Seatbelt Survey

[Comeagain?]

For my high school engineering class, our final year is spent working on (re)designing some product. Our group is working on improving seatbelts for rides. Currently we need to conduct market research, so we made a little survey. It would be awesome if you could take a few minutes to fill it out. (It's taken people on average about 3 minutes...)

 

The survey is at: http://engineering.chaseh.net/survey/

 

And It'd be great if you would share this too.

 

Thanks!

[GCI Wooden]

I did it, and I STRONGLY agree that there should be push button seat belts on a ride if it has to have seat belts. I know that the seatbelts on GCI Coasters confuse so many people, that the ride ops have to help people out, therefore slowing dispatches, but (I would hope) everyone knows how to push a button.

 

IMO that's the only thing that I don't like about a GCI!

[Fire2box]

I wish there was a seatbelt standard on amusement park rides.

 

Like I think V2, Roar and superman all have diffrent types of seatbelt releases and they are all right next to each other at SK: Discovery Kingdom

[Fire2box]

Sorry for the double post, browser glitched out or slowed to a crawl.

[Intimidator305]

Done. Although I feel the need for seat belts are pointless, if I ride has to have them I prefer specialized Intamin seat belts.

[Cmbgo12]

One way to make seatbelts even easier to use would be to incorporate it into the restraint... Such as what Vekoma Flying Dutchmen do, that way theres an added level of safety without slowing dispatch times. (Obviously it would have to be better designed than Vekomas are, or else dispatch times would be completely in the toilet)

[gerstlaueringvar]

Stubai's Click and Fix is the best IMO. Push button seat belts feels kind of cheap and B&M/GCI's seatbelts are confusing to a lot of people.

[MrSum1_55]

I like the Disney seatbelts the best. They lock and cannot be opened during the ride, but also unlock easily when the ride is over due to a push-button system. They are the most idiot-proof devices around. They also lock tightly, so they can serve as the only restraint system on a ride. (This is the only seatbelt on which a drop tower can operate with no restraints but a seatbelt)

 

Intamin seatbelts are probably one of the worst. While Intamin usually does a good job at designing them so they are easy to check once the the restraints are locked, the problem is that they take quite a bit of coordination to unlock. While this is probably the best for saftey, they often slow down loading due to GP having a difficult time figuring out how to unlock them.

 

GCI restraints have a similar problem. The airplane seatbelts have to have the tabs pulled back very far before they release. While I can also see how this is safer, the GP often take a while to figure out exactly how far back they have to move the tabs before they release.

 

In terms of capacity, the absolute worst seatbelts are the ones that cannot be checked after the main restraints are lowered. All the examples I can name of these are on rides at Six Flags parks that were not originally designed to operate with the belts and added them on later. Examples of these include the new Premier coasters at SF parks (S:UF and YOLOcoaster), and also the Deja Vu clones while they were still operating. (The lap seatbelts were a real pain, both to buckle and to check) All of these usually required ops to check the seatbelts before the restraints could even be lowered, sometimes slowing dispatches to a snail's pace.

[coreysaysyo]

I agree with the Disney seat belts. Plus I did the survey, I hope that it helps out with the project Sometimes I do wish that seatbelts were not even a thing on roller coasters.

[Comeagain?]

Thanks to everyone who took the survey. It's great to get different people's point of view.

 

I agree with the Disney seat belts. Plus I did the survey, I hope that it helps out with the project Sometimes I do wish that seatbelts were not even a thing on roller coasters.

 

Yeah, no seat belts would be great. I ran one ride over the summer without seatbelts (a small family ride) and it was quite nice to quickly check restraints. But, since that seems either a thing of the past or a long way off (not sure which to be honest), I guess the best we can do is find something better. Something that guests can open and close quickly and operators need to do less to check.

[Bedholm]

The worst one I've ever had to deal with was Goliath(SFGaM) cause they made you use a seatbelt check that then push restraint then check making dispatches super slow

[rcdude]

Survey complete. Personally I think the type of belt used should be dependent on whether the seatbelt is a primary or secondary restraint. If it's a primary restraint, Disney's system of a locking belt is definitely the way to go, as it's the only system that guests can't undo mid-ride. For a secondary seatbelt, I often feel they are unnecessary, but if they have to be there the thin buckles used on Intamin coasters and a few other rides are my favorite design as they're low profile and not likely to accidentally come undone. I'm always surprised how many people have difficulty with the latch belts since they're so common, but I don't think push buttons are the answer as I could see a lot of people removing them mid-ride.

[coreysaysyo]

Thanks to everyone who took the survey. It's great to get different people's point of view.Yeah, no seat belts would be great. I ran one ride over the summer without seatbelts (a small family ride) and it was quite nice to quickly check restraints. But, since that seems either a thing of the past or a long way off (not sure which to be honest), I guess the best we can do is find something better. Something that guests can open and close quickly and operators need to do less to check.

 

That is the truth

[MrSum1_55]

^^The thing about secondary belts is that, for a while, it seemed like they were on the decline. Up until last year, most manufacturers in the US had been designing rides so that they would not need secondary belts. That changed with the NTAG incident. Now, seatbelts are being installed on rides that were never designed to have them, as on RMC or Premier trains. With these, the belts have to be checked before the restraints are lowered. Intamin trains do not have this problem because they design their trains to have the belts installed on them. The best example of this is El Toro, on which the seatbelts have very long tabs designed to hang off the sides of the seat, so they can easily be checked even after the bulky lap bar has been lowered. RMC and Premier trains have solid sideguards on the seats, making a system like this impossible without a complete redesign of the trains.

[805Andrew]

I did the survey.

 

I like the Disney seatbelts the best. They lock and cannot be opened during the ride, but also unlock easily when the ride is over due to a push-button system. They are the most idiot-proof devices around. They also lock tightly, so they can serve as the only restraint system on a ride. (This is the only seatbelt on which a drop tower can operate with no restraints but a seatbelt)

This!