Thai amusement rides very unsafe
The safety of fairground attractions in Thailand is poor. At least sixty percent of the fairs that travel around Thailand have no safety measures whatsoever. There is also no control. We have to wait for the first serious accident and then children will be the victims. The Engineering Institute of Thailand (ETI) therefore wants the government to take measures.
To date, carnivals only need permission to set up their attractions. There are no permits relating to the safety of the attractions. That is a big risk, because most fairground operators use old equipment, says Channarong of ETI.
The ETI believes that the Ministry of the Interior should instruct the municipal and provincial authorities to check the attractions for safety and, if approved, grant a permit.
Sittisak, a spokesman for Thai Amusement Park and Attractions (TAPA) says that they will come up with safety requirements for fairgrounds and amusement parks within a few years.
TAPA and ETI have already drawn up a code for amusement parks in anticipation of this. TAPA will ask its twenty members to also apply this. Thailand has 20 amusement and 40 water parks.
Source: Bangkok Post – http://goo.gl/aSoIeM
I have often asked myself the question of how safe those fairgrounds, and in particular the attractions, are.
If you see how such a fairground wheel or fairground rollercoaster is often constructed, then I often think that at some point things must not go well. You mustn't think about the consequences for the children in the car.
Electrical cabinets are also often open and the cables are accessible to everyone. Not to mention how the connections are made. Dangerous how everything is often there.
Moreover, the crowds that come to such an event are often so large that this certainly also has an impact on safety. Suppose a fire breaks out here than I do.
“… within a few years with safety requirements…”. The response of the TAPA spokesperson to what ETI is raising is also significant, and is in line with how security is handled in Thailand.
In the meantime, what about muddling…?
Yet again incomprehensible such a reaction and attitude to a security problem.
Then perhaps one day there will be a safety check and inspection, everything will then depend on how seriously people will treat this.
I think again in the direction of a source of income for the inspectors concerned.
I think many of those fairground attractions are very old. I saw at a fairground, attractions that I recognized from Amsterdam, the annual fairground on the Nieuwenmarkt back then from when I was a child about 44 years old…, probably it was too old and if it was no longer used in the Netherlands and then they sold it cheaply or maybe just dumped it? And then it ends up here in Thailand… It looked quite old.
July this year in Siam Parc (BKK) I was again surprised by the lack of safety measures. There is still work to be done there, but not for a few years, of course.