Sampson bills strengthen ride safety but keep records secret
Legislation filed after teenage tourist Tyre Sampson’s death on the Orlando Free Fall drop tower would improve ride safety, his mother’s attorney and a ride safety expert say, but it could also keep future accident investigations secret until they’re done.
Sen. Geraldine Thompson, D-Orlando, filed what’s been dubbed the Tyre Sampson Act and a companion records exemption bill on Feb. 16. The first follows frameworks Thompson and the agriculture department drafted last year to close gaps in laws identified during the state’s accident investigation of Tyre’s death last March.
Amusement safety specialist Brian Avery and representatives for Tyre’s family largely praised the first bill. They highlighted its proposals to prevent Florida’s smaller attractions operators from making unauthorized adjustments to a ride’s restraint systems, as the state determined Orlando Slingshot did with safety sensors on two of the Free Fall’s seats, and its requirement for operators to submit more detailed safety and operational documentation to the state.
But they were alarmed by the second one, which would exempt all of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services records in an active ride investigation from public view.
The records would remain confidential until an “investigation is completed or ceases to be active.” The measure contends “the premature release of such records could frustrate or thwart” or “jeopardize” an active investigation and keep the agency from completing its inquiry “effectively and efficiently.”
Lawyer Michael Haggard said Tyre’s mother, Nekia Dodd, is concerned the bill could prevent records from being “made public early and often, to not only satisfy that family’s need for knowledge but also the general public in a tourism state.”
The bill, if it became law, could have kept the state from releasing documents like the April engineering report that revealed key information about the safety sensor tampering, he said.
The state released the report following significant public outcry on the accident. The document gave Tyre’s family answers much faster than at the investigation’s end in November, Haggard said.
Haggard said Dodd told him she worried she ”would have been sitting there all that time and not knowing they had manipulated the seats on their own.”
“That [report] was very revealing. It didn’t compromise the investigation; that’s a fact,” Haggard said.
Similar laws shield criminal investigations from the public record. A ride accident investigation is different because it
involves mechanical issues, he said.
Avery said he has seen state accident investigations take a year in some cases.
Keeping records concealed for that long denies the public access to safety information and the ability to hold ride operators, investigators and legislators accountable, he said. It could also delay civil lawsuits like that of Tyre’s family.
“It’s almost like giving them an ability to put a veil up temporarily until they can come up with a conclusion, and I hope it’s factual, where nothing has been altered or considered to be irrelevant, but I think that’s for the public to decide,” Avery said. “That’s for outside experts to look at to make these kinds of considerations.”
The records released during the Free Fall investigation kept the case in the public eye and sparked “open and honest conversation,” he said.
“Don’t wait until the end and then it’s forgotten about by the public, so there’s no traction that is achieved and nothing changes at the end of it,” Avery said. “I would hate to see that happen. That’s what I fear the most in something like this.”
In an interview, Thompson defended the exemption and said the agriculture department worked with her on the bills.
“To prematurely reach a conclusion is not what we want to do with regard to the business, or with regard to any individuals who may be involved, and then we’ll divulge everything once the inspection is completed,” she said. “... It is just to make sure that we’ve left no stone unturned before we present to the public.”
Asked later about the criticism, agriculture spokesman Aaron Keller said the agency’s previous administration under former Commissioner Nikki Fried conducted all work on the legislation.
“The department will faithfully implement the law as crafted and approved by the Legislature,” he said in a statement.
In an email, attorney Trevor Arnold for Orlando Slingshot, the Free Fall ride’s owner, said the company supports “the Tyre Sampson legislation as filed, as it follows the outline Sen. Thompson announced last year.”
The safety bill would require ride operators to report all previous accidents and major ride modifications to the state, file an independent commissioning and certification report before each new ride’s first inspection and post more detailed rider restrictions outside attractions.
Additionally, it would broaden the agriculture department’s oversight, giving it authority to establish minimum training standards for attraction employees and conduct regular, unannounced ride inspections to identify potential hazards.
The proposals would not apply to Florida’s larger theme parks, including
Disney and Universal, which are allowed to conduct their own inspections under an agreement with the agriculture department. Thompson said she did not have the same concerns with them because they have their own full-time inspectors and greater resources than smaller operators.
Yarnell Sampson, Tyre’s father, called the bill “a step toward the right direction” in an interview with WKMG-Channel 6.
Haggard said it is a “great general framework.” Tyre’s family was not directly consulted about the legislation, he said, but trusts Thompson to “do the best thing for safety.”
The bill addresses longstanding safety issues, Avery said, but he would like to see it be more specific, such as clarifying how often the state will conduct unannounced inspections.
Thompson said she wanted to leave some enforcement details to the agriculture department and is working with the new Agriculture Commissioner, Wilton Simpson, to determine appropriations for proposed regulations that need funding.
Dodd, Haggard and Avery would like to see the bill amended to require secondary restraint systems like seat belts on thrill rides. They believe such a device could have saved Tyre’s life.
Thompson said she wanted to leave the issue up to ride operators and state inspectors to discuss. The Free Fall’s manufacturer, Funtime, said the ride did not need seat belts because its restraint system had built-in safety measures.
Avery said he has pushed for requiring such mechanisms on amusement rides for decades.
“Any of these high-thrill type rides, where you have a harness and you’re seated in some capacity, there should be a secondary restraint,” he said.