Parents wary of amusement park rides

Due to a number of accidents involving the deaths of children at Jeddah’s amusement parks over the last five years, many visitors say they are still wary of allowing their children to play on the machines, despite assurances of their safety by the Civil Defense Department.
In 2007, 24 women and children at an amusement park in Jeddah were left screaming after a ride they were on got stuck in midair and the civil defense officers were called to rescue them. A year later, a three-year-old boy at another Jeddah park was electrocuted when his seat belt unfastened and he fell from a train ride and was struck by a passing train. In 2010, a seven-year-old boy was killed when he fell off a water train ride and into a steel fence at a theme park in Jeddah.
In an effort to reassure parents and visitors, Abdullah Al-Amri, spokesman of Civil Defense in Makkah province, told Arab News that there is nothing to worry about.
“We just finished last month inspecting the amusement parks in Jeddah ahead of the summer festival and have made sure that all park rides are safe,” Al-Amri said.
He confirmed a new regulation under which any amusement park owner found not upholding regulatory safety guidelines would be fined SR 30,000 for the first violation and face closure of the park if a violation is repeated.
Arab News spoke to some parents and visitors to find out how comfortable they are with allowing their children on the amusement park rides.
“My children always beg me to let them play in these parks, but I always refuse and explain to them that they can be dangerous,” said Maha Al-Otaibi, a Saudi mother of five. "From a child’s perspective, the rides look fun, painted in bright eye-catching colors, but I know most of the machines used are old and have merely been repainted to appear new, posing a dangerous threat to children," she added.
Another parent wondered why the authorities do not force amusement parks to replace outdated mechanical rides. “There is a Ferris wheel at a well-known amusement park in Jeddah that has been in use since the early 1980s,” said a resident, who wished to remain anonymous. “There should be a law mandating that amusement parks use rides for a maximum of 15 years and then have them replaced,” he said.
Arab News contacted the operator of the park to which the particular Ferris wheel belongs as well as other park operators, all of whom declined to comment.
Meanwhile, some parents admitted that not just the faulty rides, but also irresponsible parents are to blame for the accidents. “I have seen many lazy parents who put their children on the rides and leave them alone, unsupervised, as they go and sit in the restaurants or shop at the markets located within the parks,” said Seham Al-Ghamdi a Saudi mother of two.
She said it is also the responsibility of the parents and not just the ride operators to ensure the children are safe on the rides. “The ride operators are usually overwhelmed by the number of children shouting and wanting to the rides to start and sometimes do not adequately make sure that they are buckled into the seats. If parents supervise their children, I believe the number of accidents would go down,” Al-Ghamdi said.