My nephew peed his pants on the Batman roller coaster. That was an accident.
When you thing of the amount of people that ride on park rides and how few there are you be assured that they are safe. I am not saying that all rides are perfectly safe but I know that most roller coaster have so many safety features that it is nearly impossible for catastrophic mechanincal failure. That only leaves human error which is normally that fault of the rider fo all i can tell. Yes I fell very safe on park rides. If I think I am unsafe I get off or tell and attendent.
[hijack]
Little Nemo - Six Flags Darien Lake? I used to go to a Darien Lake near Buffalo NY. Did it recently get bought out by Six Flags? The last time I was (about 3 years ago) it was just Darien Lake.
despite having the tallest, most insane rollercoaster in America & possibly the world (The Millenium Force - features and 80 degree, 300 ft. drop & no over the shoulder harness; the 5G’s should keep you in your seat!!) Cedar Point (Sandusky OH) also has an excellent safety record. They have a total of 14 coasters (most of them, the biggest, fastest, tallest, of whatever type when they were built) and I have not heard of any accidents since I’ve lived in this area. They have various safety features, like, each coaster “train” must be run empty the first run of the day and the last run of the day – and any time they shut the coaster temporarily (like for lightening) they must run it empty again before loading passengers. Various other controls are in place. At any big park that has a reputation to protect safety has got to be job 1.
The same place. It was bought by the Six Flags chain within the last two years.
For a while (six years? seven?), I could not go on our annual Disneyland trip without being stuck on a ride. I was stuck on the now-defunct Adventures through Inner Space no fewer than three separate times. I can’t say it wasn’t interesting to sit and sit and sit on the PeopleMover or the Haunted Mansion or the Disneyland Railroad but for a while there, I thought I was mildly jinxed. At least nobody got hurt.
I remember when The Edge opened up at Great America. It was one of those freefall rides, and I think the freefall time was a measley 1.6 seconds but I could be wrong. I also remember when it was shut down a few months later when some kids got hurt. I remember seeing, on the evening news, the ride car with bulges from where the kids heads struck it from the inside. This must have been in the mid-eighties.
I was watching the learning channel today (visited my aunt and uncle this weekend) and I saw a special on roller coasters. They did a bit about some of the recent accidents, and they said that about 90% of the fatalities in coasters were rider error- that is, people loosened the restraints or tried to stand up- something like that. Also, the problem with children’s rides is that kids don’t get the whole “listen to what the ride operator says.”
Coasters are very rigorously inspected now- many times, the operators will be the first to notice any time something goes wrong. Also, coasters have sensors, ect. to monitor speed and other variables. The odds of being seriously injured on a coaster when you’re riding safely is something along the lines of 1 in 250 million, IIRC.
Just teach your kids to keep their hands in, follow directions, and never, ever fiddle with restraints, and you should be fine.