The "bottom" line...?

Someone didn't die with the same restraints. Someone died because the restraints were not checked, and the train was allowed to leave the station without the restraints being in place. It wouldn't have mattered if it was Superman, or Magnum, or Millennium, the guy was going to fall out of that train.

The problem with tying it into the ride control system is that there is no tie in between the trains and the station. I guess something could be used to transmit a signal via radio waves, but then you have to worry about someone on that frequency being able to mess with the controls (which would be bad). Its a nice idea (and hopefully someone comes up with something), but the implementation isn't that simple.

Skyhawk actually uses wireless communication to tell the control system about the status of the restraints. Since the MF and TTD trains get power while in the station, no reason a similar system couldn't be developed.

Hmm, I was unaware of that.

Ok, so I guess wireless could be developed.

No one forgot that someone died, but it wasn't the restraint that failed. It was the rider and the ride ops that failed. I am not going to go back and reread the whole story, but I think the guy had ridden Superman more than a few times before the accident.

Joe E said:
Nesdude, I take it you fit in the test seat but were turned away from the ride?

Aye, that's exactly what happened. Got in the test seat, took 30 seconds, buckled and got the slack. Asked the ride op to confirm if it was enough, he said yes, I got in line. 45 minutes later, I'm up at the red train, my friends behind me. Got it buckled, no matter what I did I couldn't get the slack. The walk of shame started, tad embaressed that my friends had to watch, although I knew it would of been close.

Without going into specifics (I don't want anyone to lose a job over this), the ride op who saw me fit the test seat called me back onto the unload platform. He led me to "everyone's favorite seat" on the red train. In this seat, not only could I buckle it, I had a little more than an inch of slack. It was a good ride on Millennium Force and the ride op did more then I could of ever asked for. It was an incredibly generous thing to do, and I thanked him for that, even wrote a comment at Guest Relations for him.

Mark Small said:
And while I don't have a problem on TTD, there are differences in seat belt lengths there too... The purple train for example has much shorter belts than red/green/blue/gold, and black cherry is in between. I've pulled almost 1 1/2" of slack more on all the trains except purple.

Ha! So there IS a difference. I fit the test seat A-OK on that one, had plenty of slack (at least an inch) and waited for the hour grind, then got in the Purple train and had a hell of a time getting it buckled. The ride op asked me if I ever rode this before, I said yes and that I fit the test seat. A little shuffling of the belt got the slack, but I was worried for a second. I rode the Black Cherry the first time and had no problems with the belt. Thanks for sharing that.

Back OT, I don't understand the belt/restraint logic either, but as long as the next generation of rides has some sort of system in place that makes the seatbelt the "second" instead of "first" line of safety a la halltd's example, I'm all for it.

-nesdude

From what I have seen, CP rider operators are very good at monitoring restraints.

I rode the Mine Ride with my son in June of this year. I have long legs and those cars do not have a lot of legroom. I sat down and fastened the seatbelt with my knees apart rather than off to the same side. Before they put the bar down, I realized that that my inside leg would be on the opposite of the t-bar. But I didn't get a chance to unfasten the belt and move my leg back before the t-bar was put down. I din't really think anything of it. When I was a kid, I do not remember the Mine Ride having seatbelts at all and if there was a height limit, it must have been 36 inches because that was always your first coaster while the Blue Streak was typically your first real coaster. And if anything, I figured riding that way would be even safter because its pretty much impossible to get out of the car with one leg on each side of the t-bar.

The ride op checking the restraints did not say anything about it so I didn't worry about it. However, as the train rolled out of the station, I noticed that the ride ops near the ride controls at the front of the car/station were looking down every row as the train rolled by and when they saw my row, they definitely noticed.

I continued to thing nothing of it until we got to the lift hill at which time the train stopped with the front car or two heading up the hill. At first I thought the ride had stopped to adjust the timing of the trains (but that is pretty much always from what I remember on the second chain hill rather than the first). Then I thought about the t-bar and said, "Nah, it can't be." But sure enough, one of the ride ops came running through the tunnel and around the track to my car. He apologized saying they should have caught the t-bar before the train let the station. He unlocked the bars and made me move both legs to one side of the bar and the ride resumed.

I still do not think there was any safety issue. However, I will give it to the ride ops that they saw a situation that was against their protocol and stopped the ride and corrected it.

