Over The Shoulder Restraints. (OTSRs)

[saiyanhajime]

A lot of the time it's my ears that hurt from headbanging. They will feel hot and uncomfortable. I get this a lot on B&Ms. Particularly Nemesis and Alpengeist's cobra roll. I think it's horrendous.

[braztaz]

A lot of the time it's my ears that hurt from headbanging. They will feel hot and uncomfortable. I get this a lot on B&Ms. Particularly Nemesis and Alpengeist's cobra roll. I think it's horrendous.

 

I don't think Alpengeist's cobra roll is too bad- it's how it slams into the brakes that gets me!

[saiyanhajime]

The MCBR? Yeah, it is a bit violent into there... Apparently it didn't used to be this way.

[coasterlover420]

^^^I find that most of B&M's older cobra rolls tend to throw you around a bit; Raptor especially. On their newer coasters the cobra rolls are a lot more integrated, rather than just throwing a half corkscrew onto the end of a half loop (Hydra, for example).

[Six Flags Enthuseast]

A lot of the time it's my ears that hurt from headbanging. They will feel hot and uncomfortable.

I got this on Kong. I'm sure it happens on most other SLCs, though.

[davisal771]

I've never actually experienced painful headbanging before, granted I've only been on 1 Slc and 1 boomerang but all the arrows and Vekomas I've rode have been smooth relative to what people say.

[Six Flags Enthuseast]

^Same here; Kong and B:CtC at SFDK. I can say that pretty much all the Arrows I've been on aren't bad, but I haven't been on enough Vekomas to rate them as a whole yet.

[rcg19]

Deleted by user

Edited December 29, 2010 by rcg19

[Canobie Coaster]

With me, the roughness on some Arrows and Vekomas is really a mixed bag.

 

SLCs- SFNE's Mind Eraser is actually quite smooth for me. However, the ride itself isn't overly exciting still because the ride seems to navigate all of the inversions way too slowly. Darien Lake's Mind Eraser had a lot of headbanging and was definitely worse than SFNE's version. Then I experienced Canada's Wonderland's Flight Deck. That hunk of junk may be the single worst roller coaster I have ever experienced. The headbanging simply did not let up! I mean, I know that a majority of SLCs are rough because I've seen that the wheels don't always hug the track like they do on B&M inverts; however, the restraints just seem a bit bulky to me. With the success of the restraints on Morey's version, I don't see why more parks don't want to outfit their SLCs with those vests to cut down on headbanging.

 

Boomerangs- Outside of Lake Compounce's Zoomerang, I haven't really found any boomerang to be excessively painful. I mean all of them have some head-banging, but the ones at The Great Escape, Darien Lake, Canada's Wonderland, Hersheypark, and Six Flags New England aren't all that bad. They are really intense coasters, but just not my cup of tea.

 

Arrows- I've learned how to ride these; however, some of them can still be quite rough on the ears. The worst ones for me have been Anaconda, Dragon Mountain (after several rerides in a row the coat-hanger turns and headbanging finally caught up to me), and the Steamin' Demon.

 

Togo Stand-Ups- Lastly, these coasters just flat out stink. First off, the restraints are not very comfortable at all and they find a way to both crush my man region, bash my skull, and crush my rib cage. If these Togo Stand-Ups had better restraints, they would be really good coasters since they Shockwave and Skyrider were two of the more intense coasters I've experienced. Too bad that they rattled my head a lot and ruined the experience.

 

I definitely prefer lap-bars like almost any other enthusiast, but it really is a GP thing in my opinion. While I was queueing for Behemoth, several GP remarked about how the ride must be dangerous since there is only a lap-bar. Honestly, I think that parks could switch any OSTRs to lap-bars and appease the GP as long as they install seat-belts as well. However, one has to consider if it would be cost-effective for parks to do this.

