Safety Overkill?

I've been going to CP all my life and while spending much of my summer there last year, I noticed what seems to be an excessive amount of time spent on seat belts, lap bars, harnesses, etc. Even the kiddie rides, the ones that barely move, have not only a seat belt, but a key that the rider must insert into each and every one, each ride cycle. This makes it take like 10 minutes to cycle the little kids rides with the umbrellas over them that make all that obnoxious noise.

Now this winter we went to Disney. Not only do they not have the seat belt keys at Disney, but no seat belts either for the most part. Just pull down lap bars. On larger rides, like space mountain, they just have a lap bar. They do not physically check each one, they just ask you to pull up on it before they start the ride.

This makes for a MUCH more enjoyable experience and much faster ride times. Especially in the kiddie area. Many a time we spent an hour and the kids only get to ride a handful of rides. I remember being a kid and riding everything in that area many times in short order.

I'm not advocating doing anything unsafe. I just wonder why Disney is one way, and CP another. Maybe it's the communist government in Ohio with regulations, I dunno...

In Ohio, the ride operator must follow all operating procedures of the manufacturer. I'm not sure if it is the same in Florida, but I would imagine it is.

Here's the difference though, whereas Cedar Point buys all their rides from manufacturers, Disney designs, builds and installs all their own rides. So, they are the manufacturer. They are able to better design the ride based on how they want the operation to run.

^ Diamondback at KI has a great system. Just pull down on the lap bar, no seat belts. Then two workers go down each side extremely quickly pushing on each one.

They have a ton of horrible rides too for checking, but it can't get a whole lot easier than Diamondback. Perhaps Cedar Fair has learned. Does anyone know how the new intimidators are?

Intimidator at Carowinds has the classic B&M shell lapbars.

Intimidator 305 at Kings Dominion has over the shoulders like the ones on Fahrenheit at Hershey Park.

I think B&M has come up with the best lapbar system out there. It is reliable and is very easy to check. It also adds to the thrill because it is so minimal in design.

JuggaLotus said:
In Ohio, the ride operator must follow all operating procedures of the manufacturer. I'm not sure if it is the same in Florida, but I would imagine it is.

If what you're saying is true, why the change over a 30 year period since I was a kid? Did the dodgems manufacturer (as an example) change their procedure? ALL the kids rides have this process. It's really annoying. I wish I had not seen how great it can be at Disney. Ignorance is bliss!

pointperson said:
It is reliable and is very easy to check. It also adds to the thrill because it is so minimal in design.

I totally agree. While on Diamondback I couldn't help but think "man, this is all that's holding me in!" That thought really stays in the back of your mind. Not having a seatbelt is great.

ok so everyone will say its over kill till something happens, one of the corner stones of cedar point is safety. Now is the amount of extra time it takes to check a lap bar really worth it?

CP/PKIdude said:
ok so everyone will say its over kill till something happens, one of the corner stones of cedar point is safety. Now is the amount of extra time it takes to check a lap bar really worth it?

I don't mind the checking of the lap bar. No biggie. It's the redundant safety systems that bug me, especially the little round kiddie rides which used to have NO restraint. What's next, a five point harness??

Besides, if a little kid stands up on the ride, and falls out, he deserves whatever happens, right? Standing up on a moving ride would have never entered my mind as a kid.

yea but its still a kid, someones child and well its better to have that kid straped in a five point harness than to see a mother mourn the loss of her child. Cedar Point does everything for a reason and just because you didnt think about it as a child doesnt mean every child would never do it.

It seems like some of us don't care about safety, but for a quicker wait.

CP/KPIdude made a great point, do you really want to risk your safety for a couple of extra minutes. If anything, It should make you feel comfortable that a ride op checks your seatbelt and not just have you "pull it up"

The only thing I find a little over-protetive is the key thing for little kids rides.

The only thing I find a little over-protetive is the key thing for little kids rides.

It was the kiddie ride thing that prompted me to post this. The other stuff was thrown in just as examples, perhaps inappropriately so.

I don't recall any Disney kid ride deaths or injuries, which makes me think the CP redundant safety device thing on kids rides is really overkill.

