Coasters to Face G-Force Limits? 629
jonerik writes "NBC News is reporting that today New Jersey will begin examining the possibility of placing limits on roller coaster G-forces. Pointing out that the G-forces on coasters are considerably greater than even those experienced by astronauts and race car drivers, legislators on both the state and national levels want to start reining in coaster G-forces which have been blamed for a number of injuries and deaths over the past few years. Pansies. Why do they think people ride roller coasters to begin with?"
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great... (Score:2)
Look at me, mom! I'm going at three seconds a second! Wheeee!
Re:Great... (Score:2)
The quicker you go, the slower you go through time.
Re:Great... (Score:3, Funny)
The government's job is to attempt to preserve the lives of those who are willing to risk them.
And those who are willing to risk them have the job of coming up with new un-regulated ways of risking them.
Speeds along the process of innovation, and adds some interesting entries to the Darwin Awards timeline.
-Sara
Re:Great... (Score:2, Troll)
Marajuana is the Mexican name for Canibis. In America (about 100 years ago), Canibis was called Hemp. Ever wonder why Americans refer to a plant by it's Mexican name? Do you need three guesses to realise it's to make it sound "Mexican"? Guess who Americans hated around the time of the criminilization of Hemp?
Once we started down the road of criminilizing things people liked doing, it really didn't stop. Well, you could say that it stopped with the nullification of prohibition, but in reality, that was just a minor bump. The government continues to restrict drug use in as many ways as possible. Just look at tobacco. Even people who smoke say it is a filthy habit. The government is slowly making everyone think the world would be better off without tobacco.
Re:Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that's not their job. But sometimes they think it is, and that is pretty god-damned unfortunate.
I'm go'na start bootleging roller coasters (Score:2)
Re:Great... (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah - and people who get stoned are really good drivers, too, I suppose?
Well, for some value of really good - see this [bbc.co.uk] for details.
Here is a paragraph from the report referenced:
Backyards? (Score:2, Interesting)
G-forces. (Score:2, Informative)
I went to Cedar Point in OH a few times and I have been to various other parks in the past 10 or so years. Last summer I went to Kings Island in Southern OH and I had the strangest experience on a roller coaster ever.
I rode Face-Off w/my gf. After the ride both my gf and I felt dizzy and disoriented. I wasn't as bad as she was, she had to sit for about 20 mins to regain her composure. I was definitly not stable on my feet and seemed confused mentally, very strange.
Was this a result of the G-Forces or something else?
I don't suffer from motion sickness on any other ride, and I have never been physically ill by any amusement ride.
Anyone have a similar experience riding Face-Off?
Re:G-forces. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:G-forces. (Score:2)
Last time I was at Six Flags, however, Goliath was shut down because some old lady had an anuerism burst on the ride a few weeks prior. G-forces, or bad health? I dunno.
Let's regulate everything, including people's choices to make decisions based on their own physical condition, why don't we?
Re:G-forces. (Score:2)
As I mentioned, I'm talking out my rear-end to some degree. My source of information comes from some show I saw several years ago about the selection and training of fighter pilots in Israel. IIRC, they measured the heart/brain distance (or at least neck length) of candidates, and limited their pilots' cardiovascular exercise. Who would have guessed?
-Paul Komarek
Re:G-forces. (Score:2)
For example bodies can handle a high vertical G, but cannot handle a high horizontal G. Some rollercoasters have high horizontal G's and hence are actually hazardous to your health in a major way.
The other problem with roller coasters is that we are approaching human limits on what the body can tolerate without damaging itself. Sure some can handle more than others, but the point is that we are approaching the limits. And to attract more people roller coasters are just making them faster, harder, etc.
I do not call it limit I call it reality. Case in point German Autobahn. There is no limit on a large amount of the Autobahn. And yes I drive fast. But my car is limited to 250 KPH (155 MPH). Why? Because above that speed things move REAL fast. Any accident or anything that happens becomes not just dangerous to the person but to everyone around them. Accidents below that speed are actually not that bad and in the large majority of cases people come out alive without any major problems. Exceptions are if you run into a tree (Tree does not move even when you are going 250) or a car going against you. Hence why in German stats most deaths are on country roads and NOT highways. Sure you can buy non-regulated cars, but the insurance premiums are incredibly high and the percentage of cars that are actually un-regulated are VERY VERY VERY small. On the German Autobahn maybe three times a year I will run into someone who can outrun me.
My point is that even though we can go faster it is not really beneficial to everyone's health...
Re:G-forces. (Score:2)
As far as the other issues go, if someone dies on a rollercoaster and it's not the result of a mechanical failure, they probably had a health problem to begin with, even if they weren't aware of it. Occasionally (one out of thousands and thousands) someone gets injured as a result of excessive G-forces.
Here's a few other things that people get seriously injured, ill, or die from. Food poisoning. Allergies. Car accidents. Stress. Alcohol abuse. Drug abuse. Electrical shock. Cigarettes. Just to name a few. Humans are mortal. We are not invincible. It's quite possible that statistically speaking, you might DIE today for a completely unexpected reason. While nobody likes it, its a fact of life that most people seem to accept. We take a risk everytime we get out of bed in the morning. But sometimes that's a risk worth taking.
-Restil
Re:G-forces. (Score:2)
I went to Cedar Point the day before Labor Day back in 1998. The park was empty (take heed
G-Force really fucked w/me. I am not a big fan of King's Island as it is (I am less interested in great scenery and poor rides than terrible scenery and great rides (Cedar Point)).
Other than a single individual no one has answered "Has G-Force created a similar experience for anyone else?"