Tank, we hope that the restraints don't keep you from riding Maverick. Coasterqueen and I really know how you feel as she had to take " The walk" on Dragster in '04. It was a wake up call for her and she lost 100 pounds and was able to ride both TTD and MF later that year. Don't give up as we are here for your support. You came a long way as it seems so keep up the good work.

CoasterJoe said:
I am really sick of these topics. These rides can handle some pretty large people. If you are one of those people that can't fit on the rides then you need to stop complaining about them, blaming the ride creators and parks and look in the mirror and consider a lifestyle change.

Your an .

coasterking, great response. We need to have another party next year. My wife can make a "Maverick Cake" LOL.

*** Edited 9/10/2006 1:35:37 AM UTC by Mikeybo2004***
*** Edited 9/10/2006 11:49:03 AM UTC by Walt***

Thanks a lot guys! I hope to ride, but if not, I'll always have the Magnum. Stopped in for a quick CP visit today after my brother's wedding! Dragster was down, so Magnum had a line. About a 15 minute wait. Got 3 rides in today before leaving town.

A Pointbuzz Picinic on opening day next year? I'm in! You bring the dogs & THE CHILI and my daughter will make those "incredible" brownies again.

I know this is a CP site, but here's some news. My wife (of 2 weeks now) went to LV for honeymoon, I made her agree to a stop at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Her and I both fit on all rides...without any issues. Her and I went to Geauge Lake last year (most coasters build when owned by Premier Parks), we both fit all rides...without any issues. I can still make it on MF (I'm 6'1, 250), she struggles. She's less than me. But she has wide hips. NOT OVERWIEGHT. I've had to punt a couple of time while her and I walked off MF, and stepped away from TTD line entry because of her hips. Correction. Her hips aren't the issue. It's the location of the Intamin seatbelt/armrest issue. How can we both have good times away from OUR favorite park, yet come "home" and get screwed out of a ride? Many people have this beef. I wish it would be fixed soon. I wanna ride TTD and I'm tired of being a good husband! By the way, Tastu is a kick ass ride! (Go ahead and yell now.)

I'm sorry about the length of this post, but I think that I have some good points, so I hope that you will take the time to read it.

Scroog468, that is the point that I make every time that I visit one of these sites. With the exception of Skyhawk and hopefully Maverick, it seems that since 1994 (the year of Raptor) the general trend in Cedar Point rides has been to become less and less accomodating. Raptor was the first ride that I ever couldn't ride. That is unquestionably (in my case) my fault. I could ride Mantis when it was introduced, but haven't tried it since they added the seatbelts. Rides with these types of over the shoulder harnesses that connect to seat belts tend to be difficult for me. MaxAir is the worse case scenario, where the little squares at the top of each restraint hit me in the shoulder blades (I seem to have a tall upper body and short legs for my height). This year I didn't bother trying Corkscrew either since I figured that the seat belt would just miss connecting. I have never had a ride with a lap bar that I couldn't ride until Millenium Force came along. Then TTD followed which I also can not ride. (And I did ride rides like to Flight of Fear and Son of Beast at PKI when I weighed more than I do today)

Now, I can understand that rides need to be made safe. What I don't understand is why I can ride every (non modified) ride at Cedar Point (kiddie rides the exception) that was built before Raptor. Since Raptor, the park has added only Skyhawk that I can consistently ride without having nervousness that I won't fit.

That does leave some great rides for me to ride, but I have to admit that I would like to ride some of the newer ones. Although I can lose weight and ride most everything, I still wonder if I will ever be able to make it on TTD or MF.

I believe that this problem is most likely part of Cedar Point's attendance woes. I purposely avoided going to the park to see new additions ever since MF was built. Each year, I would see an exciting new attraction and assume that I wouldn't be able to ride it anyway. I have a hard time believing that there are not other people out there like me.

