If a lapbar or harness ever came loose like on the hill or leaving the station and the passanger yelled to stop the ride, could you stop the chain or ride in time, say 10 sec. Sorry, I love coasters, but i don't know a darned thing about them mechanically and my sis was wondering. And could a lapbar/harness ever come loose during the actual ride?! I usually check mine 20 times before goung off too. I'm sorry but I'm not getting any life threatening injuries of a coaster at the age of 16.
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Elephant Ears Rock!
Coasters are perfectly safe, and no, the lapbars, harnesses absolutely CANNOT come loose as you describe. Sometimes they might pop a notch, so they feel like they're coming loose, but that's only one notch and NO further. Ride ops always check the harnesses, so they are all secure before the train is dispatched. We also take a close look as the coaster is leaving, and if anything is noticed out of the ordinary we will stop the train. At CP especially, safety is #1 and our reputation of being among the safest parks in the world is well deserved! You have nothing to fear; have fun! :)
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PO!NT OF VIEW - A Different Look at Roller Coasters
http://www.crosswinds.net/~justmayntz/thrills/
Did you know that the harnesses on Mantis and Raptor can withstand up to 60000 pouds of pressure before they will break??
wow! My dad doesn't weigh that much!! ( I crack jokes about him all the time...as he does me..)
That is interesting!
I'm not sure about other manufacturer's but on Arrow coasters, particularly sitdowns there is a sensor at the base of the lift that makes sure the harness pedal is in the up position on each car. If a pedal isn't up it will cause the ride to stop at the base of the lift. This is that last resort of several safety mechanisms that include the platen (the long bar that raises and lowers to lock and unlock harnesses) needing to be in the down or locked position and the ride operators whose job it is to check each harness.
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Adventuredome Ride Op 2000 - present
Future CP Ride op?
"Ride ops always check the harnesses"
Not always! I rode Gemini several times last year, and they never checked any lapbars. My friends said that when they rode it once, the lapbars never latched. I don't know about that, but I do know that the harnesses are not always checked! If the harnesses do latch, though, they can't come back up.
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A bad day at CP is better than a good day at work.
Actually, last year on the Gemini, we checked everything, but in a weird way. Unfortunately, we can't check every single lapbar because of our ridiculously short interval times when we run at full capacity; however, we can visually look at every lapbar and check one in each car because they are all hooked to the same mechanism. If your lap bar didn't get checked, it is because you pulled it down enough not to be unsafe or suspicious and a lapbar in your same car was checked.
What is considered suspicious? How are you supposed to check the seat belts as opposed to how it was really done at full capacity?
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Adventuredome Ride Op 2000 - present
Future CP Ride op?
Suspicious would be something like having a sweatshirt or bookbag over the seatbelt so that we can't see it, or having waaaaay too much space between you and the harness. We always check to see that seatbelts (if the ride has them) are fastened, and harness are checked by either pushing down or pulling up on them, depending on the ride and the way they lock. Some rides only need to check one or two harnesses because they all lock together, others check them all. And it is always done this way, full capacity or not!
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PO!NT OF VIEW - A Different Look at Roller Coasters
http://www.crosswinds.net/~justmayntz/thrills/
I have a question, is it safe to kinda keep your lapbar from being to low so you don't get any airtime (Blue Streak), I think they should put on lap bar in for each two seats and no seat dividers, it would be a MUCH funner ride
Ummm actually my friend's lapbar flew up going up the second hill on Gemini. A bunch of us were in the same car and the rest of us had ours just go up a notch, but hers went just about all the way up. It was still locked down, but it was like 8 inches off of her. She got it back down, but still...
And on Mean Streak, do all the lap bars work properly now? Many a time I have been on Mean Streak and the lap bar goes down to about 5 inches above my lap and it wont lock any further down. The ride ops just kinda blow it off, but I never feel safe. Whats up with that?
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Scotty
Mean Streak's lapbars (and Blue Streak, as far as I remember) just have the notches really far apart, because I've had it do that too -- it seems like it should be able to go down further, but you just can't make that last notch. Is it safe? Yes! It isn't as if you can slip out of that gap, even though it feels like it is way too big.
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PO!NT OF VIEW - A Different Look at Roller Coasters
http://www.crosswinds.net/~justmayntz/thrills/
On both Mean Streak and (finally!!) Blue Streak there are supposed to be six possible lap bar positions besides full-open. When the bar is all the way down (Notch #6, though on Mean Streak I think Notches #1 and #2 may be missing) the top of the lap bar should still be at or above the top of the seat divider...about 6" up from the seat cushion. Which is lower and further back than a traditional lap bar; the traditional lap bar (as Blue Streak had for 31 years) is about as far back as Notch #2 and about as high as Notch #3 if I remember correctly.
I've never had a bar pop up on Gemini, but I have had it happen to me on other Runaway Train coasters. Sometimes the mechanism bounces around a little and lets the pawl come loose. No big deal; it will usually pop up one notch, and if you pull it back down again it locks in place.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
(slow day, so I drop by...)
Dave second Dave. In the rare occasion that a lapbar might pop up,it will lock again if pushed back down. I've had it happen to me on Magnum and Mean Streak. Once on Magnum it popped up all the way before making it to lift. I,of course didn't worry since the seat belt wasn't letting me go anywhere!
I've seen it happen more at other parks,aka SFKK's Thunder Run. Happened alot to most people opening weekend last year. So that show's CP does a better job at keeping things working properly!
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http://www.magnummania.com jerry@magnummania.com
Wow, with Magnum having a seatbelt too I might have just left the bar up for a great flying experience!
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Crady Crady!! CRADY CRADY!!