the amusement ride definition:

“nonmechanized playground equipment, including, but not limited to, swings, seesaws, stationary spring-mounted animal features, rider-propelled merry-go-rounds, climbers, slides and physical fitness devices.”²

Texas Occupations Code § 2151.002(1)(B) provides a substantively identical exemption:

“nonmechanized playground equipment, including a swing, seesaw, stationary spring-mounted animal feature, rider-propelled merry-go-round, climber, playground slide, trampoline, and physical fitness device.”³

The word-for-word parallelism between the Kansas and Texas provisions is not coincidental. Both statutes were drafted from model legislation developed for state adoption. The near-identical language in other states’ amusement ride safety acts confirms a common origin. The model drafters understood that the general definition of “amusement ride”—any device that carries passengers for the purpose of amusement—would, if applied without qualification, classify playground equipment as amusement rides subject to registration, annual inspection, and commercial liability insurance.

They were correct. A playground swing is a device. It carries passengers. It conveys them along a fixed arc, which is a restricted course. Its purpose is to give those passengers amusement, pleasure, thrills, and excitement. Every element of the statutory definition is satisfied. The only thing preventing a playground swing from being a regulated amusement ride under Kansas law is the twelve words that begin with “nonmechanized playground equipment.”

The specificity of the enumerated items is remarkable. The statute does not exempt “playground equipment” in the abstract. It lists the equipment by name: swings, seesaws, stationary spring-mounted animal features, rider-propelled merry-go-rounds, climbers, slides. Each of these is a device that carries passengers for the purpose of amusement. Each satisfies the three-element test. Each would be an amusement ride but for the exemption. The legislature itemized them because the legislature knew what they were.

The term “rider-propelled merry-go-round” is particularly instructive. The statute regulates merry-go-rounds. The statute exempts rider-propelled merry-go-rounds. The only distinction is the power source. The regulated merry-go-round is driven by an electric motor. The exempted merry-go-round is driven by a child. Both carry passengers around a fixed circular course for the purpose of giving those passengers amusement, pleasure, thrills, or excitement. The legislature did not conclude that a rider-propelled merry-go-round is not a merry-go-round. It concluded that it is one, and exempted it anyway.

III. The Functional Identity

The statutory definition identifies three functional elements: conveyance, course restriction, and amusement purpose. Each of the exempted devices satisfies all three.

Swing. A playground swing is a pendulum. The occupant is suspended from a fixed pivot point and conveyed through an arc whose endpoints are determined by the length of the chain or rope and the energy input of the rider. The course is fixed: the pendulum arc is a geometrically determined path that cannot be varied by the rider except in amplitude. A belt-seat swing at a suburban playground, with a typical effective pendulum length of eight feet, achieves a terminal velocity at the bottom of its arc of approximately 8 miles per hour at moderate amplitude and more than 13 miles per hour at amplitudes children routinely achieve.⁷ This exceeds the operating velocity of the majority of coin-operated kiddie rides, which typically operate at 2 to 5 miles per hour. Coin-operated kiddie rides are regulated as amusement rides under several state statutes.⁸

Slide. A playground slide is a gravity-propelled conveyance. The rider climbs to an elevated platform, seats himself on a smooth inclined surface, and is conveyed downward along a fixed chute by the force of gravity acting on his mass. The course is restricted: the slide chute defines the trajectory. The device achieves its purpose—amusement—by converting gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy, which is exactly the mechanism employed by log flumes, water slides, and alpine slides, all of which are regulated as amusement rides under every state statute examined in this investigation.⁹

Seesaw. A seesaw is a Class 1 lever with the fulcrum at the center. Two riders are seated at opposite ends and conveyed vertically through an alternating arc. The course is restricted to the vertical plane defined by the lever arm. The amusement is derived from the periodic exchange of gravitational potential energy between the two riders. The device is functionally identical to a teeter-totter ride, which several states regulate as an amusement device when operated commercially.

