Six Flags says it will install seat belts on Georgia roller coaster after rider's death
The chief executive of Six Flags says the company will install seat belts on the Georgia roller coaster from which a rider fell to his death earlier this month. The company’s rides with similar restraints will also get the safety upgrade.
The theme park operator announced the extra safeguard less than two weeks after 42-year-old Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem of Atlanta died after being ejected from his seat on the Goliath coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia.
https://apnews.com/article/roller-coaster-death-six-flags-georgia-90a9bfe6a6fc934ab7f2a1a6bf52d520Open linkView original on lemmy.world
24 replies
If you're curious who's supposed to be regulating these...
It's at a state by state level (for permanent theme parks), which is why these accidents keep happening in red states.
This is just the result of decades of erasing regulations in exchange for political donations.
Regulations previously inked in blood. Now they demand more sacrifice.
Wasn’t the six flags thing that kept brain damaging and killing people for the past decade in California?
I mean, the line between neoliberals and Republicans is blurry at best...
But yeah, I'm sure Newsom has taken money from that industry and regulations haven't kept up for longer than he's been around. The mouse isn't shy about lobbying.
Thinking back to theme park visits from my childhood, I had never thought to myself that more was needed then the big clunky hardware holding us in. I fully support adding seatbelts on top of this, and the article says there are a lot of rides across the country down for maintenance now, likely to do the same.
I didn’t have the clamshell like this, just the old lap bar. A ride damn near dropped me out and my sister had to hold onto me the whole time, but when we reported they just shrugged and said ok sorry.
These particular clamshell restraints where patented in 2001 (per the article), so they aren't from my childhood, but I don't know your age.
Thinking back to theme park visits from MY childhood, I have never once in my entire life felt well secured or safe when riding a roller coaster in that style. If you're a smaller than average person you're pretty much entirely responsible for your own fate with those. A lot of times the bar didn't even touch my body at all. I usually ended up clinging onto the restraint bar with my arms, to prevent myself from sliding around beneath it.
The over the shoulders style top restraint is a thousand times better and safer, in my opinion. Never had a problem with one of those.
I've never ridden Goliath, but I would've just assumed it had seatbelts already, in addition to the bar, just because it's so big and (relatively) new. I could've sworn I remember at least one of the other coasters at Six Flags over Georgia already having them, but I can't remember which one(s). Maybe Mindbender?
What's the "deaths by km traveled" stat for this thing?
Seatbelts! Of course!
Seat belts in addition to the "bar" that goes across your lap...
Which still isn't enough, they should all have the shoulder harness, but those are expensive.
Bolting in seatbelts doesn't fix anything, but it's cheap and reassures the idiots who still go to the capitalist hellscapes that are modern Theme Parks.
The only reason they're doing the seatbelts is because the deaths hurt their profits.
I’m not sure why you think lap belts won’t help. There are some rides that warrant shoulder restraints, but typically engineers use physics to determine where the loads and accelerations are. It isn’t strictly a matter of cost. Roller coaster accidents are not some rampant death trap. They could be safer, and lap belts in many cases will help.
I think the main cost isn't the purchase price, but rather the operational costs of ride operators having to individually check that everyone is buckled properly. It would slow down the ride and/or increase labor costs due to multiple attendants.
My first thought on that ride as a teenager was "wow, this is the only restraint? No seat belt?"
If the restraint is working properly then it doesn't need a seatbelt. They are probably skipping out on necessary maintenance that keeps the restraining devices in proper working order. Rather that make sure safety rules are maintained, just add a seatbelt under the device that might break.
Having multiple independent points of failure is not "unnecessary maintenance". The entire point is that in the case of "something is not working properly" that there is another independent safety mechanism that would also have to fail for the rider to be ejected. This is basic design in redundancy and safety.
"We don't need seat belts if drivers are driving properly"
"We don't need oxygen tanks if planes are operating correctly"
This ride, at least when I rode it, is just an upgraded lap bar essentially. Which is reliant on someone's physical body proportions being the main thing that keeps someone inside.
Sorry for the reddit link but I'm on mobile and my image upload isn't working.
https://www.reddit.com/r/rollercoasters/comments/ezy1qr/goliath_at_six_flags_over_georgia/
But it's looks like that.
Even wooden roller coasters have seat belts. It's absolutely insane that someone had to die before they put them in the ride.
Every other roller coaster at that park, at least when I went, had at least two forms of restraints. It is far from "unnecessary maintenance". It's literally standard practice.
Canada's Wonderland has 2 similar rides, the Behemoth and the Leviathan. When I last went in 2009 they did not have secondary restraints. I rode Behemoth multiple times and tried it both flexing leg muscles when locking it down to give myself some play then relaxing and with it very tight.
I liked it both ways, even relaxed there was no way I was coming loose but it did give me a bit more movement.
I'm not saying seatbelts are a bad thing, I'm more saying lax safety standards are making them needed because companies can't be trusted to maintain to a high enough degree that lives wouldn't be lost from maintenance issues.
Did you feel like you were riding a flying carpet?
Honestly, everytime I road it I DIDN'T have that feeling because of the knowledge that I didn't have a seatbelt on.
Youve got a lap bar, and the roller coaster lover in you wants to raise your hands and maybe even push off your feet a little to raise your body into the air. Which would be awesome, if you had a physical strap holding you under the main restraint.
But, I never did, the restraint feels like you can slip out. And, I remember "testing it" too. I sat forward in my seat and stuck by gut out, the operators let the ride go with the restraint clearly not tight enough on my body. I had ridden it enough times to know that I could still click it and lock it myself going up the hill. Which I did, obviously. But I can definitely see how that could happen without the rider even noticing.
But, is is kind of wild, to see this article after all these years. I always felt that the restraints on that ride were bad.
Thought Catalog has an image of the restaurant in question (though the image has a USA Today watermark, and shows a lap belt):
Just a better version of that second pic.
I've never understood how people like roller coasters like these. They've always felt loose and unsafe to me. The sliding and dangling in your seat makes me extremely uncomfortable.
Because it's supposed to feel unsafe. That's the thrill of roller coasters, isn't it?