Re:G-forces. (Score:3, Informative)
Your comment kind of simplifies the human bodies ability to withstand G forces. I just finished watching a whole program on the Discover Channel about crash testing and the effects of certain forces on the human body, so obviously I'm now a certified expert. Moving right along the program just reinforced what common sense would tell anyone who has been in any kind of accident: it's not just how hard you hit, it's how you hit, what position you're in when you hit, how many times you hit and the angle that you hit at.
The numbers you mentioned sound a bit off from what the program was stating in terms of what the human body could safely endure. They showed a man traveling at some thing like 630mph decelerate to zero in about a tenth of second, which worked out to roughly 45Gs horizontally. His lung(s?) collapsed and his retinas temporarily detached. He eventually recovered and managed to live another 45 years but its still not what I would consider a fun day at an amusement park.
The program also went on to state that the human body can only survive 15Gs of momentary force vertically before the spinal damage occurs. I wonder what 6Gs of sudden momentary lateral force would do to someone's neck.
It would also seem that human anatomy would play a big role in what forces and change in forces the human body could survive without damage. A person sitting perfectly upright may be able to survive a 6G load in one direction, but what happens when they are subjected to the same force with their body and head are shifted to one side from the previous 4G turn or loop? I sure as hell don't know, I doubt New Jersey state legislators know either.
Rider operators do not want to kill customers, just momentarily make customers think they are going to die. There are so many variables in play that any legislation that tries to "make these rides safer" is going to fail hopelessly. I'm all for making ride operators/builders prove that their machines are minimally dangerous but to put blanket limitations on them just doesn't seem to do anyone much good.
Re:G-forces. (Score:2)
...do they rush you off the ride? At plenty of their rides you get rushed off and that can make you feel this way if you were riding something higher than the "Beastie".
OK, so we're reining in roller coasters... (Score:2)
On the other hand, seeing as the G-Forces on Coasters are
> considerably greater than even those experienced by astronauts
Who needs $20M in cash when you can head to Six Flags for a better rush?
Roller Coasters in Jersey (Score:5, Insightful)
Most are on the board walk on small piers, and there have been a number of deaths (actually, usually at least one every summer) from poorly design and/or maintained coasters. Regulating coasters is not necessarily a bad idea.
It makes sense to not allow high speed coasters on little piers that don't have enough staff to maintain it properly. I think that is the basis of a law like this.
Re:Roller Coasters in Jersey (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know.. according to the report on the congressman's page [house.gov], there has only been one death ever in NJ, and the victim was medically predisposed. Now I think that's only brain injuries, but this page [aol.com] doesn't list much in NJ either, and most of it is due to people not using the safety bar.
Check your facts before you pass on anecdotes as truth.
Re:Roller Coasters in Jersey (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Roller Coasters in Jersey (Score:3, Informative)
<quote> [aol.com] Wednesday, June 17, 1987 - A 19-year-old girl was killed after falling from the Lightnin' Loops shuttle loop roller coaster ride at Six Flags Great Adventure theme park in Jackson Township, New Jersey. An investigation by the State Labor Department concluded that the ride itself was operating properly, but that the ride operator started the ride without having made sure that all of the passengers were secured by the safety harnesses. The Department's Office of Safety Compliance further concluded that the accident would not have occurred had proper procedures been followed. The park was found to be in violation of the Carnival/Amusement Ride Safety Act and was subsequently charged with the maximum state fines of $1,000. The ride was reopened on Saturday, October 10, 1987, with the permission of the Labor Department, but was eventually dismantled and no longer operates at Great Adventure.</quote>
Re:Roller Coasters in Jersey (Score:2)
--jeff++
Re:What about roads and highways? (Score:2)
Obviously that's not going to happen, because god forbid we cost our domestic manufacturers money to buy lights to put on the sides of trucks or lower rear bumpers so people aren't decapitated when they run into a truck. We'll just keep blaming the mexicans and using highway truck deaths as an excuse to place restrictions on mexican imports, thank you very much.
Re:What about roads and highways? (Score:4, Funny)
If you had ever worked with large trucks first hand you'd realize that those things are largely worthless.
First, there are loading docks that actually latch onto the underride bars to keep the trailers in place - how many times do you think people forget to disengage them before trying to drive off. This doesn't always tear the guard off, just weakens it.
Second, those guards are often too high to stop a car from underriding. The theory is that they will hit your engine block, collapse and scrape along your hood - buckling it - until you stop. Um, yeah. That works great if you're in something with a hood that high. (hint: Metro and Miata drivers are screwed)
Anyway, I agree with you that there is a higher percentage of safe and conscientious drivers with a CDL than not. The real problem is that 1 bad truck driver can 100x more lethal per incident than some poor schmuck in an Aspire with no clue. Unfortunately, there are too many schmucks on the road creating too many incidents.
Back (sorta) on topic, there definitely needs to be *some* sort of regulation on coasters - operationally as well as mechanically. At the bare minimum, I'd like to see info outside the ride on max speed, max G, sustained G and running time - so I don't wait 2 hours in line for a 10 second ride!
Re:What about roads and highways? (Score:4, Insightful)
Frighteningly easy. (Score:2)
When I was 24 I had never driven anything other than bumper cars, but learned that my workplace wanted me to travel to far off places that would require driving. (Before anyone gets angry about that detail, my job wasn't in danger, I could have telecommuted, but I liked the opportunity to travel, and was glad to AT LAST have a reason to learn how to drive.)
Okay, so there I am with no experience at all, and 9 years removed from HS driver's ed. Only 29 days later I was driving. I don't mean I was merely taking lessons. After only 29 days I had gotten my permit, learned to drive, (after TWO lessons from a FRIEND), bought a used car, and insured it. Yes folks, I was on the road after 4 hours of lessons.
