Will TTD operations be impacted by Knott's incident?

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." Ben Franklin

I fail to see how anyone (I'm looking at you, CougarFan) can make claims with any sort of certainty in either direction at this point. Even among those who are very well-versed in the situation, there are vastly differing opinions and projections.

As I see it, the largest and most concerning obstacle is financial. Not necessarily for people who would essentially be subsidizing others' health coverage, but for our government as a whole. I think its reasonable to assume that over time, we'd see a reduction in overall health care costs. I'm just not convinced that those savings (and others) would be enough to cover the overall cost.

That said, I think its interesting that our system is so expensive as-is, yet is comparatively awful compared to other nations with socialized medicine.

Actually, you can reduce your risk of getting cancer

It is impossible to avoid cancer. Many people do not get cancer because they do not live long enough to be afflicted with it.

Here is why. Our DNA replicates many times in our life. Our cells DNA have two little tails hanging off of them called telomeres. These technically determine how long we will live. They tell the cells how many times they can replicate. After each full replication phase a bit of these telomeres falls off. When they are completely gone cells stop replicating. If we could add to them we could in theory live forever. This is not the case, however, as in most people cell replication stops around the age of 30. If we could extend the telomeres, everyone would eventually die of a sort of cancer because everytime a cell replicates DNA is also copied and errors in the DNA replication will be inevitable. Smoking increases the chance of errors. Hell alot of things increase the chance of errors.

Don't always take the word of the American Cancer Society that predominately says smoking will cause cancer. In all fact your body itself can and will (if you live long enough) have an error in DNA replication which is the direct cause of cancer.

Similarly, if you have a 1:125,056,358 chance of dying via grilled cheese impalement, you'll die that way if you live long enough (and avoid other means of death, obviously).

Good point Dj. Longevity eventually will end in some sort of death. It just increases the odds.

djDaemon said:
Similarly, if you have a 1:125,056,358 chance of dying via grilled cheese impalement, you'll die that way if you live long enough (and avoid other means of death, obviously).

Well, you have a 1:1 chance of dying via being born in the first place. Life is, after all, the biggest cause of death.

Where did I put those peril-sensitive sunglasses?

We have the best healthcare in the world. There is a reason that the world's wealthiest folks, who can afford to go anywhere they desire, come here.

We have distribution/finance issues when it comes to healthcare.

We have an aging population with a wave of boomers on the brink of old age waiting to flood the system. That aging population will have an ever increasing need for healthcare.

We continue to develop more and more ways to prolong life. Thats a very good thing. But its also an expensive thing.

We have an obesity epedemic which is extremely costly in terms of medical care. And looking at kids in general under 10 years old, that is a problem that is only going to get much worse. Other countries are not dealing with that problem at this point (though some are starting to get there though we have such a head start and appear to be on such a pattern of growth at this point in terms of obesity that I am not sure they will ever catch up).

So with an ever increasing number of old folks with an ever increasing number of health problems and an ever increasing number of ways of treating those health problems, we are going to be able to give everyone all the medical care they will ever need (without (1) rationing care or (2) pay trillions and trillions that we simply don't have)? Da plane, da plane....

TTD 120mph said:
If you say that you know the odds are great (which they are) but refuse to ride it because you think it's unsafe, then you must not trust the odds. It sounds a bit contradictive to me.

I'm not saying the odds are great. I'm saying the chance of a fatal failure is likely way too high. Even if (hypothetically) the odds are 1 in a million for a fatality, how many years does it take to give 1 million rides? Not too many I would think.

Fact is, Intamin rockets cannot contain cable failures, and Intamin Rocket operators are unable to prevent cable failures. Uncontained cable failures will continue to happen. Eventually someone will wind up in the bone orchard.

GoBucks is correct when stating that people with money come here for health care. Why? Because the United States has the BEST doctors and NURSES. They do not have to wait in line for treatment. People say that the US has fallen behind the educational curve. That is not true. The reason that our total percentage of gpa is lower is because EVERYONE gets to go through school. If all the dummies in China got to go to school then their gpa average would dive.

I am sure others have more accurate numbers. But if you look at one launch/minute over a 12 hour day, you have 720 launches/day. Over a 130 day season, you have 93,600 launches. A million launches would take over 10.6 years. Even assuming a 13 hour operating day, it would take over 9.8 years to get 1 million launches. From what I have seen, I don't think that Dragster averages more than 1 launch a minute. The park is open 12 hours for much of the peak of summer but is open fewer hours during other times so I would think 12 or 13 hours per day is conservative (including ERT).

I would say it is more like 1 in a billion with Monty at the helm of maintanence.

DA20Pilot said:
I'm not saying the odds are great. I'm saying the chance of a fatal failure is likely way too high. Even if (hypothetically) the odds are 1 in a million for a fatality, how many years does it take to give 1 million rides? Not too many I would think.

Well considering that it would take many years (according to your logic) for something to "happen" and the whole ride is given a very good look over every year plus regular maintenance, in my mind, negates that kind of guess. You can't base something like this in a statistic anyway. IF (and that's a big if) something were to happen, it'll happen when you least expect it. It could happen with days of an operation season or it could never happen.(crazy to think I know:))

So for the record, CP has a terrific track record and people who have died on their coasters (I think including Dragster) were because of pre existing conditions. Dragster is a safe ride and this incident shouldn't deter you from riding.

