When roller coasters attack!

Who does this guy think he is? He probably has very little if any knowledge of amusement parks. Anyone and I mean anyone on this site would be more qualified for writing a newspaper article on roller coasters than him.

I would like to know what he does do for fun. It's almost impossible that its safer than coasters. Or is his only way of having fun trying to do his share of tearing apart industries.

Apparently this guy does not have enough intelligence to realize that one of the main reasons these accidents make headlines is b/c the are so rare. If they were not rare then know one would care. b/c it wouldn't be interesting. Know one wants to hear about car accidents on the highway every day.

I think even our good old friends at ASO could do better *** Edited 7/13/2007 7:46:18 PM UTC by GIGAFORCE01***

Why is it that people want to blame "the media" for everything? I think Americans tend to be generally stupid (see: 41% of Americans think Saddam was involved in 9/11), and what's worse, is that they don't actually ready anything.

Does anyone actually read anymore? You tend to understand the world a bit more if you read things instead of getting the sound bite on Fox News (which isn't news anyway). Just because some two-bit hack of a columnist in Canton, Ohio thinks that amusement parks are a death trap doesn't make it so.

Don't blame the media, blame those that consume it and its Paris Hilton infatuated crap.

I'm not attempting to blame the media. This was an opinion piece, so the writer is more or less allowed to write whatever he wants, but there is a thing called "responsible journalism". In this case, the writer is feeding a fire that can ensue panic and anxiety that could damage Cedar Point's attendance.

I agree Americans tend to be generally stupid, which is why I think a piece like this could actually have an effect, which is sad.

Opinion columns aren't journalism, they're opinion columns that happen to appear in the same publications as journalism.

That's another thing that pisses me off, is that people lump "the media" all together, which includes movies, music, TV, radio, magazines, etc. News is only a small portion of that, and I still believe that most news operations mostly get it right more than they get it wrong. You just have to know where to look. That's not hard either since you can probably identify that local TV station with teases about "teen lesbian prostitutes producing political documentaries" as the "fake" news station.

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Jeff said:
Opinion columns aren't journalism, they're opinion columns that happen to appear in the same publications as journalism.

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I know you're off on a different tangent here Jeff, so I'm not directly addressing you, but for those keeping score at home having a statement like "injuries - and death - are becoming much more common" in an editorial still needs some sort of source even if the rest of the article is opinion to be taken seriously.

Of course - that's just for smart people like us who really care about such things. Like Jeff and others have pointed out, most people reading aren't going to know the difference and will take this as some sort of expert truth, but then again, there's an awful lot of people who can't discern hard news from opinion pieces in the newspaper to begin with.

The line blurs even more when it comes to garbage like Fox News, but even when the line is clear to most of us there's still a lot of people who absorb it all the same.

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matt. said:
"Numbers and statistics mean absolutely nothing to the average person."

That's not really justification for anything, though, that's just sad. It's unfortunately a sign of the times, though, when there's a happy culture of people being completely ignorant about all things scientific and objective.

++Again, step away from your enthusiast mindset for a minute. Am I (or anyone else for that matter) supposed to base everything I do in life based on the statistics of getting injured and the science of how that injury might occur? It's completely unrealistic.

"^But hang on, is it your responsibility to defend against every article like this when the last I checked you don't own an amusement park or carnival?"

Totally beside the point, totally irelevant. It's not about who owns what parks because unfortunately lazy, reactionary opinion pieces like this could one day have real life, negative effects on the industry, and that doesn't just affect the people who own the parks, that affects everybody who patronizes them and the businesses who also thrive and are stimulated partially because of their proximity to parks.

++Again, it's not your responsibility to defend the industry, although it's your right if you want to, but remember that you're not important in the scheme of things. It should be up to tradegroups like IAPPA to be the one pushing the safety numbers not you.

I'm glad that you're thinking of the big picture of what happens if a themepark goes out of business, but come on, again this has been no different from any other summer accident-wise and these accidents don't stop people from going to themeparks.

Articles/opinion pieces like this one have been around for easily twenty-years or more. Sorry, but I haven't seen the numbers declining or investment drying up if you count all the themeparks worldwide.

and not only not giving us some sort of credible source but not giving any source at all. Opininon piece or not, one of the very first things you learn in even the most introductory High School journalism classes is if you're going to make claims like this, you need a "according to" or "says" or "such and such reports" statement to back that claim up. I mean his statement there isn't a subjective opinion, that's something that can be quanitifed by real experts, something he is not.

++Welcome to the world of the blog, and the forum-based site. The rules have completely changed. Why does he have to be an expert to talk about something that pratically everyone has access to?

"That might work in a communist country, but in the rest of the free world, we're entitled to read and see whatever we like."

++I think you're still missing the point. You can write your letter to the editor and hope for the best, but I don't think a large amount of people read the opinion/letters to the editor section. But if they do read your grievance, then you've done the best you can and you should leave it at that.

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Or, in the words of Sgt. Frantz:
You really like this junk, don't you? It's your job, a story, wait here like a vulture for someone to die so you can take a picture. I got more respect for those little riders up on the hill. They take a side, you just take pictures. You probably don't even do your own riding! You listen to me. We're gonna take this mother hill, Newsman. And if I catch you on top taking pictures of any of my people, I will blow your stupid head off. You haven't earned a right to be here. *You got that?*
Sgt. Frantz (Hamburger Hill)

;) *** Edited 7/14/2007 12:53:13 PM UTC by FLYINGSCOOTER***

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The line blurs even more when it comes to garbage like Fox News, but even when the line is clear to most of us there's still a lot of people who absorb it all the same.

