Ed Markey:"Parks want the most 'dangerous' coaster

If you want a fair and balanced look on this issue, let FOX News know and they will give you the facts, with no spin. ;)

Then maybe good ol' Ed Markey will get his facts straight.

I saw that story on nightly news and i thought it was funny how they mentioned that while 2-3g's on the Space Shuttle is felt for more than a minute that roller coasters g forces are felt for only a few nano seconds to a second

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Veck
http://pumpingrct.topcities.com/

auscoasterman:

Markey's actual words on the NBC report stated that parks were advertising the most "dangerous" coasters. I have never seen any park advertisement which in any way advertised that real danger existed. Any park would be foolish to do so. Park ads frequently refer to fear and thrills. IE. The perception of imagined danger. No ad refers to real danger. Therefore Markey was lying.

Coasters are devices to press the buttons that get your adreniline pumping without creating any real danger. More people die driving to and from the park than riding the rides. More people die walking around in the park than riding the rides. Garden hoses and beds kill more people than amusement rides. (The above numbers are mostly from US government data, not my guesses.)

i don't think this would go nation-wide because in states like Ohio, where coasters are one of the biggest tourist attractions and biggest money makers in the whole state, they wouldn't put limits on them...

quote: "the guy's probably never been on a coaster in his life!"

didnt six flags once put him on batman:the ride and tell him it was only 2G until he got off the ride?! the first good thing six flags have done this year!!

Strictly speaking there is no such thing as "real danger". As I said, there is no scale or anything that determines the danger level or anything. It is a percieved thing. Unsafe doesn't mean dangerous.

Fear is the feeling expressed when anticipating danger. Name one situation of fear, where you're not anticipating danger. You'd be scared before you have examination, because this ultimately could change your life, thats danger. You're scared before jumping off the high platform at the aquatic centre. Know why exactly?

Our brains work on a worst-case scenario system. Immediately, we assume that what will happen in a particular instance is the worst possible. This is fundamentally a life saving technique, it stops us from trying to run straight down a cliff, it stops us from getting urges to pull the lion's tail when you're on an African safari.

Even in safe situations, such as riding a rollercoaster, people generally think of what possibly could happen - getting stuck in the loop, falling out because there is only a lapbar and so forth.

If we followed our instincts, we'd not even bother queuing for coasters, our brain tells us no, we tell it yes, it is worried though, so it triggers adrenalin, fearing a life or death situation could possibly arise.

Yes, parks do say that they've got the scariest rides etc. Fear is perception of danger, nothing else. Something truely dangerous provokes fear. It has been extended to mean unsafe, but really, this isn't what it means. Look up danger in any dictionary, no mention of unsafe anywhere. It structly a word to describe a fear-inducing situation.

So my point is, fear is a perception of danger, and parks say that they have scary rides, this means that within their rides, there is a sense of danger, causing this fear.

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So what if the best coaster in Australia is a second hand Arrow?

Yeah, but that doesn't mean a ride is dangerous. A scary ride and a dangerous ride are two completely different things. The scary ride gives the sense of danger, yet the dangerous ride is dangerous (I'm not saying any coasters are dangerous, I'm just using this as an example).

laurence said:

quote: "the guy's probably never been on a coaster in his life!"
didnt six flags once put him on batman:the ride and tell him it was only 2G until he got off the ride?! the first good thing six flags have done this year!!

what is that supposed to mean

To say that there is no such thing as real danger is obviously wrong. In hazard analysis we use several scales to quatify the level of danger. These include mortality rates, economic cost, and risk catagorization. Fear is one of the possible human reactions to danger. There are also others such as anticipation, and denial.

I don't know about Australian dictionaries, but my dictionary defines dangerous as "full for danger or risk; causing danger;perilous; hazardous; unsafe."

What the best coasters do is work on the primitive mind so that they induce bodily reactions which have little to do with the concious operation of the mind. When I go down the first hill of Millenium Force, I know that there is no significant real danger, but my primitive reactions pump adreniline anyway. When I commute to work every morning I intellectually know that there is far more danger, but my body is relaxed because it has been accustomed to this activity and drivng to work does nothing to provoke primitve reactions.

he must be stopped.

The only way to stop him is for those state people not to vote for him.

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Ed Markey, got to hate him!

This guy does nothing for the image of politicians. Of all the topics in the nation for him to spend time on! If I were one of his constiuents he would looking for a new job.

I live near Washington DC (as do many of you here). They've been saying on the news that a second terrorist strike is nearly a certainty. There is no guarantee that it will be here in DC, but they've already been talking about it being a nuclear one. I'm scared out of my mind, but try to go on with normal every day life. Having said that, it would comfort me to no end for Markey (and many other representatives) to turn his energies to trying to prevent thousands of people dying this way than to badger the theme park business in limiting their roller coasters. For God's sake, going to a theme park is traditionally one of the ways we Americans vented our angst over war and uncertainty. Markey needs to reroute his energies to something more productive than taking away a joy in life.

Chrissy

Markey has been one for security at nuclear plants now for a few years now, hes has more on his plate than some people think.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/03/26/nuclear.plants.terro/index.html

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Army Rangers lead the way

Let's weigh the dangers, shall we? A nukie plant is threatened to be blown up or attacked in some major way by a well-funded, well-organized, terrorist group INTENT on killing as many civilians as possible, folks who have assumed no "known" risk......

...or, citizens assumed to be thinking individuals in our society who have paid money to get into a park, and assumed a KNOWN risk (slight as it may be) to get an adrenaline fix on a ride that really has been engineered to MINIMIZE the danger.....

....you make the call!

*** This post was edited by rollergator on 5/20/2002. ***