These facts have never stopped terrifying me. If I can go from 0 experience to licensed driver in less than a month, that means anyone... oh, I just shudder to think about it.
Why? Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to have their bodies exposed to more forces and danger than most astronauts ever experience - if you think about it, the astronauts are safer. The astronauts have teams of medics, special suits, and a large, strong spacecraft around them. Compare this to the average coaster-rider who is sitting in a flimsy piece of metal, or even wood - nothing protecting them from the G-forces, let alone the wind. And most people are going to ride the same coaster multiple times in a row if possible - I know I do.
Re:Why? Well... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why? Well... (Score:2)
That's a really good argument for regulating *obesity*, since that is the root cause (by your argument).
Re:Why? Well... (Score:2, Funny)
Except that astronauts are sitting on top of a Big Controled Bomb[tm]. The shuttle SRBs are one of the largest controlled explosions ever engineered.
But I'd still Ride 'em if they offered me a seat.
Have Fun
The JungleBoy
Nothing close to astronauts (Score:5, Informative)
From the original post:
the G-forces on coasters are considerably greater than even those experienced by astronauts and race car drivers...
I flew military jets for 9 years, and I think these comparisons are crap. When people used to ask me how jets compared to roller coasters, I would tell them that the two experiences are totally different. It's a matter of scale. Sustaining 4G or more for even 10 seconds, let alone 30 or 60 seconds or more, is an experience that simply cannot be reproduced by any rollercoaster that can fit in a theme park. The effects of the sustained G are DRAMATICALLY different than the one or two second hits (or three or four...whatever) felt on a high performance rollercoaster.
I recently road with my brother on a rollercoaster that I considered to be quite exciting, with corkscrews and consecutive loops, and when it was over he asked me how many G's he thought we had pulled. Based on the sensations I had felt (compared to my years in jets) I guessed 1.5-2. I was surprised to see a brochure later that claimed the ride pulled 6G. The two or three second hits just didn't have time to register.
Another example: a person using an ejection seat pulls an ongodly amount of G -- something like 30 or 60, although the actual number escapes me. Obviously this is enough to kill a man, but the brief time period involved make it survivable. I've known people who ejected and were able to walk around with no problem immediately afterward.
The point is that comparisons to astronauts and race car drivers is misleading. The maximum G must be examined only in conjunction with the period of time over which the G occurs. Brief hits DO NOT COMPARE to sustained G. Maybe rides should be limited and maybe they shouldn't, but the forces faced by astronauts are not part of the debate.
Re:Why? Well... (Score:2)
Maybe a roller coaster's G force rivals that of wimpy modern rockets, but it's nothing compared to old school space travel. Here's an example. (I'm sure there's better examples, but I happened accross this one a few days ago so I still remembered where to find it.) This is from the astronautix.com page [astronautix.com] about the cancelled 1970's Chinese moon program:
Maybe that should be an idea for a next-generation 20 G roller coaster. They could name it something like "Chairman Mao's Moon Blaster".
Re:Why? Well... (Score:2)
Re:1G is nothing to sneeze at, ya know... (Score:2)
The extremely high G landing (probably in the 100's if not 1000's depending on the surface - rising depending on how unyielding the surface etc etc) would I suspect put quite a dent in your day.
And your head.
And probably the floor.
Troc
welcome to new jersey (Score:2)
Re:welcome to new jersey (Score:4, Insightful)
These are legislators solving a problem that doesn't exist
I'd say they are taking a very small problem that has already been reported [lycos.com] and nipping it in the bud. This reminds me--the very same people who are now saying that Bush knew about 911 are the very same people that would probably have sluffed off a hijack warning before then. So, what we have here are some politicians who are actually demonstrating forsight, and getting blasted by comments like yours. Would you prefer to see a statisticly significant uptick in brain damage incidents at New Jersey hospitals before action is taken?
tilt-a-check (Score:2, Funny)
from the but-is-the-tilt-a-whirl-is-still-safe dept.
"... but the question still remains. Is our children learning"?
Come on (Score:2)
It's not like people are being forced to ride roller coasters. It's a risk, one that millions of people take. Just like smoking and drinking, and driving.
What would regulating really do?
Keep people from riding? Doubt it.
Make people want to ride "black market" roller coasters? HA!
"Yeah kid, I know where you can find a little illegal roller coaster action"
Deaths? (Score:3, Insightful)
This whole thing about creating a legal g-force limit is once again our government stepping in and saying "you people are too dumb to make your own decisions... we're going to protect you from yourselves". Its similar to the stupid McDonalds Coffee incident. People should be held accountable for their own [sometimes stupid] actions. You don't see the government banning skydiving because some people smacked into the ground and died. You're expected to know and accept the risks.
People need to stop blaming other people for the results of their own actions.
Re:Deaths? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Deaths? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, this would be all fine and good if I were adequately informed of the danger of riding a particular coaster. I'm certainly no engineer, and couldn't make any kind of good assessment of the safety of a particular roller coaster.
So, if there isn't going to be regulation as to how many Gs you can expose riders to, there should be a requirement for them to prominently post information on maximum expected g-forces, and comprehensive safety history of that particular ride.
Re:Deaths? (Score:2)
What if the sign posted the relative risk compared to driving?
"Driving home from this amusement park is 660 times more like to kill you than riding this roller coaster."
If you really want a labeling law, how about listing the risk per second,
and determining an amount below which labeling is not required.
I suggest that anything less risky than riding in a car be below the threshold.
-- this is not a
McDonalds Coffee incident (Score:2, Informative)
Hey, that poor lady needed skin grafts, they shouldn't have been serving coffee that damn hot. If they just offered to pay for her medical bills they could have avoided the whole thing.
