Hurting business.(Editorial)

Not long ago, I got a painful reminder why waterparks have a problem with liability these days. I was taking my final trip down a twisting body slide when I flew down one hump, went airborne and slammed into an approaching curve. "Wow, that really smarts," I thought as I left the splash pool rubbing my shoulder. For the next week, that little trip left me with a big pain in the neck and back. Had I been someone else, say not the editor of a magazine that champions waterparks, I might have complained more loudly about it. I might even have done what a growing number of people are doing: called an attorney.

It would be easy to write these folks off as complainers, part of an epidemic of blame and greed that seems to be choking business and the courts. Except in the case of waterparks, the complainers have a point. Fun as they may be, waterparks are also places of high risk. In fact, out of all amusement park rides--roller coasters, bumper cars, go-karts--water slides have the highest injury rates.

No wonder operators listed liability risk as their number one concern in our own survey. Clearly, something must be done.

First, operators need to make risk management a priority. That starts with top-notch staff training. One of ...