Woman dies riding Texas Giant at Six Flags Over Texas

I'm certainly sensitive to safety issues, and generally agree with the consensus on here about not being too keen on having "kid" ride ops holding our lives in their hands ... But let's face it though - whether you're a 16 year old wet-behind-the-ears punk, whos only concern is trying to earn some extra beer money, or you're a prolific, seasoned veteran in the amusement park business with the highest technical degree one could have - how hard is it to make sure a safety bar is pushed down tight against someones torso, and in turn, make sure said bar is locked into position ??

So until proven otherwise, I'm going to give the ride op(s) the benefit of the doubt in this case and believe there wasn't an error.

Superstew said:

...how hard is it to make sure a safety bar is pushed down tight against someones torso, and in turn, make sure said bar is locked into position ??

It's not. In fact, we're all sort of guessing that's what happened here. The lapbar was against the torso, not the lap. That's exactly the problem - that a ride op can press a lap bar into an incorrect position and still get a green light from the computer.

Agreed. But assuming there was no "mechanical failure," and hopefully this being a one-time isolated incident only - I still think this accident was a fluke. If it weren't, people being locked in improperly by their torso's and not their lap, would be flying off the trains on a regular basis.

Technically, this isn't a fluke. Same thing has happened several times now, and it almost seems like this is becoming an annual thing where the harness is locked, but the rider is not secure.

-Hydro
-Ride Of Steel DL (2 ejections)
-Bizzaro
-Perilous Plunge

It's a fluke compared to all riders.

I wonder how much of a 'fluke' it is if you only account for the large-midsection riders or riders of a certain size? My guess is that it suddenly becomes a lot less flukey.

That's pretty much what I was getting at, Lord ... But I'm sure there have been many millions of coaster rides also given over the years to even large-mid section riders without incident ... Even with the examples that Fun gave (and correct me if I'm wrong), ejections are very, very rare and usually involve extenuating circumstances (Like didn't the one guy have no legs??)

I'm definitely on board with the idea that there needs to be some sort of universal "RED LIGHT" that flashes so it can prevent something like this .. Trouble is, figuring out what that would be. It's just too bad that good-ole regular common sense can't govern it.

Just to clarify, Hydro's incident was the opposite cause...a rider of unusually small size was ejected. When we went to ride Hydro, there was exceptionally-stringent restraint checking going on...

Wow, go away for a long weekend and see what I miss.

Anyway, I have had a few instances where restraints weren't functioning properly. I'd rather not mention where. Once I pointed it out to the park, that seat was blocked off.

I've also had a few instances where I felt ride-ops didn't close my restraint enough and I pulled it down further myself. There does need to be some personal responsibility and common sense. But, that being said, with all the problems Intamin has had over the years, it surprises me that we can still have an issue like this. We've known for a while not that large riders and lap bars have been a problem in the past. I don't understand how this can still be happening.

I understand that you can't test for every possible scenario. But, assuming the mechanics didn't fail, how is it that a person who is apparently to large able to get on and have a go-light from the computer? It's not like we haven't had warnings from past incidents. Am I wrong?

Well, the lap bar may have been down far enough to lock, but the computer has no way of knowing if it's resting against a thigh, gut, or pure air. I'm not sure how you can work around that, besides training employees to visually make sure lap bars are indeed on laps, especially on these ones that don't have secondary restraints.

What scares me is that I think we are seeing evidence that restraint systems are being designed by engineers who don't fully understand how they work. Add to that significant misconceptions about what makes a restraint "safe", (tighter is always safer, right?) and even standards regulations that are ambiguous about how to design a restraint, requiring a mechanical or electrical system to do the impossible, detecting the "correct" position when it can't possibly know the size of the rider. I find myself wondering if rides wouldn't be safer with the old non-adjustable lap bars.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Perhaps they would, but I'd love to see what sort of non-adjustable lap bar can hold me in a ride like El Toro, SkyRush, or Boulder Dash. I'm not saying it can't be done, and you're certainly far more of an expert on this than I'll ever be, but I know I don't mind getting stapled on rides that would otherwise launch me into the next state over.