Merry-go-round. A rider-propelled merry-go-round is a disc or platform mounted on a central bearing that allows continuous rotation. Riders push against the ground to generate angular momentum and are then conveyed around a circular course. This is the same course geometry as a carousel. A carousel is the prototypical amusement ride. Kansas’s own statute lists “carousels” as an example of a regulated amusement ride at § 44-1601(a)(1)(A).² The rider-propelled merry-go-round is exempted at § 44-1601(a)(2)(C). The device traverses the same path, produces the same centripetal acceleration, and generates the same amusement. It is a carousel powered by children instead of electricity. The statute acknowledges this by exempting it rather than arguing it falls outside the definition.

Spring-mounted animal feature. A stationary spring-mounted animal—the device commonly known as a spring rider or playground rocker—is mounted on a heavy-gauge coil spring that permits the rider to oscillate in multiple planes. The occupant is conveyed through a restricted course defined by the spring’s restoring force. The device is designed to simulate riding an animal, which is the same simulation provided by the mechanical bull, a device that at least three states regulate as an amusement ride.¹⁰

IV. The Standards Body’s Acknowledgment

ASTM International maintains the safety standards that govern both regulated amusement rides and exempted playground equipment. Both categories of standards fall under the jurisdiction of ASTM Committee F24 on Amusement Rides and Attractions. The committee’s name is not ambiguous. Its scope is “amusement rides and attractions.” The committee maintains ASTM F2291, the Standard Practice for Design of Amusement Rides and Devices, and ASTM F1487, the Standard Consumer Safety Performance Specification for Playground Equipment for Public Use.¹¹¹²

Section 1.2.1 of ASTM F2291 states that the amusement ride design standard “shall not apply to… Playground equipment designed to comply with Performance Specification F2373 or F1487.”¹¹

This provision is a carve-out, not a distinction. The standards body did not place playground equipment under a different committee. It did not determine that playground equipment is categorically different from amusement rides. It assigned both to the same committee, acknowledged that both fall within the committee’s scope of “amusement rides and attractions,” and then wrote a specific exclusion into the amusement ride standard to prevent it from being applied to playground equipment that is already governed by a parallel specification.

The organizational architecture is revealing. ASTM F1487, the playground equipment standard, addresses fall heights, use zones, entrapment hazards, structural integrity, and impact attenuation of surfacing material. ASTM F2291, the amusement ride standard, addresses structural design, mechanical systems, hydraulic systems, pneumatic systems, electrical systems, restraint systems, and operational procedures. Both standards address the same fundamental engineering concern: the safe conveyance of human passengers on a device designed for amusement. One is voluntary. The other is incorporated by reference into state amusement ride safety acts across the country. The equipment that satisfies one standard injures more than 200,000 people per year. The equipment that satisfies the other injures a fraction of that number.

V. The Injury Disparity

The Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, or NEISS, is the federal government’s primary mechanism for tracking consumer product injuries treated in hospital emergency departments. The system collects data from a probability sample of approximately 100 hospitals nationwide and extrapolates to national estimates.

From 2001 through 2008, NEISS estimated an annual average of 218,851 emergency department–treated injuries associated with playground equipment among children aged 14 and under.¹³ The National Safety Council and the CPSC itself have consistently reported figures exceeding 200,000 injuries per year in subsequent years.¹⁴ The American Academy of Pediatrics has reported approximately 15 playground-related fatalities per year.¹⁵

By comparison, a 2013 study published in Clinical Pediatrics by Thompson, Chounthirath, Xiang, and Smith at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital examined amusement ride–related injuries among children under 18 from 1990 to 2010. The study found an average of 4,423 emergency department–treated injuries per year across all amusement ride types, including fixed-site parks, mobile carnival rides, and coin-operated mall rides.¹⁶

The ratio is 49 to 1. For every child injured on a regulated amusement ride, approximately 49 children are injured on exempted playground equipment. The equipment that states inspect, register, and insure produces a fraction of the injuries produced by the equipment they explicitly chose not to inspect, register, or insure.