I have been heavy all my life and (since I have been working on the problem) now don't mind saying out loud that I am addicted to food. I have always had a theory that my obsession with food was born out of always wanting to be someone that I wasn't and being jealous of other students and celebraties. I believe that my problem is very closely related to bulimia and have sought help, but unfortunately Binge Eating Disorder is only now starting to be noticed as a legitimate problem. I have the additional difficulty in the fact that I am male and the information about eating disorders always seems to focus on women making it sound like it would be strange for a man to have this type of problem

When I see kids today, I see more and more of them being heavy at a young age. The minority that was me is becoming common. This is a problem in the United States that we can hopefully conquer over time, but in the mean time, I truly believe that Cedar Point will continue to alienate more and more customers as time goes on. That is, unless, a change is made. I do have evidence of this from the fact that this was my first trip to Cedar Point where (as I watched MaXair) a man told me about how his teenage football player son couldn't fit into many of the rides in the park. His son had a two day pass to Cedar Point and was so discouraged that he went to Soak City while the younger kids in the family enjoyed rides on MF - etc... The father was religated to watching his kids have fun (since he also couldn't ride) and the teenager in question had told his mother and father that he didn't even want to come back to Cedar Point the next day. (Don't try to tell a teenager that it is okay because he can still ride Magnum and Gemini and watch all of the shows) Of course, looking at younger kids in that family, in a few years they will not be able to ride the big rides either. How likely is that party of six to come back to Cedar Point next year?

This year's trip was my first back to the Point in five years. I'm hoping to lose enough weight by next spring that I will want to go back to the park again in the spring. But, for those of you who don't have this problem, every day is a struggle. It is like being an alcoholic, except that the area that I live in doesn't have a group to help me like alcoholics have AA. If I couldn't ride anything, I would just say that the park and ride manufacturers can't do anything about this situation. But years and years of older, more accomodating rides shows me that they could. Like someon said earlier, Cedar Point is not a fat camp and it is not smart for business to blame the customer even if it is our fault.

Sorry for the long rant. I've wanted to say this stuff for a long time and decided to finally make the time to do it.

The real bottom line is that seatbelts on coasters are dumb. The Anton loopers have a lapbar that is very accomodating and safely operates without a seatbelt. I don't recall any of those rides even needing a test seat. If you go to SF:GAm, you will find tons of coasters there with no seatbelts. Seatbelts don't make any coasters safer. What they do do is satisfy some laywer or insurance agent that does not give a flying flip about capacity or rejecting customers and does not understand what makes a coaster safe. They just want to cover their butts so they say "have a seatbelt" so they can say they said "have a seatbelt" if something happens. They don't even care if something happens. They just want to be able to go around saying, "I said have a seatbelt" if something does happen. If anyone needs a life-style change, the people at Intamin and CP need to change their acceptance of employees and business associates that have an ignorant like it or lump it approach, and find some people that can figure out how to offer a better product. The life styles of their customers is really none of their business. If most parks and most ride manufactures can get it right, then there is really no good excuse for Intamin and CP. *** Edited 9/10/2006 10:16:44 PM UTC by Front Seat Rider***

I think coasters need seatbelts. Its a secondary means of safety. If the restraint fails, the seatbelt is there to keep you in place. On huge coasters like the ones that are created now, I think they're imperative.

You sound like an insurance agent. You better go tell B&M that their hyper coasters are not safe. Please go save us all.

Appolo's Chariot at Busch Gardens Williamsburg does not have seatbelts. It about same height/speed as Magnum although a lot smoother.

Exactly. If other manufacturers can make their rides safe without the need for seatbelts, why hasn't Intamin figured it out. And with the amount of money that CP has spent on Intamin rides, they should have the clout to force them to make some changes.

I was at SFOT this weekend, and was glad to get back to ride Titan. This ride has some serious ejector air, and only has lapbars. Did I feel unsafe? Not in the least.

I agree with Tim. I think seatbelts should continue to be implemented along with lapbars/OTSR's. Its not simply a matter of safety, but the perception of safety.

Also, things do fail sometimes. Personally, I'd prefer a redundant restraint system that may or may not exclude a few potential riders over a single-restraint system that has the potential to injure or kill a rider.

I too had to do the "Walk of Shame" one night. The first night after I arrived a cp last year to be an employee they had a ride night on "Millie." After that, the next time I tried was about two moths later, after working and walking around the park for a month and a half. I fit first shot. Let me tell you, the wait made it all the sweeter.

In an interview I watched, I believe it was Monty Jasper who said that both the lap bar and seatbelt need to fail twice, so that there would need be a total of four safety failures in order for an incident to occur, which would be very unlikely.

Can you explain that please? It doesn't make sense to me. If the lap bar opens and the seat belt comes loose, you fall out. How can they fail twice? I'm confused. *** Edited 9/11/2006 7:24:06 PM UTC by halltd***