[davisal771]

^ I consider myself lucky with Arrows and Vekomas. Here in Colorado we have an SLC, a Boomerang, and an Arrow Shuttle, The SLC can be headbangless or have mild head banging depending where you sit, the Boomerang... well I've never banged my head on it ever. and I've been on it many times. And the Arrow shuttle is smooth, provides great airtime, and is fun. The only other Arrow I've been on is Viper, and I don't remember it well, (Rode 4 years ago) but it was smooth from what I remember, and I rode it twice. I honestly can't imagine headbanging with Arrow restraints... it looks like it would be incredibly painful!

[B-RadG]

Honestly, banging your head on B&M's OTSRs is far worse than any other, because they don't give at all and tend to smack a big area of your head. For example, if I hit my head just once on Dominator's restraint I get a headache. Dominator, by the way, has gotten a lot rougher than it used to be. I can deal with Alpengeist because it doesn't actually bang your head it just shakes you around.

 

Arrow's restraints don't bother me at all because my shoulders touch the top of them so I stay in place for the ride. What's worse than hitting your head on an Arrow restraint is banging your elbows on the side of the train. When I was shorter and banged my head on them it didn't bother me too badly because they're not insanely hard.

 

Vekoma's restraints really vary. Mind Eraser's (SFA) restraint was actually too small for my head so I had to fold my ears forward to fit in it and on top of that it whacked my head around. Sidewinder (Hersheypark) wasn't bad at all, there wasn't any headbanging and I can't imagine it would hurt with that padding.

 

So yes, lapbars are much better. If Schwarzkopf could do it on some of the world's first looping coasters in the 70's, then it's possible now. Premier has proved that it's possible to have an ultra-intense coaster with inversions and just lapbars. Intamin's lapbars are awesome, they keep you in place safely but they're not overly restrictive, either. Now the only problem is a ride with laterals, an Arrow/Vekoma with lapbars wouldn't be fun because you'd be slammed into the person next to you repeatedly (as has happened to me on wooden coasters and it's not really fun).

[crazywolf88]

B&M hypers have lap bars with out a seat belt even and they pull some nice negative g forces. I believe they would work perfectly in place of the trains on every B&M looping (excluding inverts, stand ups, and floorless) roller coaster (yes I'm talking to you wildfire.)

[crazywolf88]

Blue fire at Europa Park proved that all intamin needs to do is take off the strap part of their restraint and leave the lap bar. Now that would be awesome.

[Bolliger&Mabillard]

^Yea, but the problenm is I don't think Germans are as sue-happy as Americans are. And to make two different types of restraints for different regions is tedious. I guess the old addage "It only takes one @$$ to F!%k it up for everyone" is true.

[let1gre]

^Yea, but the problenm is I don't think Germans are as sue-happy as Americans are. And to make two different types of restraints for different regions is tedious. I guess the old addage "It only takes one @$$ to F!%k it up for everyone" is true.

 

No one is as sue-happy as Americans are! This is the same reason as to why things like Big Bad Wolf somehow had to operate with OTSRs, and we can't have crazy rides like boats that fly through the air. Although most amusement park food is more dangerous than any foreign ride...

[crazywolf88]

Most Americans are worried to the point that if one thing screws up, than every thing else in the same industry is as well. Example: perilous plunge, in news reports a woman was thrown out of the ride. what was not mentioned was that the woman weighed 350-400 pound and the ride produces close to 1.3 negative gs. having 400 pounds pushing up on the restraint was spelling disaster, the restraint was a five point seat belt and a lap bar, and only failed that one time. in order to calm people down the park was forced to replace the lap bar with a restricting harness (otsrs.)Now el toro is wooden runs at the same or steeper angle and used only a lap bar and nothing has happened yet, it was a freak accident that caused the random release of the restraint. on a different note very few people know that non inverting coasters half the time produce more negative forces than a looping coaster and don't necessarily need shoulder harnesses, but others just don't learn.

[DBru]

^Yea, but the problenm is I don't think Germans are as sue-happy as Americans are.