McFacts about the McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit [lawandhelp.com]
Aside from that, I agree that this roller coaster law is stupid, but if you know the facts of the coffee case its a bad example.
Re:Deaths? (Score:2)
There really is cause for concern (Score:2, Flamebait)
All of that changed, though, in one terrifying incident: my cousin, a perfectly healthy 16 year old kid, suffered a serious blackout during a particular roller coaster ride. My family obtained video evidence of his unconscious state from one of the cameras mounted on the ride to take visitors' pictures; he was completely limp and had passed out during one of the steeper drops. In the ensuing weeks after the vacation, he had frequent blackouts and seizures. His driver's license was revoked, and he lost his summer job as a result. Although the problem went away a few months later and now he is back to normal, it was a scary reminder of the fact that we really do not understand all of the potentially harmful effects of large gravitational fields on the human body. And maybe we should wait until we do before we subject the public to these risks.
Don't be a jerk. (Score:2)
Re:There really is cause for concern (Score:3, Informative)
Roller coasters do not generate "gravitational fields." They generate no gravity whatsoever. The do create acceleration forces which cause effects similar to gravity, and we actually know quite a bit about those forces. Fighter pilots regularly undergo forces of up to 9 Gs, and this is an area that the military and NASA have studied extensively. They have things called "centrifuges" which can subject people to very high accelerations. All fighter pilots spend time in the centrifuge learning how to handle high G loads.
As for your cousin, I suspect he had some other nascent condition which the ride exacerbated. The fact is, you're probably more likely to be hit by lightning than to be hurt on an amusement park ride, and no one is saying we should make it a crime to go outside in the rain.
57 known cases (Score:4, Interesting)
Just another example of what big government causes.. useless legislation, inquiries into problems that don't exist. Your tax dollars at work! Welcome to the New USA, designed to protect yourself from yourself. I'm ashamed to say this buffoon is from my state, Massachusetts. I'll also mention that not a single injury of this type has actually happened in Mass - I guess he's just trying to prevent the one or two injuries that MIGHT happen this season.
It just makes me angry when people focus on extremely rare, freak problems.. like people making such a fuss about school shootings, or shark attacks last summer. Statistically speaking, these things simply do not happen! Why don't we focus on a real problem?
Re:57 known cases (Score:2, Troll)
Our legislators in their finite wisdom decided that to avoid this in the future, drivers would have to *stop* on *both lanes* of trafic anytime a school bus was unloading. The fine for not stoping ? 1500$.
I have nearly gotten in 5 accidents because of this -- people slam on their breaks when the buses flip on their stop sign because they're afraid of the amazing fine (and guess what -- cops are following the buses so they can *give* amazing fines). Then invariably a busy street or expressway comes to a halt with screaching tires. And yes ive narowly avoided some fantastic collisions only by luck.
If I ever meet the fucker who wrote that bill, I'm going to kill him for nearly getting *me* killed 5 times.
Re:57 known cases (Score:2)
-Paul Komarek
Re:57 known cases (Score:2)
Re:57 known cases (Score:2, Funny)
Re:57 known cases (Score:2)
Get used to it. Virginia has had a similar school bus law for years. In fact, when I was a delivery driver I used to say "I'm stuck behind a portable stopsign" whenever I was stuck behind a school bus.
OTOH, we don't have any law that says you have to stop for pedestrians who step on the road outside of a cross-walk. I've heard that drivers in CA are obliged to come to a full stop even if the ped is jay-walking. It seems like that would cause more problems since pedestrians are not always obvious, whereas a big ugly yellow bus is hard to miss.
The bottom line is that you will get used to the new law. I haven't heard anybody in VA complaining about it *ever*.
Also, don't label the kid as a "darwin" type. It's amazing what can happen to otherwise intelligent people. Big bus, quiet luxury car, lots of ambient noise, distractions... THUD. It could happen to anybody. In fact, to prevent bus drivers from running over their own kids, our buses now have a flip-out betal barrier to prevent kids from walking too close to the blind spot in front of the bus. When I was in jr. high they didn't have that. Instead they showed us a film called "Death Zone" that warned you not to linger too close to the bus. I don't recall their stats on kids who got konked in the blind spots, but it was enough for them to make a movie about it.
They should still show Death Zone just for the heck of it... I mean... it's a classic. That, and that movie where there's no oxygen left on Earth. Anybody else here remember that one? The one where it's the little girl's birthday and she and her grandfather get surface passes?
Re:57 known cases (Score:3, Interesting)
You're about to hear a complaint.
I grew up in MD, and have now lived in VA for 10 years, and both states have the same "stop for school bus" law -- including the provision that if there's a median between you and the bus, you don't need to stop. I grew up with the law, I understand its need, and I can live with it.
What I don't understand is why we don't seem to have well-defined bus stops. First, let me explain the architecture of western Fairfax County -- lots of newish (5-15 years old) developments, off a main (4+ lane) highway, with no interconnections between the different builders' neighborhoods. So the buses don't go into the neighborhoods, they simply stop on a major commuter road and pick kids up. Then they drive on a block, and pick up 3 more kids. Two more blocks, and another 5 kids. It's crazy.
Now, I don't mean to start an old fart whining battle, but when I grew up in Bethesda, we had TWO stops on our bus, about 10 blocks apart, and each serving something like 20-30 kids. Why on earth Fairfax can't at least make these kids all walk the extra three blocks to a central stop, and thus stop traffic only once instead of 5 times in less than a mile, is way beyond me.
End of rant.
Now, what were we discussing before? I honestly don't remember...
Re:57 known cases (Score:5, Interesting)
Which indicates that you shouldn't be driving.
There's this concept of keeping enough distance between you and the car in front so that if they slam on their brakes you have time to slam on yours - without being even close to hitting them.
