NEW Policy with MF seatbelts?

As always Dave, thank you so much for your expertise. I don't know if that helps me or the situation any, but it is nice to know that I am only going to continue to be in trouble with this stupid, pointless, not-actually-doing-anything slack policy. So any guesses as to how long it will be before the water test dummies will be told that they will no longer be allowed to ride?

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MF&WTer said:
Oh well, I guess we like to kill ourselves with fatty foods and tobacco.

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So if I eat healthy and don't smoke I will become immortal? I gotta die sometime, I might as well enjoy those little things while I can.

jwhoogs, I have a 38 waist and a bit of a gut, and can get the seat belt to fasten. Remember two important facts:

#1: The seat belt only goes half way around. So in theory, if you are 54" around the hips, the belt ought to fit. In practice, it's a bit more complicated than that, as it really goes a little more than halfway around, more or less, depending also on how wide you are. The sides of the seat are 19" apart. If you are narrower than that, then the belt goes around less than half of you; if you are wider, it has to wrap around the outside.

#2: The seat belt does not go around the waist, it goes across the lap.

The measurement I took is from the point where the belt crosses the edge of the seat on the inboard side to the buckle, then another 2-3" added for the length of the buckle and the distance from the back of the buckle to the edge of the seat. The belt, of course, extends down further than that on both sides because it is bolted to the sides of the seat. But that part should have little or no bearing on 'fit' so while for the park it is critical to making sure the belts are the right length, for us it doesn't matter at all.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Upon review of the CP safety policy on the website, I have found the following statement:

You may enter a ride via the exit to ensure the restraints function properly prior to waiting in line. We have test seats at Millennium Force, Raptor, Top Thrill Dragster and Wicked Twister.

Perhaps we should all pile into the exit all at the same time just to make a check before we actually wait in line? Would this get the point across to the officials?

Shadow

Thanks RideMan for your help I'll take my chances and come to cp and try to ride

pretty soon it gonna go to four oinches of slack. then six. then finally, a full foot of slack...

seems like the ride ops are just making it up as they go along, with no real orders or direction.

thanks Rideman, for taking the measurements. i really hope someone saw you doing that. it might help get the point across....

BTW, RideMan, what did they do to you on Sunday to make you so angry??

Wow,

I have read through this entire thread and I had no idea of the magnitude of this issue.

My first thought is that in response to the death at Superman, Cedar Fair had to do SOMETHING in order to appease the insurers, media, public, etc. Doing nothing would be just asking for trouble. Imagine just for a moment that someone DID fall out of a CP Intamin ride after the Superman death. It would be a field day for the media and a record setting lawsuit, I'm sure.

The question is what to do? This whole issue of one inch showing on the surface sounds like a good idea. I agree that the belt is the only way to truly measure. Why don't they make that last inch of the belt some type of alternate color like orange? Then, it would not be a judgement call by the ride ops. Either all of the orange is showing or isn't.

In addition, it sounds like they need to do some emergency sensitivity training. I have been in the position of these ride ops where I had to turn away riders who couldn't be restrained. There is a way that can be done so as to minimize the embarassment.

I don't want to make excuses for Peggy but her apparent abrupt response to some certainly doesn't sound like her to me so I have to assume this has been an overwhelming issue for her. This is a no-win situation for her though because it sounds like the bottom line is that some who could previously ride these coasters no longer can and there is nothing that she can say to minimize the disappointment that folks will feel.

I have to disagree with you. This is still a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that doesn't exist.

Want to do something meaningful? Measure the belts on the New England ride. The state did, and the belt on the seat the guy fell from was 11 inches longer. Do any belts on MF deviate that much? Of course not!

This could very well go down as the single most stupid thing the park has ever done.

hey, guys..

why not just reroute your belt UNDER the seat bar when you get on the ride??

we used to do that all the time and no ops ever said anything. i plan on doing that if i can. might get me enough room to fit my OBVIOULY extreme size of 5ft 6in and 140 lbs in...unless they check for that now...

are they permanently attatched to the bars now??

Jeff makes a good point about the excess length of the belts at SF. CP's belt's are most definately more uniform than that.

Servo- that's what I've done on all my rides so far this year. The belt may want to go over the bar, but I'm so used to grabbing it under that bar that I still just grab the base of it and pull it though.

I absolutely agree Jeff. I haven't read the entire report regarding the SROS incident but like I said in an earlier post Millennium Force's safety record should speak for itself. If SROS was at The Point I doubt the death would have happened.
I had a vivid dream last night that we were on Shivering Timbers and the whole time we were climbing the lift hill I was trying to get my belt fastened. Sorry, had to mention that.

The way I understand it, state law says that you have to follow the manufacturers recommendations, and Intamin has apparently said to use this policy. I'm sure we can all understand that. The problem is that John Q. Guest could care less... it's Cedar Point that accepts your admission ticket and puts you on the ride. I don't think I'm entirely willing to just shift the blame to Intamin.

