GigaG

Physically long queue line? How about the Bat at Kings Island? Or, if you want to go even longer, White Water Canyon at the same park.

I just hate it when a ride is neutered without having had previous accidents. Blue Streak has seat dividers, headrests, and ratchet bars, This came after the ride ran for YEARS without any incident at all with the classic restraints. Why would they neuter the ride in such a way?

I don't see why a guy shouldn't be able to wear a rash guard. It's the same as a girl wearing a typical one piece.

Invertigos are very intense and actually decent rides. Sometimes too intense though. I remember that Dorney's water park has a policy that dudes can't wear shirts on the speed slides. Does Snake Pit have this restriction? I have a friend who insists on wearing shirts while swimming in my presence and I usually do too.

Cross post from CP thread, I meant to post that here- Has anybody noticed Banshee's super-fast dispatches? They literally use twice the amount of ride ops than what seemed to be needed (8 as opposed to 4, if I saw things correctly), each assigned to one row. Here's the sequence- -Ride stops -Restraints unlock, riders exit -Ride ops go through rows unbuckling vacant seats from previous ride -As this occurs, gates open -Riders sit down and pull down their restraints -Ride ops quickly check seats -Ride ops will take flip-flops and throw them onto the ground to the right of the train on the exit side (not kidding) --Side note - As all of this is happening, the station's speakers will occasionally count down the time until next dispatch should happen (or maybe can happen assuming that the ride should dispatch when it can, I don't know) -Restraints check, CLEAR times 8 or so, visual scan (KI does those... looks like SF spread it... or maybe they've always done it) DISPATCH This system is amazingly efficient. It may seem dangerous for the ride ops due to the fact that you only have 4 op "stations" and 8 ops, but keep in mind every op has to push a button for dispatch (I think, not totally sure), and no responsible ride op would press that button when their partner was not ready.) If this system works, maybe they could employ a few more workers to staff Diamondback in the same way.

That post was SUPPOSED to go to the KI thread...

It's debatable. I think ratchet bars suck on most every coaster. I've gotten into that heavy discussion/argument before, so I'll just take a big step back now The Viper at SF Great America had it's ratchet bars specially rigged by maintenance so they won't go down past a certain level... and that level is exactly the same as a buzz bar would. They knew exactly what they were doing. Love that ride! At least on GASM (given, that ride has a seatbelt) the buzz bars seemed to pretty much put your legs under a "cage" of sorts. I don't see how you could stand up.

As far as I can remember, the first coasters to have ratchet bars were Georgia Cyclone, Texas Giant and Thunder Run. They were pretty bad at first, falling down and stapling you during the ride. They later beefed up the return springs so they wouldn't come down so easily. And as far as ranting about those ratchet bars... I can tell you as a ride operator on the CP Blue Streak for 2 years with buzzbars, that the ratchet bars have changed the ride. The lap bars and assemblies are much heavier. The ride is still very well maintained and popular, but it rides completely different than it did with simple buzz bar trains. You can look at all the extra supports that had to be added to the ride after the conversion to compensate for all that extra force. (Adding the metal-core "high backs" and seat dividers probably add to the odd weight distribution as well.) So they went through all that trouble to worsen the ride experience and increase loading times for a "safety" upgrade on a coaster that had never ejected a single person? When the old restraint system had worked for decades reliably on not just the subject coaster, but dozens of old woodies? Blech. As for solenoids and springs, did anybody ever figure out a simpler system? Or were buzz bars obsolete by the time that somebody decided to re-engineer them? A mechanical buzz bar (I know it wouldn't buzz, but buzz bar is a simpler term than single-position lap bar) would be simple to make with a manual lock-unlock system. To atuo lock-unlock could be a pain, however. Maybe take a hint from Arrow and mechanically connect all the bars on one train a la old mine trains? I don't think having the bars pop up would be a problem, especially if one push released them all.

Has anybody noticed Banshee's super-fast dispatches? They literally use twice the amount of ride ops than what seemed to be needed (8 as opposed to 4, if I saw things correctly), each assigned to one row. Here's the sequence- -Ride stops -Restraints unlock, riders exit -Ride ops go through rows unbuckling vacant seats from previous ride -As this occurs, gates open -Riders sit down and pull down their restraints -Ride ops quickly check seats -Ride ops will take flip-flops and throw them onto the ground to the right of the train on the exit side (not kidding) --Side note - As all of this is happening, the station's speakers will occasionally count down the time until next dispatch should happen (or maybe can happen assuming that the ride should dispatch when it can, I don't know) -Restraints check, CLEAR times 8 or so, visual scan (KI does those... looks like SF spread it... or maybe they've always done it) DISPATCH This system is amazingly efficient. It may seem dangerous for the ride ops due to the fact that you only have 4 op "stations" and 8 ops, but keep in mind every op has to push a button for dispatch (I think, not totally sure), and no responsible ride op would press that button when their partner was not ready.) If this system works, maybe they could employ a few more workers to staff Diamondback in the same way.

I don't even... Here's my question about that comment - WHY?(oming) Seriously, I could imagine his question, but this guy is either a troll or didn't read anything in the title about Disney (I assume Disney is in the title.) Or he doesn't know that there is no Disney park in Wyoming (or operating coasters, if I'm correct.)

Let me just warn you that this will probably turn out to be an extension of my anti ride neutering rants that I started in the Scandi Trip thread. I also want this to be a thread for discussing this endangered species of lap bar (refers to the classic single-position lap bar, not necessarily any bar that makes a buzzing noise while locking.) I also have some questions. If you could, number the answers- 1.When was the ubiquitous PTC-style ratchet bar/seatbelt combo invented? 2. When did new coasters start getting ratchet bars? 3. When did old "buzz bars" start getting replaced? 4. Also, when did existing "buzz bar" coasters get seatbelts? 5. Were "buzz bar" coasters around the world affected or was it a North American "lawsuit prevention" tactic?

