Man climbs out of coaster when lap bar allegedly releases while climbing lift

Yeah I didn’t mean to suggest that Steel Vengeance was anything other than completely safe. My only point was that the notion (which was espoused in that video) that remaining seated if your restraint comes unlocked is always the safest option isn’t automatically true in every case. It depends on the ride. We all k ow there are some coasters that would kill every rider every time if it weren’t for the restraint. And I picked SV because it is the prime example of that kind of ride, in my experience.

Seat belts seem entirely pointless on a ride with double hydraulic restraints. The odds of them ever both failing is less than a rounding error. Granted, I'm assuming that the human factors geometry works, which in turn of the century Intamin rides was clearly not the case.

Jeff:
Seat belts seem entirely pointless on a ride with double hydraulic restraints.

I agree that the probability of needing them is low, but your analysis assumes the only failure mechanism would be the hydraulic system failing. What if the hydraulics kept working but the bolt came off where the hydraulics attach? Or what if for some reason the hydraulic connection or hydraulic hose failed? Cars have a double hydraulic system, but we still (well, for the most part) have a completely secondary emergency brake.

I didn't make that assumption at all, that's why I mentioned the human factors. I don't know what bolt is going to come off to make it fail, but if a hose fails, that's why it's redundant. There's no such thing as zero risk, but the double hydraulic systems in use today I suspect might fail once in a thousand years, which seems like acceptable risk to me.

Also, cars have parking brakes, if they have that at all (I haven't had a car with one in 15 years). It's not intended for emergency use. Doing doughnuts in the snow, maybe. :)

For what its worth, many moons ago, the entire row became uplocked going up the inclined lift on Alpengeist. My friend and I were in row 6, seat 1 & 2, while seat 3 was empty, with a teenage single rider in row 4. None of us were large in size, but I'd never forget the horror that came across the young girls face as she screamed and looked at us. Luckily, it locked back in place as soon as we pushed down on the harness, but that was an experience I'll never forget. The irony was that I'd use to work Alpengeist as a ride-op just a few years prior to the incident.

GoBucks89:

Vengeance has seat belts. I seem to recall them yelling out to fasten your seatbelt when you get into the car but not to pull down your lap bar. But may remember that wrong.

You are remembering correctly. To quote from the ride ops while in the station this summer:

"SEAT BELT YES, LAP BAR NO. SEAT BELT YES, LAP BAR NO."

I was under the assumption that both hydraulic and non-hydraulic restraints have a redundancy built-in. Meaning, in the rare instance that the initial system failed there was a back-up, and that a restraint failing would require both of those systems to fail, which seems stupidly rare. I've heard of many stories of restraints "popping open", but they've all ended up being either complete b.s. or just a misunderstanding (like, there was some wiggle-room on my Raptor restraint so something must be wrong!).

Fast forward to 4:54 mark.

I think for the old Arrow stuff, the redundancy might be the belt. I've not seen those taken apart, so I could be wrong. I bet Dave knows.