Fact is, Intamin rockets cannot contain cable failures, and Intamin Rocket operators are unable to prevent cable failures. Uncontained cable failures will continue to happen. Eventually someone will wind up in the bone orchard.

No see the actual fact is, any Intamin or coaster for that matter, that utilizes cables is at risk for a cable failure. And they (rockets) actually "contain" them better than you give them credit for. And since no one has wound up in "the bone orchard" in the however many years cables have been utilized on coasters (at least to my knowledge), then I'm willing to bet there won't be any at all for their lifespans.

The bottom line is a cable fray can not kill anyone, and neither will a complete cable snap due to the level of containment that surrounds them. Bad things can happen, that's obvious. And people may get hurt of which has so far been minor damage. But to say that one incident (which was years apart from a similar incident) makes them anymore dangerous is ridiculous.

I'll also say that boy and his father seemed to be unscathed from the actual cable fragments since there was no visible bleeding or bruising on their faces. What happened to the boys leg could not have been from the cable fray IMHO. And until I'm shown evidence or a park testimony that proves otherwise, I'm sticking to that belief.

Hey why dont we just ask the coaster companies to use a steal rod to replace the cable. In that case how about we change the suspension cable on the brooklin and golden gate bridge to a steal cable. Insanity.

It is not correct, statistically, to say that if something has a one in a million chance of failure, that failure will occur within 1 million trials. Not for a binomial probability function where the events are independent (assuming the cable is inspected and refurbished or replaced as needed).

Also, the physics of a cable break and the relative motion of the debris and train have probably been studied by Intamin and found to be non-fatal.

Now, nothing is fool proof or beyond the realm of possibility, but then if we designed and lived to that extreme, we wouldn't get out of bed.

I will stand up and aplaud mr Rapids

Why thank you rapids, that's essentially what I was getting at. Couldn't have said it better. :)

Rapids 77-78 said:
Now, nothing is fool proof or beyond the realm of possibility, but then if we designed and lived to that extreme, we wouldn't get out of bed.

Nope, bed might collapse.

djDaemon said:
That said, I think its interesting that our system is so expensive as-is, yet is comparatively awful compared to other nations with socialized medicine.

It's also important to understand the distinction between socialized medicine and socialized insurance. Heck, insurance as a whole is like a private version of socialism.

Of course, socialism somehow became a dirty word at some point, despite the fact that we all participate in it, whether we're paying into or collecting social security, driving on public roads, sending the kids to public schools or enjoying police and fire protection. But you know, bein' stoopid is easier.

Pete: Don't remind me.
(some time ago, I did the sleeping free-fall when the side rail on my bedframe failed catastrophically in the middle of the night)

GoBucks89: Going back to your health care post on page 6, thank you for understanding the real problem, and why everything Congress and the President is talking about seems to be designed to make it all get a whole lot worse.

My incremental solution to the health insurance mess is actually revenue neutral (costs virtually nothing) in the first stages--
Step 1) Require all employers who provide health insurance benefits to their employees to reveal the amount of premiums paid on wage statements.

Step 2) Allow taxation of employer-paid health insurance premiums as income. At the same time, make health insurance premiums paid by employees completely deductible. The point is to encourage employers to give the health insurance premium money to the workers who will then use it to buy health insurance (most likely from a plan arranged by the employer)

Ultimately we should all be able to buy medical insurance the same way we buy automobile insurance. The current system of tying it to employment makes no sense at all. Once we get that mess sorted out, thus improving access to insurance (which now would have to be competitively priced since it is sold to individuals instead of groups), we might start to see some transparency in pricing on the medical side which would cause costs to fall. Most important, though, we have to stop paying for medicine with what appears to everyone to be free money. Of course, the 'Althoff Plan' will dramatically inflate wages, but that might not actually be a bad thing. For people who now have employer paid health care (whose wages would go up dramatically) the actual compensation would actually be unchanged...only hidden compensation would be brought into the open. But that would reveal the discrepancies that now make it so difficult for anybody else to afford health insurance, and I think you would see prevailing wage rates go up as a result. It's kind of like the problem today of the self-employed, where a self-employed person has to charge 16% more than an employee for doing the same work in order to cover the taxes...

Finally, getting back on-topic:
I think it is instructive to note the similarities between the Dragster rope failure and the Xcelerator rope failure. Xcelerator's failure did more damage to the train, but in both cases the results of the failure were remarkably similar. I suggest that this indicates that the consequences of a rope failure are more consistent than some of you would like to admit. Something you need to keep in mind: As Gene Kranz put it so succinctly, "failure is not an option." No, failure is not an option. Failure of an engineered system is, in fact, mandatory. Failure is to be expected, and an important stage in the design of any system, particularly any system which can kill people if things go wrong enough, is to work out how to manage failure of critical subsystems. Before you go chastising me and pointing out that isn't what Kranz meant, let me point out to you that the comment came as a result of a catastrophic mechanical failure that had already resulted in the complete failure of the original mission.

fail-safe-- characteristic of an amusement ride or device, or component thereof, that is designed such that the normal and expected failure mode results in a safe condition.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.