NEW Policy with MF seatbelts?

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

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No. More like sneaky than questionable and just plain wrong because they are getting rid of a lot more folks than just the "potentially dangerous larger riders."

servo,

the op's are still routing the seatbelts through the sides of the seat and around the rider. Not over the lapbar. I'm not sure what made you think the were fastening it any other way. Somewhere you must have gotten confused in this mess of a thread.

no, i knew exactly what i meant.

the belt has NEVER gone over the lapbar.

i meant over the arm rest type thingys on the seats...

and cyberdman, SNEAKY was the EXACT word i was looking for, but my brain fog wouldnt let me find it!!

wrong is a good word too. this is wrong on SO MANY levels i cant even count...

and i totally forgot to put a (sarcasm) after my larger riders comment...

apologies all around if i accidentally offended...

No worries servo, I got you loud and clear. I like your new avatar too. :)

Ok, now I’m a little worried about myself being able to ride MF and TTD when a few of us will make the 11 hour journey out to CP in July. I’d like some clarification from the people that say they have a 36” waist – is that a 36” from Levis standard or is that the actual measurement?? I wear a 34” Levis waist and I have in the back of my mind that I will not be able to ride MF or TTD. I’m not a “fat” person I’m just muscular with very little fat on my body. As far as the policy, I think it’s ridiculous I think we should get a petition going and have people sign it and send it over to CP to show how many be are very upset about this. Ah well, let me get back to running my 6 – 10 miles a day and hopefully I’ll be able to loose a couple inches in the waist so I can ride MF and TTD when I make the trip out to CP in July.

What it really comes down to is this...

Either the way the ride has operated for the past four years is safe, or it isn't.

If it is safe, then they don't need to go changing procedures just because someone at some park 600 miles away did something wrong and resulted in a fatal incident.

If it is not safe, then there is an engineering issue that needs to be addressed. If there is a flaw in the seat design, then they need to stop horsing around, shut down the ride, and fix it. Tightening seat belts, stepping on lap bars, and all the other nonsense that is going on right now isn't helping matters any.

They need to do the analysis, figure out under what precise conditions a rider can come out of the seat, and correct for that case. What they are doing right now doesn't correct anything at all.

I mean, look at the mechanics of the situation. The belt goes around your thighs, even though odds are that it isn't your thighs that are preventing you from getting the lap bar down. The lap bar won't come down against your thighs either because it's tight against your stomach or because it's tight against your crotch. Either way, what the belt is effectively measuring is not what is keeping the lap bar from functioning.

Which, of course, begs the question: Why are they doing it?

Either there is a problem with the seats and lap bars, or there isn't. If there is a problem, fix it. If there is no problem, stop pretending that a problem exists before this turns into a bigger debacle than Ticket to Ride.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

ok servo, so you meant over the "arm rest type thingys". When did anybody say they were putting the seatbelts over the arm rests? The seatbelt is routed around the rider the same as they have been, only now they want it pulled tighter. Nobody is being sneaky about anything. (except maybe the ride ops that are letting folks ride without following the new policy)

Rihard - You haven't been around MF much then, eh? What servo is referring to is the steel seatback bracing on either side of the seats outer most lower portion. Not being routed directly to the seats when there is significant clearance between the seat and these bars is the first problem. The slack rule is the second.

Dave,

I don't want to come off as a smart a$$ but either the coffee at McDonald's was unsafe for what...50 years...or one idiot person who spilled coffee in her lap convinced a jury full of idiots to give her millions of dollars to reward her clumsy hands...ruined it for everyone.

I think Intamin has to do something to keep the insurance companies happy. If they do nothing and there is another accident then the million dollar lawsuit could become a billion dollar lawsuit. I just don't know if what they are asking...no telling...the parks to do makes any sense.

Either way, the parks apparently have to oblige at this point and Cedar Fair is dealing with a weighty (pun only somewhat intended) problem.

Ok, cyberdman. That makes more sense to me. I doubt that I was the only one confused.

Wahoo, I agree. Since when does making something safer mean that it has always been unsafe? (I know some of you don't think the new policy is making anything safer.) Safty will always be improved upon, that was the point I was trying to make earlier when I mentioned all of the other changes that have occured to CP's rides.

Except that, with the possible exception of what they did to the Blue Streak trains in '96, the changes Cedar Point has made to their rides and their operations have had demonstrable safety, operational, and/or maintenance benefits. The way they are going right now, they have come up with a procedure which adds difficulty to maintenance and operations, and offers no apparent safety benefit over compliance with the existing operational procedures. As someone who has had to deal with more of this kind of nonsense from Cedar Point than most of us, Richie, I'd think you'd have noticed that.

Or did you have too much of the Kool-Ade at the commissary over the past half-dozen years? :)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

thank you cyberdman....

not being an engineer or even someone with any sort of technical vocabulary, i was having lots of trouble describing what i was talking about.

thanks on the avatar too!!!

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RideMan said:
Which, of course, begs the question: Why are they doing it?

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Because they were told they had to.

But like I said... I doubt the public cares who made the decision.