Although this does raise an interesting point about Intamin. Do they really even know what the lengths of the belts are on their various rides? 11" sure is a big difference from one seat to another.

If Intamin doesn't know I guess they better get eductated and check all of belts on their hypers personally. Do you think SFNE got tired of turning away riders because of size so they increased the belt length that much? Could they do that without Intamin's knowledge?
I am kind of confused when people talk about rerouting the belt. Servo, when you say "seat bar" are you talking about the lap bar or something else?

I don't think I am going to side one way or the other with the new policy. The issue in my opinion is one of implementation.

I suspect there is nothing operations folks could do about the policy itself. I am sure they were told, "this is what you are going to do."

So, with that, you now have to find a way to implement it fairly, accurately, and compassionately. If they are going to stick with this "one inch must show" then I think the easiest thing to do is mark that one inch on the belt with some type of color. That way an operator cannot be accused of eyeballing in error. We all know that many people have many different ideas of what 6 inches is.

They better damn well be certain that the test seat measures as accurately as possible to what is on the trains.

Next, they better come up with a way to address all of the people who are going to be very unhappy about this. The first thing to do is to NOT make matters worse by demeaning the affected people. I wonder if Jack Falfas or Bill Spehn (both formerly of CP) can now ride those attractions. They are pretty big guys. Maybe they should be involved in the discussion as to how to implement this policy. Unfortunately, no matter how "nice" the ride operators are when it comes down to it people aren't going to be able to ride because of their size and that is embarassing. We have all seen kids cry becaue they were too short. It shouldn't come as a surprise that adults will be upset or angry because they are too big.

Finally, I do think they are going to have to measure how many people this ultimately affects and come up with some type of cheaper ticket for folks who can't ride. How that would be implemented is anyone's guest but the fact remains that American's keep getting bigger. If you don't address this issue you are going to be alienating a lot of potential customers and THAT is bad for business. *** Edited 5/17/2004 2:57:02 PM UTC by Chief Wahoo***

macho nachos. i mean the apparatus on the seat that seems like na arm rest. it has space in it where it would be possible to pass the seat belt through it instead of letitng it go over it.

going over it shortens the belt DRAMATICALLY.

also, anyone can tell you that LEGTHENING the belts by oh say, four inches, would give the ride ops something toREALLY GRAB onto and really yank hard on. and the guests would have an easier time too.

why not lengthen the belts and then make sure the ops pull them as tight as possible?? seems to me like having more to work with would make it easier and allow more people to ride. only having an inch of extra fabric to pull on really makes it hard to work with.

you know, like when your shoelaces are too short to get good leverage??

lengthening the belts wouldnt need to mean that heavier people can ride...it would just mean ease of adjustment.

When was the belt ever meant to go over the sides of the seat?

Wahoo: I think you're overlooking the bigger issue: Intamin is doing this as a CYA move that does not in fact make the ride any safer. I'm not an expert, but I can tell you from experience sitting in those uncomfortable seats between reloads on a TV shoot that someone average like me, even with a 38" waist, can't get out of the ride. When you get bored sitting there locked down, you start to experiment and think about such things.

Cedar Point's correct action is, "Intamin: If your seats are unsafe you had better replace them post-haste, and make sure our guests can ride them. If you can't do that, I don't think we'll be purchasing any more $25 million rides from you.

Of course, after (during) the Dragster nonsense, I wouldn't buy any rides from them anymore, period.

Well, nothing about insurance companies makes sense to me but I suspect they are intimately involved in this issue.

I think it is the appearance of action more than action itself that is the goal. McDonald's is going to stop it's "Super-sizing" but doesn anyone for a minute believe that is going to help the American society lose weight? Of course not. But it is the appearance that they are doing something which they are trying to achieve. Sort of like "Caution: The hot coffee in this cup may, in fact, be hot."

I guess they could close the ride and inconvenience ALL of the guests until a permanent solution is created but that isn't likely going to happen. In the meantime, they better get things together with whatever temporary solution they go for.

Maybe this is a little obvious to mention but emailing the park and stating our displeasure at watching customers(especially repeat customers) being turned away couldn't hurt. I know I have.

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Jeff said:
When was the belt ever meant to go over the sides of the seat?]

thats EXACTLY my point, Jeff...

the belt was NEVER meant to go over the side of the seat. but from what i am hearing, unless you KNOW its not supposed to be that way (as most of us do), CP can route them over the sides of the seats and no one will be the wiser.

this, of course, effectively shortens that belt, allowing for no room at all for a larger rider. in a way, they are shortneing the belts without having to physically make changes to the trains. cheap and simple, yet somewhat exploitive of the fact that John Q Guest doesnt KNOW the belts can (and should) go under the sides of the seats...

kinda questionable, IMO. but a good way to get rid of those "potentially dangerous larger riders", no?

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*** Edited 5/17/2004 5:22:04 PM UTC by servo***

How is the test seat currently routed?