Ride Safety

I wonder who will be the first loser to appear on CNN or other news source that the ride is too high, too fast, too many g's, too dangerous yadda yadda yadda.

"We were just looking for some Roy Wally entertainment; the moose says you are closed, I say you are open."

On Toledo 11 news last night they had some doctor lamenting on the "inherent dangers" associated with such speeds. He said he would be very concerned if his children were to ride it.
*** This post was edited by tambo 1/10/2003 10:12:00 AM ***

How fast does an airplane go? These "experts" are a bunch of idiots.

The Blade's article this morning also had a paragraph or two about the 'dangers' of G-forces on coasters. While they did include information about a study debunking such assertions, they interviewed a professor from BGSU and quoted him as saying that he would be apprehensive about riding it. Thing is, if you read his quote, it sounds like he's saying he wouldn't ride because it's intimidating, not because it's dangerous. The Blade once again quotes out of context.

Still, I enjoyed Ms. Witherow's appearance last night on Toledo 11's 5:30 newscast. She talked about how the NASA statistic is misleading, how you can experience more intense G's sneezing, etc.

Also, The Blade's photo today shows that the brake fins for the launch haven't been installed yet. I find that interesting, since Xcelerator's launch track was shipped with the fins pre-installed.

That doctor probably has no qualms however about the inherent dangers of cutting another person open, as long as he gets paid.

Those people can all go to heck. Although I do have to admit, this may be an exception to safe rides. Running 6 trains at once? Either they're going to throwing passengers in and out or the trains'll spend a bit of time on the launch sled.
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For the top chill, look to the Top Thrill.

Yeah, Cedar Point took the opportunity to build one last dangerous ride before the new ASTM standard kicks in. They'll keep a meatwagon on standby at the ride exit though, so that you won't have to trip over the bruised and bloodied bodies of the dead and wounded as you proceed to the ride...

I swear. Some people must actually believe that amusement park opeators wake up in the morning and think, "I wonder how many kids I can maim today..." Injuries are bad for business. You think parks don't know this already?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I'll bet the same critics moaning about amusement park rides are letting their kids play pee-wee football, which is a hell of a lot more dangerous than riding rollercoasters.

CPElevation said:
Those people can all go to heck. Although I do have to admit, this may be an exception to safe rides. Running 6 trains at once? Either they're going to throwing passengers in and out or the trains'll spend a bit of time on the launch sled.

What are you talking about!? Look how many rafts/boats/cars rides like Thunder Canyon, Whitewater Landing, and Wildcat run and have been running for years. More trains does not mean more danger. It's not as though they're going to have a dude in the station manually braking the ride or anything like that! :)

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew

It was figured out over at Slashdot that Dragster won't even hit 2 Gs. It's like 1.775 or something like that. You pull more G's plopping down in your chair.

The thing is that Gs are not fun. This seems to be a common misconception. Maybe a short burst of them, such as the high-G turn on Raptor (the last element) might be fun, but nothing sustained and nothing really high is fun. Speed is fun, height is fun, feeling like you weigh 500 pounds for a few seconds straight is not. Coaster designers know this. There's no real inherint danger here, except maybe going on it during bug season- that's gonna get nasty.
*** This post was edited by arearew 1/10/2003 2:37:15 PM ***

The max Gs on the launch using acceleration = velocity / time would be 1.37 g, which really isn't much. However, people seem to be overlooking the fact that the maximum Gs for the whole ride will be during the pullup/pullout, not the launch - if the radius of the pullup is 210 feet (they said on the official site that the twist starts 230 feet in the air, then you have to subtract the initial height of around 20 feet), we could be looking at a maximum of around 4.7 g. Of course, this is for a very short time... as the train goes farther up and slows down, the Gs will decrease, until eventually they are 0 g when the whole train is vertical.

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Dragster "Top Thrills": 0
World's first strata-coaster!
*** This post was edited by Majin Heero 1/10/2003 3:04:35 PM ***

HA, All this danger talk reminds me of the 1800's when people thought if you went over 10 miles an hour your blood would boil. All this stuff is silly and I don't know why the media has to make such a big deal over it.

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2000 CP & LE RR ATL
2001 White Water Landing TL
2002 Monster/WW TL
2003 TBA

There has been recent studies to see if roller coasters give you brain damage. And the conclusion is that you cannot get any brain problems just by riding coasters. Top Thrill may be high and fast, but its short. It won't kill your brain.

And remember you future mothers and fathers, never shake a baby!

Do we not jog over 10 miles an hour? People where/ are so stupid

Channel 5 here in Cleveland had their weather woman do a story on Dragster yesterday and safety aspects.

All of these people *****ing about G's and how fighter pilots sometimes get brain damage somehow seem to forget that pilots sustain high g's for tens of seconds on a regular basis. Coasters hit what is considered high G's for them for usually 1 to 2 seconds tops. Even the most obsessed coaster rider wouldn't get in a season what these pilots and astronauts get in a day or a launch. Yes,pre-existing conditions can be aggravated and sometimes deadly,but I think clear out of the blue brain damage from a coaster is ridiculous.

Has anyone seen what the restraints are going to be on the dragster yet??

I couldn't tell from video

no horse collers

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I'm not an old fogey, I'm just an old coaster rider..

The same restraints as Millennium Force.

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blasting off in 112 days...........

dont bother

Yes, same restraints as MF but they added the wrap around head rest.

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-Mike

The Fast and the Fearless

Majin Heero said:
The max Gs on the launch using acceleration = velocity / time would be 1.37 g, which really isn't much.

Actually, that's the average accellerational force. I'm sure the accelleration isn't constant, so the max force is probably higher, but not much higher.

True, the acceleration won't be perfectly constant, but I doubt it will vary too much.

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Dragster "Top Thrills": 0
World's first strata-coaster!