Only an idiot who drives way to close would manage to come close to crashing in those circumstances, let alone do so five times.
What happens when the car in front sees some kid step out from between parked cars and you don't because from your viewpoint they are obscured by something? Do you almost have an accident because the other driver slams on their brakes?
Braking hard is dangerous (especially if the guy behind you is changing radio stations at the time) but sometimes you need to. Hence you should always leave enough room and assume the other driver just might need to (or maybe the other driver is an idiot who will slam on his brakes because he missed his turn off)...
Kids have underdeveloped peripheral vision, they are bad at judging speeds and distances of object moving at the speeds cars go, they are easily distracted, and often do not notice what is happening around them when focused on something (like getting their ball that just bounced onto the road, or seeing their mother who is an idiot and is on the other side of the road). All this means they will run onto roads...
Stopping for buses to (un)load seems silly to me, a slow speed limit when the bus is (un)loading seems better.
Re:57 known cases (Score:3, Insightful)
If you aren't following so close that you need to slam on your brakes, then it shouldn't be a problem. And if you're behind a bus, be prepared, idiot!
Re:57 known cases (Score:3, Interesting)
Ever heard of this thing called a trend? Quoting from Senator Markey's report:
At that time, Rep. Markey noted that 14 of the 15 cases had occurred in the 1990's, which he noted coincided with a building boom in the roller coaster industry that was leading to a sharp increase in the average speed and force designed into the rides.
Here's the problem. If high-G roller coasters can already cause harm, and yet roller coasters are only getting faster, how much more damaging will the next generation of roller coasters be? That's why it might be a good idea to set limits now!
Quoting from the MSNBC Article:
"We have right now in America, a roller coaster arms race where each amusement park advertises that they have the fastest, the most dangerous ride," says Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.
If there's any truth to this statement, then I can sure see how this could become a big problem.
Assuming it's not a big problem now, that is. If a drug caused 58 cases of brain damage, it would be pulled! People may expect a few side effects from a drug, like drowsiness. But brain damage? That's a little too much! Likewise, the vast, vast majority of people expect that the worst thing that'll happen to them when they go on a roller coaster is that they'll get dizzy and puke afterwards. If they end up suffering permanent harm, there's a problem.
Re:57 known cases (Score:5, Insightful)
"If a drug caused 58 cases of brain damage, it would be pulled!" Do some research. Do you know how many thousands of deaths each year are attributed to very popular FDA approved OVER THE COUNTER drugs? Do Tylenol and Asprin ring a bell?
Why don't you work on banning alcohol which causes orders of magnitude more deaths and permanent injuries than something as insignificant as roller coaster.
Don't you understand that we have much greater problems to worry about in this country and regulating roller coasters is not the best place to spend our tax dollars right now?
Today in terms of safety expenditures, we spend $0.0021 per mile for airlines, $0.00015 per mile for automobiles. If we spend $0.00015 per mile on roller coasters we would only be spending $75,000 per year. In 1997 there were 21920 auto fatalities, 3 roller coaster fatalities.
Re:57 known cases (Score:4, Insightful)
1. More riders at amusement parks
2. Constant rate of injuries
3. Increasing G-force rides
4. Increasing awareness and record keeping
Possible Conclusions:
1. Increased g-force rides causing more reported injuries? (trend?)
2. Increasing ridership causing more reported injuries? (incomplete data?)
3. Increasing awareness causing more reported injuries? (self fulfilling prophecy?)
As for usage v.s. injuries I was talking about possible conclusion #2 regarding increasing ridership.
After I pointed out Tylenol and Aspirin you started to understand the concept of acceptable risk, significantly more than 58 deaths is apparently something that many people are willing to accept for drugs that may be beneficial. Strangely enough it is often thought that if the FDA were to go through an clinicial trial of aspirin today they would not allow aspirin to be an OTC drug. By the way aspirin bottles don't list side effects.
As for why I said we should focus on the biggest factors of death? Simple. It's because we have limited budgets. Maybe you might not mind being taxed even more but I know that I'm taxed far too much as it is. So if we are dealing with limited resources, and we are in the business of saving lives, I want to save the most lives for the available resources.
By the way, you don't have to waste your time finding the most dangerous things, that's already been done for you:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/datawh/statab/unpub
(/. inserts an extra space in the url)
You can even find that in 1992, there were two people over the age of 100 that died as a result of injuries while on ice skates, skis, roller skates or skate boards. Total number of deaths were: 57.
23 people were killed by lawn mowers.
137 people literally starved to death.
530 people died in their swimming pools.
Even if you still want to regulate g-forces on roller coasters, you're looking in the wrong place to reduce the number of amusement park deaths. Most deaths are attributed to poor maintanence and human errors, not g-force brain injuries: http://members.aol.com/rides911/accidents.htm Remember that we have virtually no data on the actual number of lives that will be saved by the g-force limitations.
As I said before, with limited resources, we don't have the luxury of inefficiency if we are trying to save lives.
It's the jerk (Score:2)
I've ridden on the roller coasters at Six Flags, and from experience I can say that it isn't the high G-forces that are dangerous, it's the jerk. (Jerk is the term for rate of change of acceleration, for the physics-challenged.) I love the high G-forces, but especially in the newer magnetically accelerated rides, the jerk is just too much for my neck and back to handle. (And I'm only 21!) Any regulations that are put in place should address jerk as well as acceleration limits.
Re:It's the jerk (Score:2)
So maybe I should start teaching third-order ODEs in my DiffEq class?
Heh.