I have to agree with sirloindude. I can't imagine riding Millennium Force or Diamondback with a buzz bar like the classic wooden coasters or like the stationary lap bar like on Jack Rabbit at Kennywood. Some newer coasters these days more intense than ever.

I keep imagining that if this lady pulled her gut up and over her lap bar so it could be pulled closer to her lap, she would have been safe, assuming that the problem was a loose lap bar like the Superman: Ride of Steel video previously linked to shows.

Securing riders is a geometric problem. If you are relying on the bar being tight, you're doing it wrong. The challenge is to make sure that there isn't a clear escape route for a seated rider.

It was interesting a few years ago to look at generations of photographs taken of Expedition GeForce. That ride is regulated directly by TüV Bayern, and there was a series of major changes made to that ride that are clearly visible in photographs. The seat pan depth was changed, the footwells were changed, and ultimately the train was replaced. All to make sure that there is no way for the rider to get his knees past the back of the lap bar. Or whatever standard they decided to work with.

On some rides you might be surprised to find that if the lap bar isn't pinning you to the seat, you actually will find the airtime moments to be *less* extreme. Because you aren't being accelerated as hard by your contact with the lap bar.

Believe it or not, my current favorite lap bar design is more or less what Intamin is doing now (minus the shoulder bars they seem to like to attach to it). The bar actually comes down in such a way that it will tend to miss the stomach even on portly riders, and because it is hinged from overhead, pushing on the bar will tend to push it *closed* instead of open, even if the latches fail. After lots of error, it seems that Intamin might have finally figured it out. The particularly nice thing about it is that it reduces the importance of capturing the legs and keeping them from straightening out; if you straighten your legs you're still going to be wrapped around the bar.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

And yet, even after coming up with what I also felt was a very good restraint, they change it up again with Thigh Crush (Sky Rush)

Something I seriously don't know, so please don't laugh:

Why couldn't the companies use retracting seatbelts like a car? I don't mean shoulder belts necessarily (that would be horrible), but at least retracting waistbelts could be of some help. Would it weight the train down too much more? Would it be too costly? Could the seatbelts lock in some position that would be too tight or too loose for riders? In certain rides with the huge amounts of airtime, I just can't understand NOT having some sort of other restraint, even if it is just a seatbelt. I'm not all for seatbelts on everything (the Scrambler and Musik Express?! Really??), but I still feel it was a very valid point made earlier about extreme rides having multiple redundancies. It seems foolish to sacrifice safety for rider "freedom".

There are rides that have that type, usually as a redundancy. I don't mind seatbelts as a redundant system, even if they're a tertiary failsafe.

I am skinny, and ive never had problems with almost falling out. My doctor said 85% of males my age are heavier than me, but my height is average. If anyone would be in the too thin to ride category, it'd be me.

Judging by the one photo that we have, the woman in the case appears to have had the worst body type for this kind of problem: a large torso and small legs.

A good example of the geometric problem that Dave is talking about can be seen in B&M's hyper coaster restraints. The way the clamshell is oriented relative to both the seat bottom and the pivot point of the restraint, as it is pulled into position the clamshell basically hovers across the thighs (mainly due to the inclination of the seat bottom) and uses most of its motion to collapse against the waist. In other words, as it rotates the restraint closes in on the waist faster than it closes in on the thighs. This is a sound design because a) the key to properly restraining the rider is to limit the space for the legs to slide between the seat bottom and bar, and b) the thickness of riders' thighs have much less variability than the thickness of riders' waists. So even for riders with large midsections that will prevent the restraint from coming down very far, it will still be close to their thighs.

Now look at Intamin's MF style lapbar. The seat bottom is much flatter, so as the bar is rotated into position, it collapses on the thighs and waist at a more even rate. So a large gut that holds the bar farther out will in turn also hold it farther away from the thighs, which can provide the space necessary for the rider's legs to slip out.

^ Aha, that partly answers the asteriskal question I had in the other thread. Both the tilt of the seat and the shape of the clamshell help lock the person in place properly. And yet, I always feel a little too loose on Diamondback and give the restraint an extra tug.

Exactly! You feel loose because in a sense you are loose, or at least it feels different because we're not used to being held at the thighs, but rather at the hips or abdomen.