Markey enlists Lassiters to promote safety bill

Horrible taste indeed, but I hope you understand that I have no disrespect for the gravity of the situation. It's one of my coping mechanisms, actually. Anyway, I also have a point of clarification. Presumably you don't know me any better than I know you, so you don't know what a lot of the other people in this group do: I'm NOT in the industry, except as a patron and ...hmmm... how about "stalker". I am a member of ASTM Committee F 24, I am a member of NAARSO and have received NAARSO certification, but I do not work in the industry (not yet, anyway). Unfortunately, what I get to see from the "inside" is all the best people with the best intentions doing all of the right things. Because that's what you get when you go to a safety school, or a meeting of industry people who are working hard to improve the standards of safety for the whole industry. What I don't get to see is what is going on in the trenches where the real horror shows are happening. Where someone can save $2,200 in ride maintenance ($180 (see above) * 4 sections * 3 ropes) by doing the *wrong* thing, and probably get a bonus for it because the bean counters have more authority than the mechanics.

As for what might actually help prevent new first-time incidents, kpjb might have a better insight than I do. But then, he might not, because the company he works for is very good about keeping up with proper maintenance; in fact I can't remember the last time they had an incident that was a result of an actual equipment failure. My guess is that the thought of using an out-of-spec or worn out component to save a few hundred bucks seems reckless to him, too.

How do you convince a bunch of bean counters at a company that is several billions of dollars in debt and whose share price has gone from $40/share to $2/share that maintenance is not an expense to be avoided, but rather is a basic cost of 'goods sold'? The good news is that the attention, scrutiny, and expense of a bad incident will hit them in a place where they don't want to be hit, and that may bring about the needed cultural change. The problem with that approach is that the lesson doesn't get learned unless there is a serious incident...which nobody wants.

What you are looking for is a means of insuring that the culture within the company values proper maintenance as "priceless" rather than "expensive". That is what KRS 247.234(2)(d) and KRS 247.234(3)(a) are supposed to do. It's also what the third-party insurance inspection is supposed to do, but if Six Flags is self-insured or if their insurer doesn't require such an inspection, that may not work. You could make the inspection documents public, but an external audit of the internal inspection program won't help much if the internal inspection document has all the boxes checked that say, "Meets specifications".

I kind of like the idea of requiring a third-party independent inspection, and I like the idea of that third party NOT being a government official, but possibly working on behalf of the AHJ. That's what Clark County, NV does: the third-party inspector is paid by the attraction owner, but the final report is actually done for the County. That gets around the problem of the States not having enough inspectors to do all the work, and it gets around the "fox vs. henhouse" problem of using inspectors employed by the ride owner. I like the idea of handling the inspection programs at the State level but I also don't see any harm in having a set of minimum Federal standards. Not all States have fixed site amusement rides, so it would be kind of silly for those states that don't to pass a set of rules.

In the end, it comes down to changing a corporate culture. It's happened in a lot of companies, but obviously the lessons haven't been learned everywhere yet. Enforcing that cultural change isn't an easy process. It's probably done most easily at the State level, but the State level is also where the process is perhaps its most corruptible. I don't really have a good answer. Fear of a paper tiger isn't going to do it. The existing regime of mandatory and surprise inspections isn't doing it. What would?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

To me the issue is the human element of ride inspection and there is no legislation that will control one's own free will. No matter who I work for or who I am accountable to (the state, the feds, a third party auditor, the public itself) if I don't give a crap about the work I do, or if I am distracted when I do my work, or if I just don't understand my job... I will not do it properly and the ramifications of that will exist.

There are many certified professionals across various industries that do not understand or do their jobs well. I don't see how this would be any different.

Mr Althoff, thanks for those sound words. I do think the 3rd party deal is the best way to go, the company has to pay to prove it is safe for us to go and drop all the money we do at times. It seems that will definitely take the "good 'ol boy network" out of the equation. And Carrie I do agree with what you're saying, that is why I stated "people will be as lazy as you let them" that's why I feel the more people watching the safer it would be: I guess unless all involved are just absolute idiots and have no pride as a man in their walk through this life.

But I don't believe that people will be as lazy as you let them. I believe people will be as lazy as they choose to be. That's the problem.

And the notion that all involved would be idiots or have no pride in their work is a possibility. That's the problem.

It's the very reason I can get through the TSA security checkpoints at airports with an illegal object some of the time and not all of the time. Even the federally regulated TSA is not on the ball all of the time. The question becomes, what might happen on those times I am able to get my restricted object by the regulators?

And what might happen on those times when the federally regulated and certified ride inspectors are not on the ball and miss a preventable issue?*** This post was edited by Carrie M. 5/19/2008 4:38:05 PM ***

You're right the problem is America. I guess that's why when traveling most civilised countries think Americans are fat, lazy,idiots. Guess I agree with most of the perceptions.

kpjb said(Edit) 5/18/2008 2:28:44 PM Charles, do you know anything about this situation at all?

Not only did they not surpass the manufacturer's recommendations, they didn't even come close to them. They screwed up.

When you say that the cables had plenty of lubrication because they smack off the greased rails, you're not taking your job seriously.

When you say that you don't do what the manufacturer requires for testing the cables even though it's in the owner's manual, you're not taking your job seriously.

