AUGUSTA — A hayride accident that claimed the life of a teenage girl from Oakland and sent 22 others to hospitals this past October has prompted an outpouring of proposed law changes in Maine.
The titles of six bills released Thursday suggest lawmakers hope to prevent the type of tragedy that claimed the life of 17-year-old Cassidy Charette. The bills are sponsored by Democrats and Republicans, including top leaders in both parties.
Charette was riding on a wagon being towed behind a late-model Jeep during a haunted hayride at Harvest Hill Farms’ Pumpkin Land on Route 26 in Mechanic Falls when the Jeep driver lost control of the vehicle and the wagon overturned.
Maine, like many states, has no law regulating farmyard amusements or requiring safety inspections for hayrides. Following the accident, national advocates for hayride safety urged Maine lawmakers and the U.S. Congress to create safety standards and an inspection regimen.
Among the hayride-related bills, State Sen. Tom Saviello, R-Wilton, is working on a bill requiring an operator of an amusement ride or an antique vehicle to sign an affidavit attesting to the vehicle’s safety.
Saviello said Thursday his bill is meant to address the hayride situation but also a 2013 fatal accident in Bangor that involved an antique firetruck whose brakes failed as it went downhill in a parade.
He predicted lawmakers would find some compromise. “Something is going to happen, that I can guarantee … We want to react to this problem and try to prevent it from happening again.”
State Rep. Robert Nutting, R-Oakland, said a bill he hopes to author requires farm amusement rides to be inspected prior to opening to the public.
Nutting said he was contacted about the Mechanic Falls mishap by a family member of a young woman who survived the rollover.
“If you are going to have a commercial ride going on, in order for the public to feel reasonably safe, somebody with some expertise ought to take a look at it,” Nutting said.
He said he wants inspectors from the State Fire Marshal’s Office, Maine State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division or some other authorized state agency to approve the hayride events.
If requiring farms to pay a licensing fee to cover the cost of the inspections is necessary, Nutting said he would support that, too.
“If that requires you pay a $5 or $20 fee, then so be it,” Nutting said. “That’s just a part of the cost of doing business.”
He said the teens who were involved in the accident in Mechanic Falls, or even most people, don’t have the ability to judge the safety of a hayride.
Nutting said another bill, sponsored by Senate President Mike Thibodeau, R-Winterport, intends to correct a mistake made in a 2014 law change that inadvertently removed the state’s ability to inspect carnival rides, such as those set up on a midway at a fair. New regulations may simply become a part of that fix, he said.
“I think ultimately it is going to fall to the Fire Marshal’s Office to do some kind of inspection on the equipment they use for these kinds of rides,” Nutting said.
He said his main goal is prevention.
“But I don’t want it to be so strict that if you go out to the orchard and they offer to give you a ride on a tractor pulling a trailer, they have to get a license,” he said.
House Majority Leader Rep. Jeff McCabe, D-Skowhegan, said he, too, requested legislation in the wake of the Mechanic Falls tragedy. McCabe said the six titles released Thursday likely would be merged into a bill or two that lawmakers would work through to create new laws and regulations.
McCabe said he and other lawmakers recognize that not all hayrides are risky or designed for only thrill-seekers.
“There is quite a variety of hayrides out there,” McCabe said. “There’s the hayride when I go to my local orchard, and they tow us a quarter-mile behind a tractor, and then there is the hayride that has sort of evolved over time to be events at night, sort of a spooky theme.”
McCabe said the terrain on which hayrides operate can range from flat fairgrounds to hillsides through the forest.
He said the discussion among lawmakers likely would include definitions of what a hayride is compared to an amusement-park type of ride that may require greater oversight.
Other bills in the group would require equipment to be inspected and operators to carry a certain amount of liability insurance.
Nutting and McCabe said the bills are a direct reaction to the Mechanic Falls accident. Both also said they don’t intend overly onerous regulation for Maine’s agri-tourism businesses, but they do want to improve safety.
Lawmakers also have to wrestle with how much increased regulation will cost the state. McCabe said the State Fire Marshal’s Office is already understaffed, and that will be something lawmakers will have to consider.
While some conservatives worry the bills could end up with a giant price tag for the state, McCabe said the primary concern must be protecting life.
“We shouldn’t be jeopardizing public safety to try to save some money,” he said. “If we need to add some positions in the Fire Marshal’s Office to ensure public safety, I think it’s an appropriate thing we do.”
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