 

But what does this have to do with restraints on a roller coaster? If a person is injured on a coaster with OTSRs, I doubt they would hesitate any longer to sue than had they been injured on a coaster utilizing only lap bars.

[jynx242]

Take a look at Mindbender at SFoG. Simple lap bars on a Schwartzkopf looper. Two regular loops and an inverted helix. There is also airtime. It doesn't have OTSR's and never has.

 

I think OTSR's on older coasters kind of came about on a park-by-park (or state-by-state) basis, and became the standard for newer loopers because of litigations.

[Synshine]

It may not be so much with litigation directly, but probably more in having to do with insuring a ride ( and what potential litigation may have on a parks policy.)

[BigDipper 80]

I read somewhere that one of the reasons that Karl Bacon decided to create the OTSR was to make riders feel safe. He mentioned that, of course the g-forces would hold a rider in even without a lap bar, but the OTSR's would be needed a) if somehow the train got stuck in the corkscrew, and b) it made riders feel more secure. I know that one of my friends once said that he was scared of Millennium Force mainly because it didn't have OTSR's. As much as many of us feel that such restraints can be annoying and inhibiting, there are numbers of people out there who feel more secure with something surrounding them.

 

Of course there are many other debatable points and my particular point doesn't apply to everyone, I thought that it might be worth it to throw out some more opinion.

[Devious]

To the "Lap bars don't work for anything other than loops crowd"

 

gtfo

 

Sincerely, Zonga, Skyrocket, and every launched premier looper with lapbars, Every X-car, and any i'm missing

 

Honestly, Skyrocket at kennywood with the weird new premier restraints is a good example here, it's impossible to fall out of the car without a serious restraint failure because of the way the lapbar is designed to work with the seat

 

In today's market, where a lot of us are looking for that next crazy thrill, i can see them catching on, they ARE a bit restrictive to your legs, but that ends up being a blessing (no kneebanging and it's ACE-r friendly) and they leave your upper body free

[let1gre]

To the "Lap bars don't work for anything other than loops crowd"

 

gtfo

 

Sincerely, Zonga, Skyrocket, and every launched premier looper with lapbars, Every X-car, and any i'm missing

 

Honestly, Skyrocket at kennywood with the weird new premier restraints is a good example here, it's impossible to fall out of the car without a serious restraint failure because of the way the lapbar is designed to work with the seat

 

In today's market, where a lot of us are looking for that next crazy thrill, i can see them catching on, they ARE a bit restrictive to your legs, but that ends up being a blessing (no kneebanging and it's ACE-r friendly) and they leave your upper body free

 

I think a lot of the GP thinks of lap bars like this

 

Whereas nowadays lap bars can look like

this

this

or this.

 

Very restrictive so, ideally, riders stay in their seat, but allow for much more mobility than OTSRs. It looks like it would take some serious malfunctioning or squirming to get out of any of those. If X-Cars can have lap bars and they have an upside down lift hill, then any coaster can.

[davisal771]

^ I know! Really, someone said this earlier back, but the B&M Hyper restraints probably deal with more negative G's than the loopers, it would make sense to put the hyper lap-bars on loopers.

[Devious]

http://rcdb.com/8612.htm?p=28106

 

Same deal, restrictive to the lower body for safety, but completely free on the upper body for maximum thrill

 

Personally, people are just scared of them because the media makes such an ungodly deal about the one-in-9-billion accident where some idiot didnt properly secure the bar or the hardware failed and they panicked

[nannerdw]

I'm think modern OTSR's are used as a safety precaution to prevent riders from leaning forward during high +g sections. This is one of the reasons why the seats are more reclined on newer loopers with lapbars.

 

When I rode Mindbender at SFOG, I leaned forward just a little bit too much coming out of the second loop and hit my head on the seat in front of me.

 

On rides like Maverick, it's really important to keep the riders in the proper riding position at all times, so the shoulder straps are there to keep the riders from leaning too far left/right/forward during the quick transitions.