MagnumFan said:
Now this winter we went to Disney. Not only do they not have the seat belt keys at Disney, but no seat belts either for the most part. Just pull down lap bars. On larger rides, like space mountain, they just have a lap bar. They do not physically check each one, they just ask you to pull up on it before they start the ride.

That is how Cedar Point used to do it. "Pull up on your safety bar to ensure that it is locked".

JuggaLotus said:
Here's the difference though, whereas Cedar Point buys all their rides from manufacturers, Disney designs, builds and installs all their own rides. So, they are the manufacturer. They are able to better design the ride based on how they want the operation to run.

Well, not entirely true.... Disney buys off-the-shelf ride systems, but makes enough modifications to them to then have WDI listed as the manufacturer. California Screamin' was an Intamin designed and built coaster, but WDI overhauled the entire ride control and brake systems so that they could technically consider the ride one of "theirs."

The other issue here is insurance. You'll find fewer lap belts and lower minimum rider height requirements at Disney because Disney will pay the additional insurance required for those decisions. The extra belts added to rides at CP were likely the recommendation of the insurance inspector, and likely allowed for a better rate to cover.

Steven Patuna said:
It seems like some of us don't care about safety, but for a quicker wait... do you really want to risk your safety for a couple of extra minutes.

You sound like a politician, but ignore the real question: Does any of this stuff make the rides measurably safer?

Because anyone can make up statistics, I would guess that some things done in the name of safety make a ride 1% less likely to hurt you, when the odds were already one in 10 million. The keyed belts seem like just such an example, especially on some of the small whirl-n-hurl rides.

This is something I've always wondered about too.

In California, there is a rather large difference between Disneyland and Knott's (and Magic Mountain, too, from what I remember). I was very surprised at how fast Disneyland sends trains out on Big Thunder and Space Mountain, and how little double-checking there is. My *assumptions* have always been that

1) Disney has plenty of money to cover the 0.0001% chance that somebody will get hurt, and people continue to come in droves to Disney parks even when people DIE

2) Disney has enough money to put so many eyes on each ride that every person is being visibly checked several times before the trains are dispatched

3) the rides at Disney aren't usually built to record-breaking heights or speeds

I'd love to know the real answers, though.

On the other hand, California Screamin has some really annoying OTSRs.

edit:

PREMiERdrum said:

The other issue here is insurance... ...Disney will pay the additional insurance required for those decisions.

Thanks PremiereDrum, I hadn't quite thought of that.

Those safety belts on the children rides are stupid. I don't think they make the ride any safer. When they add doors to the ride kids can open them, when they add seat belts to the ride the child can unbuckle them, when they add the security cover on top of them they can use a hood string to open them. They are not doing anything really to ensure the child's safety. One thing they could do is have something that locks when the ride is in motion and unlocks when it isn't.

When reading the title of this thread I kinda laughed.. with 300+footers at the point, I think any safety precaution needed to be taken is necessary and is not a waste of time at all. If it takes 45 more seconds per train launch to reinsure that the fail-safe restraints are not going to unlock mid ride, that's okay by me personally.

coolkid2345 said:Those safety belts on the children rides are stupid. I don't think they make the ride any safer

The point of those are not necessarily to make the ride safer, but to keep a kid from jumping out while the ride is in motion (so I guess safer). I have seen it plenty of times where a child is put onto a ride and midway through, the kid does not like it anymore and wants to jump out. They are kids, you can't hardly say they deserve what they get because a 5 year old does not care about anything other then getting off the ride. I am not sure why anyone would want to complain about this unless they are spending a lot of time riding the kiddie rides. Unless these kind of buckles are on the larger flats, which I never ride so I don't know.

As for the overkill on other rides, I agree. While most are things the rides could go without, most are added because of some sort of incident. The incident does not necessarily have to happen at Cedar Point but it could happen on a similar ride at other park or another Cedar Fair park. Heck, I have seen safety protocol added to a ride because of an incident "almost" happening.

Its not just what is physically added to the ride that seems foolish, its sometimes in the way they change operations. For example, Magnum. Do Ride Ops really need to stand behind the pillars? I think if anything it impairs their ability to see whats happening in the train.

No not technically but at some point, a Ride Op was either careless or they were being lazy and not standing where they needed to be, thus leading to the "dots" you see on rides now. Maybe not on Magnum but on some ride and once you make a change in operation, it is implemented across the department.