Bad G forces (Score:2)
Now, I thought I was just getting too old for this kind of thing (my age is a perfect number about to turn into a prime), but, then again, maybe the rides are getting crazier, and perhaps they're getting too crazy. In particular, I was extremely dizzy after some of the faster rides (didn't have any trouble with the spinning teacups or whatever). Also, the whole crew I was with (all about my age) got a little sick. Again, I thought it was because the old crew is getting too old to be flying around, but maybe it's the coasters, too. Any younger folk have similar experiences over the last few years?
I don't know if I'll worry about it too much, since the tin foil hat I use to keep out the CIA beams isn't working so well either.
Good mathematical question (Score:2)
Two things:
I want negative Gs (Score:2)
I want a roller coaster that feels dangerous and feels like it's going to come off the track and makes you feel like you are going to fly out of your seat.
I hope some roller-coaster designers read Slashdot...
Physics Day (Score:2, Interesting)
Another question: (Score:2)
"G-forces on roller coasters last for nano-seconds," says Story.
Actually, on further reflection, this has to be completely wrong. First of all, when you're going around those loops or spins or whatever, you feel quite a large amount of Gs for a timespan on the order of seconds.
But perhaps he wasn't talking about that in particular, but about the jerk on the fast transitions. Now, I don't know of any way to measure this in a thought exaperiment, but it seems to me that anything that takes place over a scale of nanoseconds is something I won't be able to feel, and I sure as hell feel the jerk. I don't know what the speed of response of my acceleration detectors are, but I know that if anything happens on less than a millisecond scale, I can't see it. I would be surprised to find that we can sense anything which happens over microsecond scales.
Nanoseconds? You're also telling me that a machine will start accelerating, and then stop accelerating, all in the time span it takes light to move several inches?
He's not lying.... (Score:2)
This post took only nanoseconds to write. About sixty billion of them.
Re:He's not lying.... (Score:2)
Touché.
When I was a young'n... (Score:2)
(It was a great way to meet girls...)
Ten years later, I have an interesting problem. My lower ribs... the 'floating' ribs so to speak... are just a little more flexible than they're supposed to be from having been bruised and cracked so many times over such a long period. It's a very strange sensation to be poked in your liver...
The moral of this story: All things in moderation. High-G Coasters good! Meeting Girls good! Repeated prolonged exposure to High-G coasters BAD!
Looking at the statistics... (Score:2)
I don't think these are very "high G" roller coasters. Space mountain is a twisty indoor coaster in a nearly pitch black dome. It never goes inverted. Montezooma's revenge is essentially just a single loop that is traversed forward and then backward, IIRC.
The person who died two years ago on Space Mountain is listed as a 23 year old female who suffered "Acute rupture of aneurysm involving proximal-most portion of fetal posterior cerebral artery." Does this mean she was pregnant and that her baby died? If so, this data should not be used in a statistic, as the parks are very specific about women not riding rides when they are pregnant.
What I'm left wondering is if more people die on High-G coasters than Low-G coasters?
Pansies Indeed (Score:2)
Roller Coasters and PCs (Score:2)
OK, our PCs are fast enough for most people, so price and "cuteness" matter more than performance (for most people, not /.ers). So, our rollercoasters put out enough G-force to hurt some people. Looks like both technologies are "saturated". Oh no... rollercoasters and PCs both saturated? Maybe we will have an economic depression after all. Then again, maybe some park will come out with iCoasters in various colors. Plainly, something will need to be done to revive the industry.
Seems like a fantastic safety record to me (Score:2)
58 injuries in 12 years = five injuries per year. Out of how many million rides? 8 deaths in 10 years. Sheesh
Screw This! (Score:3, Funny)
Makes sense. (Score:2)
Of course, the supporting structure needed for regulation usually ends up with a life of it's own, consuming lots of money and creating jobs for useless middlemen.
But really, this is no joke. It's not hard to design a coaster that can snap necks. It's happened before, it's nothing new.
There has to be a commonly accepted limit of human safety. Perhaps G forces need to be posted?
Jesus, come on now (Score:2)
The wimpy 4 G's (the article say "feels like" 4 G's, whatever that means) that the more extreme roller coasters produce doesn't even come close. From the tests I've seen, the human body doesn't really start to have problems until about 6 G's (and that's only at long periods of time).
I've been on a lot of insane roller coasters in my life but the G force has always been my last concern. Call me crazy but I've always been a little more suspect of the shoddy maintenance of the coasters. Maybe that'd be a better place to start with government regulations (or maybe there already is and I just don't know about it).
More G force than Astronauts? Well, yes but... (Score:5, Informative)
Space launches have steadily reduced their peak G forces over the years. During the Mercury and Gemini programs, the Astronauts were exposed to as much G force as modern jet fighters do in a dogfight, and for as long. The heavier Saturn launch system of Apollo was gentler, and the Space shuttle is very tame by comparison. Russian cosmonauts still get a better (in roler-coaster terms) ride than their American counterparts.
Given how tame the shuttle is, maybe it's technically true, if misleading, to say that roler coasters give the rider more G that an Astronaut experiences. (They did after all say "astronaut", not "cosmonaut") A space shuttle jockey, just barely goes over 3G. Some roler coasters may peak at 5. But here's the difference: The shuttle sustains the 3G for the entire duration of the post-SRB-separation boost. That's several minutes of continuous burn. I doubt whether any roler coaster ever peaks over 3G for more than 2 or 3 seconds at a time, if that.
The physiological risks associated with high G are not determined by the magnitude of the G alone, but mainly by other factors:
The duration that high G is sustained. Long duration deprives the brain of blood long enough to cause very bad things to happen. No real risk there on roler coasters.
The onset-rate. How suddenly the G force starts and stops. High onset rates cause all kinds of problems, including back and neck problems, inner ear problems, and even brain dammage in extreme cases. Once again, no issue in a well-designed roler coaster.
