Ride inspectors prepare for fairs

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The gates opened for the Marion County Fair Thursday. Along with food and entertainment, the fair has a large midway with more than 30 rides.

About half of the rides went through a state safety inspection Wednesday, and the other half last week in Terre Haute.

Fair board member Dick Switzer is confident in the ride company that built the midway, Drew Exposition.

"I think this is [Jimmy Drew’s] 20th or 25th year with this and we think he's probably the best carnival out there," said Switzer

James Graybeal, of Drew Exposition, believes the ride industry is one of the most-inspected in the world.

"We get inspected not just every time we set up, or every location we go to. We get inspected every day," he said.

While most companies perform their own inspections, the I-Team 8 investigation piece “ Fair Warning ” found that rides traveling town-to-town only have to be inspected by Indiana's Department of Homeland Security once a year.

Life-threatening violations like brake or speed problems will shut down a ride. With most other violations, the rides can run while the fixes get reported later.

According to the inspection reports, the state found seven violations on six different Drew Exposition rides. They range from missing bolts to missing seatbelts. As of Thursday afternoon, all had been fixed before the fair began.

"No showstoppers, said Graybeal. “They inspected 15 rides here yesterday and I think on everything there was a total of like 10 violations and all of them was just minor, (like) screw in a light bulb, tighten a screw."

Graybeal said there have been very few reports of injuries and that they were minor.

We could only find one news account of an injury involving the company's rides. A 3-year-old girl was slightly injured when she fell from a car on a kiddie ride when it flipped over.

Graybeal has advice for parents of young children.

"I think parents should look at a ride and watch it operate before they put their child on it. Then they can determine whether the ride's safe for their child," he said.

Many rides in Indiana have a sticker that displays the toll-free number to the Indiana Department of Homeland Security's Amusement Hotline. To report a ride that is improperly operated of maintained call 1-888-203-5020.