The CPSC itself has stated that it is “aware of” approximately 22 amusement ride fatalities in the period from 2010 to 2018, averaging approximately 2 to 3 deaths per year.¹⁷ Playground equipment kills approximately 15 children per year. The fatality ratio is approximately 6 to 1. The equipment with no inspection certificate kills six times as many children as the equipment that requires one.

The injury mechanism is identical. Falls account for 44 percent of playground injuries and 32 percent of amusement ride injuries.¹³¹⁶ Equipment-related factors—including breakage, tip-over, poor design, and assembly errors—account for 23 percent of playground injuries. The hazards are the same. The physics are the same. The bodies are the same. The only difference is that one category of device receives a state-issued inspection certificate and the other does not.

VI. The Inspection Gap

State amusement ride safety acts impose a structured regulatory regime on devices that meet the statutory definition. The requirements vary by state but generally include: annual registration with a designated state agency, typically the Department of Labor or Department of Agriculture; annual inspection by a qualified inspector; issuance of a certificate of inspection that must be displayed at the ride location; maintenance of commercial general liability insurance; and reporting of injuries to the state within a specified time period.

Kansas § 44-1609 requires that every amusement ride in the state be inspected before initial operation and at least annually thereafter by a qualified inspector. The inspector must verify compliance with applicable ASTM standards and applicable manufacturer specifications. Upon satisfactory inspection, the state issues a certificate of inspection. It is unlawful to operate an amusement ride without a current certificate.²

Playground equipment receives none of this oversight. The CPSC publishes a Public Playground Safety Handbook, designated Publication No. 325, which provides voluntary guidelines for playground design, installation, maintenance, and surfacing.¹⁸ The handbook is voluntary. It is not a mandatory safety standard. It is not incorporated by reference into any federal regulation. While some states and municipalities have adopted portions of ASTM F1487 or the CPSC handbook into local building codes or park maintenance policies, no state applies its amusement ride inspection regime to playground equipment.

The National Recreation and Park Association’s 2022 Agency Performance Review reports that the typical park and recreation agency in the United States maintains one playground for every 3,750 residents served.¹⁹ Applied to the national population, this yields approximately 89,000 playgrounds operated by park and recreation agencies alone, exclusive of playgrounds at schools, childcare centers, churches, apartment complexes, and private residences. Not one of these 89,000 facilities has received a state-issued amusement ride inspection certificate. Not one has been required to register with a state agency under an amusement ride safety act. Not one has been required to maintain the commercial general liability insurance that every carousel operator in the state must carry.

The state of Kansas conducts thousands of amusement ride inspections annually through its Department of Labor, covering rides at fairs, carnivals, amusement parks, and waterparks.²⁰ It conducts zero playground inspections under its amusement ride safety act. This is not an oversight. This is the exemption operating as designed.

VII. The Qualifier That Does No Work

The exemption in both Kansas and Texas applies to “nonmechanized” playground equipment. The modifier is intended to limit the scope of the exemption: if playground equipment is mechanized, it is not exempt. Only nonmechanized equipment escapes the definition.

The modifier does less work than it appears to do. A spring-mounted animal feature operates through a coil spring, which is a mechanical component. A merry-go-round operates through a central bearing and spindle, which are mechanical components. The playground industry manufactures and installs talk tubes, spinning wheels, gear panels, and other interactive devices that employ mechanical linkages. None of these has been classified as “mechanized” playground equipment subject to amusement ride regulation in any enforcement action identified in this investigation.

The practical effect is that the “nonmechanized” qualifier has been interpreted to mean “not powered by an engine or motor” rather than “containing no mechanical components,” an interpretation that conveniently ensures that the exemption swallows the definition. A merry-go-round that rotates on mechanical bearings powered by a child’s legs is “nonmechanized.” A merry-go-round that rotates on identical mechanical bearings powered by a quarter-horsepower electric motor is an amusement ride subject to annual state inspection. The engineering is the same. The mechanism is the same. The child in the seat does not know the difference. The state has decided that she does not need to.