I posted this over at CoasterBuzz. Thought I'd drop it here as well . .

I won't comment on the size/weight discrimination issue. However, it is worth noting that the two Intamin Mega Coasters located in Europe, Expedition GeForce and Goliath, operate with strict restrictions regarding rider size/weight. Both rides feature the newer, "more accommodating" curved T-bar, yet the rider restrictions for these coasters are not unlike the rules now in effect at MF.

Case in point:
A few larger ACE members were turned away from EGF at Holiday Park while taking part in ACE's European Coaster Odyssey 2002. These were people who had never previously been refused rides on similar Intamin coasters in the States.

Two questions come to mind. Has Intamin failed to properly communicate the rider restrictions for their Mega/Giga Coasters to American parks? Or, have American parks "bent the rules" regarding Intamin's prescribed rider restrictions?

Yes Dave. I’ve had to deal with some pretty stupid decisions that have come down from management. I was there when we got the phone call telling us to only load the left side of the MF trains. I was there when we first got instructions to assign seats at MF and not allow anyone to wait for the front seat. I was also there for the entire Ticket-To-Ride fiasco( I still have some leftovers by the way, if anyone would like a few). But even though this is an operational nightmare, and is excluding a vast majority of money spending guests, I still have to take the side of management on this one.

Park management that I spoke with over the weekend said that the requirement comes from Intamin. And as you know, CP has to comply.

Is the ride safer now with the new rule? I think so. Is it horrible PR? Absolutely. But until Intamin, CP, CP’s lawyers, and insurance companies come up with another fix, we are just going to have to live with it. At least the ride is running while they figure things out.

I expect that the next time CP builds a ride, they will do everything that they can to make certain, as many guests as possible are able to ride it.

Edit:Some typo's. Kool-aid? It's something in the water.

*** Edited 5/17/2004 10:41:56 PM UTC by Rihard 2000***

I certainly can't disagree with RideMan about all he's said regarding this policy not making the ride any safer, but ... it seems the reaction of most posters here and over at Coasterbuzz is CP is doing this just to tick people off. C'mon - does that make any sense? What Jeff suggests rings true - Intamin has sent word down the line, no doubt trying desperately to cover their you-know-whats over the latest "incident".

Chief Wahoo deserves kudos for noting the role insurance companies play in all this. As I've said several times in the past, they have have far more influence over the day-to-day runnings of an amusement park than people would ever think. Higher insurance premiums (and you can bet rates go up after every accident, even for parks with the safety record of CP) means higher ticket prices. No insurance means no park. Does MF running safely for four years matter that much to CP's insurers? They don't insure for what hasn't happened, but what could happen - and in this case, perception is reality. Three people have died in the past couple of years riding Intamin rides with restraints similar to MF's. I'm sure they're panicking in the boardrooms in Switzerland, and I'm damn sure Cedar Fair's insurers have had long conversations with the People In Charge. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point a discussion didn't take place over whether or not just to shut the rides down indefinately.

Remember, I ain't saying this policy makes sense, and I agree it doesn't seem to be making things any safer for anyone. But, to me, CP's really stuck between the proverbial rock (lawyers/insurance companies/Intamin) and a hard place (paying customers).

I sure don't see an easy way out ...

But again... what good does passing the buck do for customers? It's like when you take your car into the shop and the shop blames their mechanic for not getting your car to work. Do you care who is ultimately responsible? Of course you don't.

As the park gets more busy the situation will get worse. If they don't state their intentions to resolve the issue, it will blow up in their face, and it won't mean a hill of beans that they're operating under an Intamin directive (not anymore than the public cared if Intamin was at fault for Dragster downtime).

I'd like to see it fixed too. The last thing we need is another Ticket To Ride.

Does anyone have a pic of the two different ways the seatbelt can be routed? I'd like to the it.

I recall Monty Jasper talking at CoasterMania, describing that the Intamin seats have two different locks on the lap bar. The seatbelt would just be another backup.

If the seatbelts are snug, and the lap bar is snug, I do not see where there is a big problem.

If you are extemely huge in body size, then the lap bar wouldn't be able to come down properly anyway. I think if you can get the think buckled and the lapbar comes down to secure you, then there isnt a problem. But as you guessed it, I am no expert.

I have held back going to the point as often as I used to due to this policy. I think that if everyone who is concerned with it sent off an email, CP would know how big their problem actually is. I know many of us have already sent off letters, but if the park starts hearing that they will lose customers and repeat customers due to faulty seats, restraints, ops, or policy, I would imagine they would be smart enough to put a fix in place.

We aren't just talking about big people here, but seemingly average people too.

I hope CP and Intamin come to some resolve to this fiasco soon.

Jeff - I agree. I guess what I'm saying is CP's in a really tough spot, one they obviously haven't figured a way out of yet. Someone somewhere has panicked - which often happens when people die - and decisions made while panicking are rarely well thought-out.

One of the things I always tell new employees at my work is - when faced with a crisis, don't just do something, stand there.

Jeff, look at this thread. It already is another Ticket to Ride. The only thing that has saved them so far is that it's only the second week of operation.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.