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It is an assumption. You say that it's how a rollercoaster system works yet clearly a rollercoaster isn't supposed to crash into a stalled train either is it? Something went wrong and we don't know what it was. The most important word there being 'feel' of course. I'm not trying to paint...

Even that's an assumption at this point to be fair. The ride certainly did stop but we've had no confirmation to say that it definitely stopped because it detected a train had stalled. The reason I say that is because the ride continued on regardless afterwards. Perhaps another fault happened at...

Gerstlauer obviously wouldn't design a rollercoaster where you were unable to tell if it had stalled. So something must have happened that was completely unexpected and that they had not foreseen if (and that's a big if) the stall wasn't detected. Therefore, there could be a similar set of...

You're absolutely right but at this point we don't even know if the ride operator/engineer even realised that a train had stalled.

In an attempt to avoid a double post yet to still tackle the point you made about being unable to reduce risks in all aspects of life, I edited my post before last. As I said there, people view taking a plane journey as a part of normal life and (based on sheer numbers which I posted above)...

There is a huge difference between not feeling safe and secure and actually not being safe and secure though. I'm not denying the risk is minimal but this crash has highlighted that if it were to happen again, the trains are in no way prepared for the event.

I wasn't comparing the rollercoaster industry to the car industry in terms of number of crashes. I was pointing out that if they're able to make cars withstand crashes from several directions to limit injuries, then Gerstlauer should be able to make a train that can withstand crashes from only...

I never said the train design was the main reason for the injuries suffered by those on the front row. But once the ride had got to the point of the crash being inevitable, the train had pretty much nothing to prevent serious damage to those on board. By saying 'other designs could well have led...

But as we all know, ride breakdowns (and subsequently manual over-ride) are a routine part of any ride's operation. If, as I assume you're implying, the crash was therefore due to human error, I'm sure you'll agree that there's no way to completely remove the risk of human error occurring again...

I don't quite understand the point you're making. Firstly, we don't know what caused the crash - it's all speculation at this stage. Secondly, whether it was in manual or normal operation, it was still possible for it to happen when we all thought it was impossible. And my point about Spinball...

Fair point but I'd argue that they need to be seen to be doing something. It's very easy for Alton Towers to say that they've improved the operating system of the ride and re-written their staff procedures etc but these things were apparently done to Spinball Whizzer for example and (correct me...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33155853 Both Vicky Balch and common sense dictate that it would have been impossible for any of the riders to have been removed from the train in 30 minutes. Considering it took 11 minutes to call 999, the journey time for the ambulance service to get there, the...

Yeah, there'll be public uproar if she's given anything less than a million. It's now assumed she'll get at least a seven figure amount thanks to it being repeated in the press so many times.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm an expert on compensation claims but this is the lawyer who got the largest pay out in personal injury claim history at £23 million. That was obviously a different set of circumstances - the persons mum was killed and she was paralysed completely in the legs and...

The maturity that Joe has shown in that article is astounding. I can assure you that I wouldn't be as composed and as thoughtful as he is if I were in the same situation. I hope Merlin continue to look after him and give him the answers he deserves. On a side note, considering a lot of the...

This was mentioned earlier in the thread (about 800 messages ago probably now!). As far as I'm aware there's been no closures elsewhere. Also, this is the closest we have to a statement from Gerstlauer: http://m.echo-news.co.uk/news/13319818.Southend_rollercoaster_is_safe/ EDIT: Just realised...

Fair enough - I suppose it'd be easy to cover a few digits of the ID number though if you knew Alton Towers invalidates them.

I don't get how they'd figure out which tickets had been resold though. It doesn't sound like they're taking the details of people for each ticket for example.

Another Mirror report - this time where they've spoken to the parents of Hayley Williams who died in 2006 on Hydro at Oakwood: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/alton-towers-accident-parents-girl-5869935 It's incredibly sad what happened and just reminds you of how much worse it could have...

You said yourself that when an event comes along that's more gruesome or front page worthy than these silly stories, it'll be like dust in a wind! Why would you want to threaten that with a long winded and (probably) widely publicised lawsuit which involves one of the newspapers themselves who...