Markey and IAAPA rep spar on morning television
Posted
For the last two years, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass) has been seeking federal oversight of amusement parks. His proposal, known as the National Amusement Park Ride Safety Act, would give the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) jurisdiction over the amusement park industry and establish a national G-force limit on rides.
Bill Powers represents the IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions). He maintains that amusement parks are one of he safest recreational activities and that Markey is grossly overreacting.
Read the transcripts from CBS.
"Markey: People are being hurt, we can do something about it, and it would be irresponsible of us not to do so."
This guy should try to get federal regulation on being alive.
Sometimes living in Europe makes me jalous at you guys, but this time... ;-)
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This season:
1 park
15 rides
Honostely, I still dont understand where he gets his argument that there are more deaths per mile on roller coasters than on airplanes... Seriously.. Can someone explain to me the logic in that???
I mean, roller coasters on average are less than a mile long. Airplines can travel thousands of miles in a single trip. And when there is an accident on an Airplane, it usually involves lots of deaths..... I could go on but I dont feel like it. Its just such a stupid thing of Markey to say.
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-Matt in Iowa
193 coasters ridden -- #1 Shivering Timbers -- 40 Laps -- Back Seat!
He is getting his support from the soccer moms and saftey nuts. You look at a coaster (steel) and you see a huge mass of tangled steel a hundred feet in the air. Now look at a bike, not as immitating. The facts don't matter when people already made up there mind from looks and aperance. Its like the old saying, you can't judge a book by its cover!
Blitzjade -
It goes like this.
You take all of the roller coasters in America and you measure them. You add their lengths together and get, for example, that there's a total of 700 miles worth of operating roller coaster track in the US. You multiply this number by the estimated number of rides given per year, and then divide by the number of accidents (which, as far as I know, don't differentiate between roller coasters and other rides, or pathways, or dippin' dots stands). You get a ratio.
1 injury per, say, 100000 miles.
You look at the mileage flown by aircraft. One flight from JFK to Orlando is 1100 miles. Rinse and repeat, a lot. Do the same to the numbers, and you get a similar ratio. 1 injury in every 2399199 miles flown, for example.
Roller coasters wind up with ratio closer to 1:1. How much closer? It's impossible to say with the given data. Is a small difference significant when you're dealing in the hundreds of millions? Ask a statistician.
So - assuming Markey's data is kosher, which I believe it not to be, the comparison is legitimate on mathematical grounds. If it bears any relevance to the real world, however, is debatable. There are just far too many variables.
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~~~ Maddy ~~~
ShiveringTim: "I find it funny that CBS would be biased towards Markey since their parent company has interest in the amusement park industry. CBS is owned by Viacom which owns Paramount and therefore Paramount Parks. "
The bottom line is that news anchors in general are quite liberally biased. They don't care about the networks interest, they only care about making the government bigger.
I however as a libertarian believe that the government is here to protect me from thieves, murderers and outside forces. I do not need the government to tell me whether or not a ride is safe. The parks will do that for me. The reason why is money. If a park has many accidents then park loses money. Money is the only governing body that we need to keep amusement park rides safe.
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Happy 75th, my one and only wooden coaster!
I think someone should give Bill O'Reilly from Fox News an e-mail. He runs The Factor which is famous for "no spin". He does not care for government interference and I'm sure he would put Markey on the factor if you prove that the story has value.
"I have no particular G-force number in mind. I want experts to determine what that limit should be. The same way that experts decided how padded football helmets needed to be. There should also be age limits for certain rides. Amusement park operators shouldn't be making these decisions."
They don't make the decisions. Some young ride operator trying to earn a little college money doesn't decide how many G's a coaster pulls, the designers do. And guess what Markey, they're the experts.
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Millennium Force track record: 21
*** This post was edited by Bakeman on 6/26/2002. ***
What is Markey? Can someone explain it to me. Does that have to do something with advertisement?
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Valleyfair Security 2002! 8Years working at Valleyfair :)! What does LOL stand for?, lol...
CoasterKaiser - I'll admit immediately to be strongly biased against Bill O'Reilly. I can't stand that man. He's one of few individuals who so infuriates me that I would like to go slap him some. It's not because of his politics so much as it is because of his manner. He's too obnoxious for anyone's good.
That said, I'd rather he not be involved in this at all. . . . and, no matter what he, or anyone else ever says, there's always a 'spin'. Always.
Welcome to Earth :)
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~~~ Maddy ~~~
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Snoopy Rocks! On Ice opens on June 22nd
Think they'll let me drive the Zamboni machine?
The bottom line is that news anchors in general are quite liberally biased. They don't care about the networks interest, they only care about making the government bigger.
That's about as ridiculous as some of Markey's claims. I must've missed that day in college when they taught us to be pro-big-government.
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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"We used to hate people, now we just make fun of them. It's more effective that way." - KMFDM, "Dogma"
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Beer, my soon to be wife, coasters, and the FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Is this a great country or what!!
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stoogemanmoe and places to get discount Six Flags Great America tickets!
Well, Jeff it is here that I must disagree with you. Certainly you are not taught to be pro big government but the "liberal bias of the media" has merit. The reason O'Reilly is so shocking is that he is one of the first conservatives to make a name on tv in a sea of liberals. He stands out like a sore thumb for a reason.
I consider myself to be pretty republicrat, not leaning much towards one party or the other. However, you cannot watch any of the big three networks without seeing the liberal slant to their reporting.
Bottom line on the issue at hand: Markey is doing this to be noticed, and it is working. The media outlets cover it b/c it is sensational, and it too is working. Are people picketing parks or refraining from going this summer? No.
With "real" news outlets, I don't see anything other than fair reporting. I see no bias from ABC News. And even with the report in question, I didn't see any bias. The anchor asked both guys tough questions.
People don't understand the difference between "news" and "editorial" either, and often choose to lump it together as "media." That would be incorrect, as Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh are "media," but neither one is "news."
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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"We used to hate people, now we just make fun of them. It's more effective that way." - KMFDM, "Dogma"
Markey: They've changed a lot of rules to make many things safer- remember they used to play football with leather helmets and no pads. We regulate baby carriages, bicycles, baby seats. We just don't regulate a kid in a roller coaster seat. Amusement parks need to be federally regulated...People are being hurt, we can do something about it, and it would be irresponsible of us not to do so.
It's interesting that this seems to be his strongest argument. Q: Why should we regulate? A: Because we don't now. His interview included NO hard facts, NO research, NO anything statistical or scientific. He is basing his entire platform on the PERCEIVED emotions of the American people. And those perceptions are flawed, at best. They're HIS perceptions. As for the argument of "rides have no regulation across state boundaries..." Look at what happened with the Cajun CliffPuker at SFGAm. That ride went down, the others across the country went down. I remember there being a few other ride failures, and similar rides were taken down as precautions (down means out of service, not necessarily disassembled). There was absolutely NOTHING in this interview that had any merit.
...all I know is that scientists need to look into this so we can develop standards.
Kind of a funny statment, don't you agree??? Especially for basis of an entire political agenda...
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"Getting on Iron Wolf is kind of like going in a blender and pressing PUREE"
--Ever lying in wait for someone to say something stupid. *** This post was edited by du8die on 6/27/2002. ***
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