Head movement. High G forces, especially combined with high onset rates, are aggrivated by sudden head rotation. This can be a problem even if the G forces are only momentary. Inner ear problems can result. Roller-coaster designers have little control over this factor, so perhaps it is a real concern.
Negative G. (Negative means the blood rushes to your head). High negative G can cause all kinds of problems, including burst blood vessels in the eyes. I've personally never heard of a roler coaster that goes beyond about -0.5G or so, and even then for less than a second, so I doubt that this is an issue.
Sudden transitions from positive to negative, or vice-verca. All the bad things associated with high positive G are accentuated if it immediately follows a period of negative. And vice verca if negative follows a period of positive. This will become a real issue if roler coasters ever start exploring the negative regime. Frankly, I doubt that they will. The average rider views positive G's as exhilirating fun, but would find negative to be obnoxious and uncomfortable.
Frankly, I'm much more worried about the structural design and maintenence of the coaster than the G-profile. But then, I've flown to WAY higher positive and negative G forces than either roler coaster or space shuttle experience, and I know the breathing techniques, and I know to keep my head relatively still. Roler coasters all seem really disappointing to me.
Re:Positive and Negative (Score:4, Informative)
In this context, positive and negative Gs are relative to the body orientation: positive Gs are directed from head to feet; negative Gs are directed from feet to head.
In physics, there may be no difference between positive and negative Gs, but there are definite physiological differences in how the body reacts to positive and negative Gs, and how much the body can tolerate in each direction. Like the previous poster said, negative Gs cause increased blood pressure in the head, which can lead to bursting blood vessels. Contrariwise, positive Gs cause decreased blood pressure (and flow) to the head, and can eventually cause blackouts.
Maybe it's the rattling they need to control. (Score:2)
The other trend in coasters is ones that don't go so fast, but they take turns very hard and shake you up quite a bit. These tend to give me headaches. Sometimes I don't feel so good after these - it feels a bit like jumping out of a car. The coaster at New York, New York in Las Vegas is the best example I can give of this type. If you're ridden it, you know what I mean.
It's different than the old wooden coasters that are all over the place - those shake due to poor tolerences, these are all metal, by design.
Now, as much as I hate to use such a sad example, it might make sense to look at babies that are swung around alot, vs. those that are shaken alot. The swinging babies tend to be just fine. Shaking is bad for the brain.
Besides the physiological side-effects, you'd have to imagine that kind of motion could take a more severe toll on the superstructure of the roller coaster.
Maybe I slept on physics lessons, .... (Score:2)
Re:Maybe I slept on physics lessons, .... (Score:2)
Now, the coaster reaches the end of the slope, and suddenly the track curves upwards. Pull out your slide-rule, and figure out the force experienced by the riders in that 1/10th of a second (remember, ALL of their accumulated downwards velocity has been cancelled here).
It's the sudden ups and downs you experience with a coaster that cause such incredible G forces - bassically, if Mr. Newton was right, the track as you curve back up is going to impose several G's on you in order to change your direction so violently.
Blackout on Nitro in New Jersey (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway...I remember my vision starting to darken and then go black....and returning a few seconds later. I'm a young adult, in fairly good shape and could see how this could become a serious problem for other riders.
Remember....think back to early Coney Island when there were very few safety regulations, and injury was more the norm then the exception.
-Chris
Re:Blackout on Nitro in New Jersey (Score:2)
How about the unreported cases? I almost blacked out on a roller coaster at magic mountain. My vision started to go grey at the bottom of a large drop.
Did I call the authorities? Did I report it to anyone? Nope. And I bet you didn't either. That doesn't mean it's safe. People blacking out or greying out might be a fairly common occurance.. but no one reports it because they aren't "harmed". Who knows what kind of damage it could cause.
not "considerably greater" than race cars (Score:2)
Crashing race cars, however, routinely see over 30 Gs. That's ten times the force on your body. Real problems start around 40-50 Gs, because you can fracture your neck or the base of your skull from the deceleration alone. With the proper safety gear, even these crashes are survivable.
Still, rollercoasters are hardly in the same category, unless someone plans on building a coaster that randomly flies off the track and smashes into a wall.
Risk Management given incomplete information (Score:3, Insightful)
So what if we said "don't regulate dining establishments; if you don't want to get Hepatitis, then you can make your own evaluation of the place's cleanliness. On it's face, this seems outrageous; however, most of us have the skills to decide if a food preparation place is hygenically adequate. How many of us (or the general populace) has the skills to decide if a roller-coaster ride is safe, esp long-term? (I'm paranoid about things like this, to the extent that I don't do LASIK because there are no 50-year studies).
Summation: informed consent is a good thing; some level of protecting idiots from themselves is also important, especially since most of us don't have domain knowledge in roller-coaster design. Safety vs car is apples-to-oranges, hence we should require, for example, 99th percentile Gs/time and jerk/time graphs, just like we have "SAR" for cell phones, for which no one actually knows safety parameters... By this logic, however, we should grade food establishments, make them post their grades, but never shut someone down for an F...
Just inform the public (Score:2)
State max postive and negative and lateral G-forces, and duration, and then let the public decide. Brochures explaining the complex words available gratis at entry.
Can someone point out these 'coasters to me before (Score:2)
From reading this article I get the feeling I'm really missing out on some seriously good roller-coasters.. anyone care to enlighten me as to exactly where they are?
Newton called to account (Score:5, Funny)
Cynics have suggested that Iverson is merely trying to improve his golf game. Since the ruling, he has been regularly driving the greens at exclusive Rolling Hills Country Club - with his sand wedge. Justice Iverson is aged 92.
In related news, senior mafia officials pledged to 'eradicate chance' from casinos across the USA.