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Which was my point. Of course this was an opinion piece, and I would bet that an opinion piece about "not wanting to swim in shark-infested waters" popped up in 2001. The problem is that this "opinion piece" attempted to come off as journalism, as he nicely organized a hodge-podge of accidents, trying to create the facade that suddenly the public is in danger.

And tonight? Our local garbage news is doing an expose on amusement rides and how dangerous they are, and "who REALLY inspects them". With the Ohio State Fair coming up, I have a hunch they will focus on that, but we'll see.

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Opinion columns aren't journalism, they're opinion columns that happen to appear in the same publications as journalism.

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Yes, and my point was that there will be people who read this section loyally, and will say, "damn right, bob...we aint ridin' no more rolly coasters", or kids that see these inflamed stories on the news and just get plain scared. No, this is nothing new, I think it is just irritating me because we happen to know better, that's all.

:)

"Am I (or anyone else for that matter) supposed to base everything I do in life based on the statistics of getting injured and the science of how that injury might occur?"

No, and I wasn't suggesting that. I'm suggesting that this one editorial is B.S. and throwing around objective claims without sources is a good way to show you're not doing your homework and doing your readers a disservice.

"Again, it's not your responsibility to defend the industry, although it's your right if you want to, but remember that you're not important in the scheme of things. It should be up to tradegroups like IAPPA to be the one pushing the safety numbers not you."

It is my responsibility because I'm a member of the news reading public. I realize you may not have the biggest knowledge about how the free press is supposed to work but ideally the press is supposed to serve *us*. It's their job to inform us, and when they screw up, as I feel one guy did here in his lousy opinion piece I sometimes exercise my right to say "Hey that wasn't very good."

I mean that's great if you want to tell me I'm not important or whatever but if everybody felt that way then the press would have free reign to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. I mean writing to columnists and people who work at real life newspapers does make a difference, believe it or not, these are real people we're talking about.

Should I not bother to vote, too?

"again this has been no different from any other summer accident-wise"

I completely agree with you and that was my whole point to begin with. Nothing has changed from this summer to previous ones but this guy wants to make baseless claims that it has. Where exactly did you miss that?

"Welcome to the world of the blog, and the forum-based site."

He wasn't writing on a blog or an internet forum, he was writing on a professionally published newspaper site that I assume was also printed on paper and circulated.

Even still, people on blogs and forums don't get free passes. How many times have people made claims on Coasterbuzz and how many times has everybody said "Do you have a source for that?" It happens all the time! And if there isn't a valid source of their claims, they're usually laughed out of the forum, in my experience. Why else would the infamous Dippin' Dots guy exist in enthusiast lingo?

I mean that's kinda sad to me that you have such low standards for what's published in the press but I don't share that same sentiment. I think there are still incredible amounts of fantastic journalists and column writers who do a great job every single day but giving a free pass to the ones who do a crappy job does a disservice to the good ones, I think. And even the good ones to crappy things on occasion but the best ones *want* to hear from the public. They actually *want* people to write in and voice their opinions.

"I think you're still missing the point."

You're missing the point and here's why -

"You can write your letter to the editor and hope for the best"

I didn't write a letter to the editor, I wrote it to the guy who wrote the piece personally.

"but I don't think a large amount of people read the opinion/letters to the editor section."

I didn't write to the editor but it doesn't matter what amount of people read it. I still feel like it's my civic duty to express my opinion, even if it is to drop a note to a columnist who I think isn't doing a very good job.

"But if they do read your grievance, then you've done the best you can and you should leave it at that."

That's all I did, and I'm not sure what you really think I did otherwise.

Look, you're making a mountain out of a molehill here, all I did was read something I thought was lame and then I took 60 seconds to write a note. It took me 60 seconds, a lot less time to respond to you when I don't even really understand what your point is other than you don't think I'm "important" which isn't really much of a revelation.

Seriously, dude, I took 60 seconds to write a note to a paper. I'm good friends with a columnist for a major paper here in Connecticut, and she generally gets hundreds of responses a week to her columns.

That's kinda the whole point. I mean it's not really about roller coasters, it's about public discourse, and just because you have no faith in it doesn't mean that I shouldn't. I mean even still it's just a 60 second note I sent to a little podunk newspaper nobody reads, why do you care so much? Geez. *** Edited 7/14/2007 2:02:15 PM UTC by matt.***

I used to care or get really upset when someone would make a mistake in the newspaper. Someone wrote an article years ago about all the roller coaster accidents that were happening in 1999 (I believe), and I pointed out to this person that most of what she had reported on didn't occur on roller coasters at all, and that I was happy to take her to SFA to show her the differences between a roller coaster and a white-water rapids ride (and whatever else she misidentified). It got published in the Opinion/Letters to the Editor section of the paper.

At the time it felt great, like I had done something wonderful. I'm one of those people who actually reads the opinion/letters to the editor column every single day, not only in the Sun, but also in the City Paper, and my town's paper. I love to know what people are thinking.

But when Mark Shapiro was on his park tour last year and he said he wanted the Iron Eagle 'roller coaster' (it was a big Zamperla flat ride) removed from SFA because it was an eyesore in The Washington Post, I just resigned myself to the fact that most reporters are ignorant when it comes to themeparks and they always will be ignorant. *** Edited 7/15/2007 6:33:43 AM UTC by Intamin Fan***