VIII. The Velocity Problem

The physics of a playground swing can be described by the simple pendulum equation. For a swing with an effective pendulum length of 2.4 meters (approximately 8 feet, a standard dimension for a belt-seat swing set conforming to ASTM F1487 specifications), the maximum velocity at the bottom of the arc is given by v = √(2gL(1 − cos θ)). At a moderate amplitude of 45 degrees from vertical, the maximum velocity is approximately 3.7 meters per second, or 8.3 miles per hour. At an amplitude of 60 degrees—a level routinely achieved by school-age children—the velocity reaches 4.9 meters per second, or 10.9 miles per hour.⁷

This velocity is achieved by the rider in free swing, without any external force application beyond the rider’s own pumping action. Riders routinely achieve arc amplitudes greater than 60 degrees, and children frequently swing to amplitudes approaching 75 to 80 degrees from vertical, at which point the maximum velocity at the bottom of the arc exceeds 13 miles per hour. The CPSC’s own Public Playground Safety Handbook acknowledges this by requiring that the use zone for a swing extend a minimum of twice the pivot height in front of and behind the swing seat, a clearance zone designed to accommodate the trajectory of a child who releases from the swing at or near maximum amplitude.¹⁸

Coin-operated kiddie rides—the spring-and-motor devices found outside grocery stores and in shopping mall corridors, which carry a single child through a restricted rocking or rotating course for approximately ninety seconds—operate at velocities of 2 to 5 miles per hour. These devices are regulated as amusement rides in multiple states.⁸ They require inspection. They require insurance. They carry weight limits, cycle timers, and emergency stop mechanisms.

A playground swing operating at 13 miles per hour carries its passenger at roughly three to six times the velocity of a regulated coin-operated kiddie ride. The swing has no restraint system. It has no emergency stop mechanism. It has no cycle timer. It has no weight limit posted by a state inspector. The child on the swing is traveling faster, higher, and with fewer protective systems than the child on the coin-operated horse outside the Safeway. The child on the horse is on a state-inspected amusement ride. The child on the swing is on exempted nonmechanized playground equipment.

IX. Conclusion

The evidence does not require creative interpretation. The statutory definition of “amusement ride,” as enacted in Kansas, Texas, Illinois, West Virginia, New Jersey, and the majority of states with amusement ride safety legislation, describes any device that carries passengers along a restricted course for the purpose of amusement. Playground swings, slides, seesaws, merry-go-rounds, and spring riders satisfy every element of this definition. The legislatures that wrote these statutes recognized this and enacted specific exemptions listing these devices by name.

The exempted devices cause more than 200,000 emergency department–treated injuries per year. The regulated devices cause fewer than 4,500 injuries per year among children. The exempted devices kill approximately 15 children per year. The regulated devices kill approximately 2 to 3. ASTM International’s Committee on Amusement Rides and Attractions writes the safety standards for both categories. It carved playground equipment out of its amusement ride design practice not because the equipment is different but because it is already governed by a parallel specification that the same committee maintains.

The United States has approximately 89,000 playgrounds operated by park and recreation agencies. It has tens of thousands more at schools, childcare facilities, churches, military bases, and residential developments. Every one of them operates equipment that satisfies the statutory definition of an amusement ride. Every one of them operates that equipment without a state-issued inspection certificate, without state-mandated liability insurance, without a qualified inspector’s signature, and without a registration number in any state database.

A carousel at the county fair that carries 24 children at 3 miles per hour in a circle must be inspected annually by a qualified inspector, registered with the state, insured against liability, and fitted with a conspicuous certificate of inspection. A merry-go-round at the municipal park that carries 8 children at comparable velocity in the same circle requires none of these things, because the legislature wrote the word “rider-propelled” in front of it.

A rider-propelled merry-go-round is a merry-go-round. The legislature agrees. That is why it had to exempt it.

Ergo.