G-forces aren't interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
"Why do they think people ride roller coasters to begin with?"
Like many things, the reason people think they do something is not necessarily the reason people do it. If a person gets on a roller coaster, enjoys it, and does it again, they may figure they like the G-forces they experienced. But a lot of people don't understand physics or the human body or their own mental processes, so their simple correlation of one part of the experience with the cause of the enjoyment is not necessarily indicative of a causal relationship.
Ask objectively, is it the G-forces people enjoy? Isolate the G-forces to see. Suppose you put somebody in a roller-coaster car mounted over some artificial gravity plating. You dial up the G-forces to two gravities, three, maybe even six. Then you ask the person if they're having fun. The answer will pretty much be no. At two gravities, maybe some people will be interested in what they are feeling, but it isn't really exciting. At higher gravities, they'll be uncomfortable. Even if you don't sustain six gravities but merely pulse the plating for fractions of a second, they'll still be uncomfortable. Above two gravities, there is really nothing new to the experience; it is just more of the same, and it is boring, if not painful.
Objectively, I think a claim that G-forces (really acceleration) are the source of enjoyment won't hold up. Here are some other candidates for the true sources of pleasure: The thrill of the appearance of danger. The unusual perspective of being upside down. The surprise of the unknown as acceleration and velocities change without warning and in unusual ways.
The appearance of danger is thrilling because evolution naturally produces a fascination with danger. Evolution causes an organism to be fascinated with danger because if your brain focuses intensely on danger, you are better able to avoid it. (You recognize it, you avoid it, you figure out what to do,...) Because avoiding danger is very important to survival, your brain is very attracted to focusing on danger. And it is not just focusing; there is also pleasure. The reason for the pleasure is to reward you for having learned something. You have done something good for your continued survival, so there is pleasure associated with it.
Being upside-down and experiencing unusual changes in acceleration and velocity may be entertaining simply because we are curious and enjoy being stimulated. Curiousity is also a feature of an organism making its way in a complicated world. It's pleasurable just as above, because learning enhances survival, although not as intense as apparent danger.
Personally, I enjoy free-fall more than high acceleration. It's a more unusual experience, and zero-gravity is qualitatively different from two-gravities. And, of course, the feeling of falling is highly correlated with great danger, so it produces some of the same intense mental focus on the experience.
So, no, G-forces are not the real reason people ride roller coasters. They may play a role, but there are plenty of other factors, and there are plenty of ways to use accelerations entertainingly without cranking up the acceleration to dangerous levels.
Re:A benevolent company? (Score:2)
Benevolent and bullshit both start with B...
Re:A benevolent company? (Score:2)
Re:Another reason not to trust the media (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not the speed, it's the huge change of speed in a short time that makes the difference. Relatively gradual accleration to significant speeds is not nearly as traumatic as a quick acceleration and then an abrupt deceleration.
Don't forget, also, that the people piloting military planes and shuttles have gone through significant physical training and monitoring to make sure they're in good shape. The same cannot be true of the vast majority of couch-potatoes visiting the fair. And if the stress on the adult body isn't enough, imagine what the stress might be like on a teen or preteen's body, especially to the brain stem, when suddenly given a 3 or 4 G shock. Maybe nothing, maybe a lot more... especially as the stress gets repeated.
Go ask a pediatric neurologist about the effect repeated stresses like this could have, or go ask any trauma surgeon what repeated low-grade whiplash, which is a potential risk at these levels, can do to anyone.
Think about it - the whole point of roller coasters is to give you a "rush" by stressing your body extremely. It makes sense to at least examine the need for regulation, to make sure roller coasters don't get too extreme.
Re:Another reason not to trust the media (Score:2)
Personally, I can't think of anything more fun.
Re:Another reason not to trust the media (Score:2)
I believe you... I tried to find out what Gs might be associated with a car crash at 30 MPH, with/without airbags, but couldn't. I'd also heard something about blackouts happening to pilots somewhere between 6 and 8 Gs... is that true? And 12 Gs was a magic number... like a fighter plane would shear itself apart at that horrendous level, or something. Any more notes?
Re:Another reason not to trust the media (Score:2)
As the media falls under the control of fewer and fewer corporate owners, this screaming about this "liberal" media has been getting more and more shrill. Liberals seem to be like witches, communists, pedophiles, and Satanists. The fewer there are of them, the more you hear about how they're everywhere.
As to what a story about rollercoasters has to do with a "liberal media" in the first place, you'll have to explain that one to me. This is a story about health regulators in New Jersey deciding whether to introduce regulations in response to several injuries and deaths from amusement park rides. You can get into an ideological argument about whether government should regulate amusement park rides or about how you deserve what you get when you get on one, but please quit complaining about this "liberal media". They're all corporate drones as far as I can tell.
They need to do their background research better.
Agreed.
I can't believe that they think that a Roller Coasters ride has more Gforce then getting shoot up into space at an ungodly speed. Another reason not to trust the media.
You're comparing speed to acceleration, which is completely apples to oranges. A moon rocket has a steady, solid acceleration that remains pointed in the same direction to accumulate a great speed. A roller coaster is subject to a wild and inconsistent acceleration in all kinds of directions so the cumulative changes in velocity cancel out and you never go faster than 100 mph. Plus the jerk (time derivative of acceleration) during a rocket launch is light and smooth, except right when the engine turns on and off. On a roller coaster the jerk is as crazy and variable as the acceleration. A moon rocket gives a much smoother ride.
Re:Cedar Point, OH (Score:2)
Well, after that description, I certainly believe you're at Oberlin...;-)
Re:If saving lives is your concern (Score:2)
Re:Disney Isn't Worried... (Score:2)
No, at least two [senate.gov].