Well I screwed up in my post. I kinda had a feeling they were cutting corners and I've had that about other parks.

I was trying to say that most parks take their inspections and safety procedures further than MFG. Recomendations and it's in their best interest to do so.

Chuck, mentioning extra safety blocks between trains and above and beyond testing is what many parks do. I just don't see Govt intervention helping.

Yes, MOST parks are pretty good about their maintenance and operations. We are talking at least in part about Kentucky Kingdom, though, the park where I was once instructed to exit a Ferris wheel gondola that was parked about 40' above the nearest loading platform. I declined to follow the operator's instructions in that case...!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I know I'm late to the club so a lot of people probably won't even read this, but I think this might be interesting to toss in here:

From what we've seen, the fact is the ride wasn't being maintained to spec... however, if you read the article where the supervisor from the park is talking about the program they put into place, it seems like the maintenance team had reasons behind not maintaining the cable the same way that Intamin had originally said.

I'm positive that the maintenance guys at SFKK weren't thinking that they could save a little money by maintaining the ride differently, I'm sure that they were thinking that the ride would operate better by keeping it maintained in this way. The article on this pointed to the use of corn starch to prevent 'cable slippage'.

I'm guessing that while Intamin created a manufacturer's suggestion on how to maintain the ride, the manual didn't cover everything that possibly could have happened on such a ride. At that point, the maintenance team needs to figure out something to do to make it work. In retrospect, the corn starch idea was _obviously_ not the correct decision, but before the accident happened this might have been looked at as the solution to a problem, and they team might have agreed to do it.

My car's user manual says that I should have all of my car work done at an authorized Dodge dealer. Instead, I save some money and go to a regular mechanic, who sometimes will replace less and work for less than the dealership. At the end of the day, he could make a decision that the Dodge dealership wouldn't have made, and it could be the difference between me dying in a fiery crash on the way home, or having an uneventful drive home.

It's the same with parts. I will always purchase the 'generic' version of the Dodge part, as long as it is cheaper. If I can save even $10 for it, it makes sense to me as long as it is still above the spec of my car. From what I've read, the cables weren't provided by Intamin, but were still of the correct grade and rated for the correct weight, which doesn't sound so crazy to switch to and save a little bit of money for then.

It's hard to tell what will work in the future. In this case, as was already highlighted, as soon as this came to light, everyone in the industry re-inspected their rides without any oversight, and there was problems found at one other ride.

--

Point is this -- Markey is once again attempting to introduce a bill that does nothing but suck away more tax dollars for no reason. This would not have been prevented with a new bill or whatever, but the chance is that the rest of the drop towers would still be down while they inspected. What happens if a chain lift breaks and has an issue? Does that make every roller coaster in the nation get shut down for weeks? It is an over-reaction, and the industry who makes their money from determining things like this is the one who has to decide if they are going to open the ride or not again.

I'm positive that thanks to all of the publicity over the Superman issue last year that SFKK had a drop in attendance, and I'm sure that they will feel that for years to come. I'm also sure that Six Flags will have to settle out of court for lots of money.

None of this is a deterrent for people who are working to maintain rides to not try to innovate and make things better in the future, and none of this is a guarantee that an innovation won't cause a further disaster. We can just all hope that the people who know these rides the best -- the ones who work on them on a daily basis -- continue to do their best job.

Maybe further communication could have made what was apparently just one park in the country realize that their idea to make the ride have less 'slippage' would dry out and damage the cables more, but maybe it wouldn't have. And, in thinking about how this ride and others operated, I still believe that we'll never know exactly how exactly it occurred. Because of that, maybe the maintenance people thought that even if the cable broke, it would be easier than greasing it on a regular basis, and everyone would be safe if a cable broke, right?

I don't see anyone in this that wants to cut off someone's limbs, or maim them in any way, or kill them, or whatever. Amusement parks thrive on *perceived* danger, and as soon as people think they are taking their life into their hands, they'll stop going. It self regulates, and we should leave them to that and save ourselves the tax money.

I don't think this bill will solve anything at all.

I think training inspectors better, and to have them come to the park more than once a season, would be a better option. Maybe, that cable was good at the beginning of the year, but suddenly it started to show rust (or something like that) after a month or two of use. Maybe, inspectors should go to these parks more often than I think they go once a year.

For this accident, I think it was the SFKK mechanics team of people that was the real problem. They just didn't know what to do, and guessed, and a bad thing happened. If they read Intamin's (Ride Trade) guidebook, maybe they never said anything about what the cable would look like when it's going to break. I kind of think that Intamin should have a standard as to when to replace the cables. How long until they will do something like this?

For the Yo-Yo, I think they say to replace the hub thing 5 years, and the hydraulic ram every year. Was it the case with that Yo-Yo? Did the inspector find out what the manufacturer says, and the records of what they did with the ride?

This stuff is more important. To me, all that he is proposing is that he wants everyone to know how he thinks that some of these are "bad" parks, and which ones are safer than others.

He can't wait to tell people that SFMM had 5 accidents this year, the Magic Kingdom had 10 accidents + 1 death, Cedar Point had 1 accident, and so on. These are all made up statistics so please don't have a fit. He acts like he's trying to warn us from the dangers of parks instead of actually solving the real problems.