Considering that the ride had larger seatbelts in the past, Intamin has no reason to decrease the size of the belts. Those restraints with longer belts have worked on WT in the past. With longer belts, they have been proven to hold people nearly inverted (V2) and with different sides and all different seatbelts, they work on completely inverting coasters (Volcano.) To say that these restraints magically need shorter belts is not logical in my opinion. WHY?

Has FoF been closed continuously since the fire and smoke incident?

Doesn't hydra also do this? It doesn't have any drive tires on the bottom of the lift. Aw my bad. Yes Hydra does that too. Good eye. Isn't Griffon like this too?

This. Even though I don't pay much attention to rain policy, this is hilarious. On another note, remember this video? Considering all the hate Gatekeeper gets, I figured that you'll like this video of its often-ignored predecessor. This has been here before, but it's a great video. [youtu_be] [/youtu_be]

The teal is unknown and the red/orange is a Europe dive coaster, right?

I understand that Twin Peaks is smaller and more contained and therefore can jump more, but can't we have a little airtime? Not even a little floater over the top?

Yet more typical American ride neutering.

About ASTM, this has the g-force limits. The onset limits, which I imagine would be the issue with GL, are not listed, however- http://nolimits-exchange.com/news/g-force-lesson/35

That is true, something like a MILLION times safer than driving in your car to get to the park. That fact alone should be enough. I would imagine that less than 300 people have died on coasters since the beginning of the first Golden Age of Coasters. Maybe more or less, the number is high due to lower safety standards then. Assuming that number is right, and the year we start counting in is 1920, you have an average of just over 3 deaths a year. We'll round this to 3. This source says that 1.3 million people die a year in auto accidents. A simple calculation leads to a death rate of auto deaths that is over 400,000 times that of roller coaster deaths. Even if the average was 10 people a year for coasters, the death rate by automobile would still be 130,000 times that of the death rate by roller coaster. The 10 a year would be a ridiculously unsafe early age of coasters, but we will use it to show how safe coasters are. Let's take a famously safe form of transportation - airplanes. Like roller coasters, planes are safer than cars. According to this article, the worst year in terms of deaths by plane crash was 1972, where 3,329 people died in one year in plane crashes. Rounding to 3,000, this is is 1000 times the rate of roller coaster deaths using the lower number of 300 coaster deaths per year and 3 times the rate using the higher number of 10 deaths. Comparing to a year with a low rate of plane crashes, such as 2013, where plane crashes killed 462, we have a coaster death rate 154 times that of plane crashes using the lower estimate for coaster deaths and a plane crash death rate 46.2 times higher than coasters using the higher estimate of 10 a year. TL;DR: Coasters are hundreds of thousands of times safer than automobiles. Even using a year with a low number of plane crashes and using a very high average rate of coaster deaths, coasters are still many times safer than planes.

My friend just suggested that yesterday - remove RipCord, karts, and Skyscraper and relocate RipCord and Scyscraper elsewhere in the park. RipCord would be kinda hard to relocate, but could it potentially be put on a pier or something on the beach?

^^^ and ^^^^: I always tell people that they're safer on a coaster than they are getting to the park.

Not at all. That's actually exactly the opposite of my point. Seeing the problem as Americans being "wussies" is what I am arguing is missing the point completely. It is not a matter of whatever mental or physical strength defines "wuss" versus "non-wuss" but a matter of economic bottom lines. Six Flags has no economic incentive to not neuter its rides to meet these standards. The legislative process works quite similarly in that these regulations are largely due to the same public outbursts to ride incidents that would lead Six Flags to take it upon themselves to neuter it. Arguing whether or not Americans are wusses is completely ignoring economic facts that are based in inherent structural ways in which we as Americans think of rides, how we process sensationalist news, and how our political system functions in the real world. I'm not getting this, which I'm a bit embarassed about. Another thing - I edited my previous post to add this, just making sure that it doesn't get buried-

^So what you are saying is that none of this will change until America un-wussifies itself? This angers me. A lot. I really wish enthusiasts had some influence on parks outside of special events. That will never happen. Maybe we could spread the word to the GP that coasters are not deathtraps and they're supposed to throw you up into your lapbar, push you into your seat, etc... but how?

Wow. Does America really need to bubble wrap their rides so much that a ride that has been engineered and proven safe by a massive, experienced ride manufacturer in a developed part of the world needs to be neutered? Somebody needs to contact SFMM and ask if this is true, and if it IS true, somebody really needs to get angry at ASTM. This makes me angry. How would you select which nations are "developed" enough to produce reputable rides? How would you decide which manufacturers are "experienced" enough to be free of regulation? Do you need to be reminded that Intamin is responsible for the majority of the most highly publicized ride accidents in the United States over the past few decades? That doesn't even begin to touch on the rampant economic and political consequences of deregulating an international trade. Use your brain and think critically, it makes all the difference in the world in making people not sound like idiots. I'm just saying that I don't get why the US can't have a safe ride that runs in Europe perfectly fine. As for the accidents, I imagine that riding that Zacspin or Mega-Lite or whatever is still much safer than however you got to the park. Because, again, we are wusses. ASTM shouldn't base things off "wussiness", but the very fact that Intamin's rides - or any rides that are made by a reputable manufacturer- are perfectly safe. Parks should be able to say "This ride looks good for us, is made by a reputable company, and has been running safely in Europe, so we will build it." without running into a wall saying "You have to make this ride safe for test dummies made of butter."