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Drayton Manor Park - Splash Canyon Incident

RoyJess said:
I saw that news report over the weekend, I'm not going to waste my time worrying about it. As mentioned in the above posts, its absolutely ridiculous, it will be down to the H&S to set the criteria. This is our first death on a rapid ride in this country and these rides have been around for over 30 years.

We have on average 3 deaths on our roads each day. Actually most deaths/accidents actually take place withing peoples own homes. Putting extra safety features in place will give the sense of false security, which means people are more likely to take risks. This has been proven with our cars on the road, the more the safety features a car has, it has been proven that the more you are likely to take risks and be involved in a car accident. Air-planes keep having safety features added to them and they still fall out of the sky and kill people
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Plus, would life jackets even work against the rapids current or would it be too strong for them?
 
I went to Drayton Manor at 10/11 years old with Junior school. It is used as a last chance to see most of your friends 1 final time before you want to separate senior schools. Showing my age now that was 25 years ago .

Has the park been quiet since they reopened?
 
Speaking from Experience ( as i am also a Scout leader) buoyancy aids take a long time to fit, as just like clothing they need to be matched to the size of the person wearing them, then further adjusted with straps/clips and zips, the greater the range of sizes required the greater the time to sort+fit.
to sort out a group of 8 people of varying ages sizes and shapes you would be looking at a good 10-15 minutes depending upon how familiar the people putting on the buoyancy aids are with them, the availability of the correct size, and the competency of those assisting in putting them on. life jackets are even worse as they impede the ability of people to move in the water, being merely flotation devices..

If you are talking about the use of such equipment on a rapids ride, then the use of buoyancy aids can introduce new hazards such as entrapment in any underwater object ( such as logs used to create eddys) and anything moving.

Its all very well introducing new/additional so called safety devices, but if the introduction of these things is not effective and they create additional hazards, then theiir use can be a safety hazzard in its own right.

Plus over the top Health and safety is a health and safety hazard, as it can lull people into a false sense of security, devalue the need for genuine protective measures/control measures as people will just write it all off as 'elf n safety gone mad' even where you really do need it
 
I was at Parc Asterix this weekend and they have installed nets on their rapids. I checked through my pictures from last year and they definitely didn't have nets then. So I had a look back through some Youtube videos and saw they were there in April. Is it likely they had a near miss last year or was this post Dreamworld?

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I think the nets minimise the risk of falling out without being too much of a hindrance if you need to escape in emergency.
 
Themeparksandy1981 said:
Has the park been quiet since they reopened?
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No idea, but considering the extensive ride closures at present I don't think the present attendance levels at the park will be reflective of the public's attitude to the accident alone.

Air Race, G-Force, the Chairlift, Shockwave and Splash Canyon remain closed due to the incident. Meanwhile Stormforce 10 and Pandemonium were already closed for "maintenance".

The park at present really is little more than the zoo and Thomas Land. It can hardly be giving a good impression to people that are still visiting.
 
skyscraper said:
Plus, would life jackets even work against the rapids current or would it be too strong for them?
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Not forgetting hypothermia, suddenly entering cold water can be a shock to the body and dangerous

Robert Jones said:
I was at Parc Asterix this weekend and they have installed nets on their rapids. I checked through my pictures from last year and they definitely didn't have nets then. So I had a look back through some Youtube videos and saw they were there in April. Is it likely they had a near miss last year or was this post Dreamworld?

IMG_20170513_162711_zps2teog11j.jpg



I think the nets minimise the risk of falling out without being too much of a hindrance if you need to escape in emergency.
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Those nets only go behind the seats, not where you enter and exit the boat from which I would say is the most likely place to fall out off if you are standing up moving around. The seats on these boats are deep seated and even I find it difficult to get in and our of these in the station, let alone fall out of one. To really fall out of one, you really need to be standing on the step up step in-between the seats or on the edge of the boats.
 
RoyJess said:
Not forgetting hypothermia, suddenly entering cold water can be a shock to the body and dangerous



Those nets only go behind the seats, not where you enter and exit the boat from which I would say is the most likely place to fall out off if you are standing up moving around. The seats on these boats are deep seated and even I find it difficult to get in and our of these in the station, let alone fall out of one. To really fall out of one, you really need to be standing on the step up step in-between the seats or on the edge of the boats.
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I agree its more likely to be at the steps and those seats are very deep. I even compared them to throne from Game of Thrones due the high back. What I like about the nets is much like a velcro belt, they portray a sense of danger and can be a great visual reminder to stay seated throughout.
 
chilli2 said:
Over the top Health and safety is a health and safety hazard, as it can lull people into a false sense of security, devalue the need for genuine protective measures/control measures as people will just write it all off as 'elf n safety gone mad' even where you really do need it
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This is very true. Good preventative / in-built H&S is a fantastic thing that has saved a lot of lives and had a lot of progress in the last few decades. But ad-hoc H&S, arbitrary or overzealous restrictions give it a bad name and really do often achieve the opposite in the long run.

Plenty of stories about firemen casualties because they now wear so much PPE that it's now harder to sense where the heat actually is and take the right precautions, or to be on full guard. "Too much H&S being more dangerous" might sound silly to some but it truly is a factor, or confusing and unnecessary H&S acting as a distraction while the problem itself continues.

Unfortunately from what I experienced with Merlin they are very much of this camp when it comes to reactionary measures. The fundamental stuff is good, but beyond that it has always been a case of add signs, hire a new manager to say the same things, say a slogan, or slow processes down arbitrarily. It massively confuses and misleads the staff on the ground too.

For example on a particular ride at a particular park, there was a very obviously dangerous and overcrowded exit which was being used for many purposes it had not been designed for. Should there need to be an emergency evacuation, it would have been total chaos. Because the exit was so overcrowded, guests were constantly backing up on to the moving platform while trying to exit. Should the very flimsy wall next to this very crowded narrow path collapse, with all the people leaning on it, you'd have many people exposed/falling into an active ride area. It seemed so easy to redesign the path/station for the purposes it was now being used for and create an efficient system, but instead the basic issue was ignored, a random sign was added and the official advice was "slow the ride down if it gets crowded", ridiculous.

I hope that the right approach is now being adopted. I think they've taken the right precautions with the rapids at the moment - turning the waterfalls off might seem a little unnecessary but as has been pointed out, it's a high pressure time and hopefully they will return. :)
 
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I've been on that :) Side netting wouldn't work on that ride, due to the flexing between the compartments/segments.
Theres also a few issues with getting in and out of the boats at the standard theme park set up from a rotating turntable, the boats at Walibi Holland come out of the water on a conveyor belt, you get onto/into the boats by stepping onto the solid conveyor belt out of the water. to use that set up at Alton or Drayton you would need a station rebuild with a solid conveyor belt for loading /unloading.
If you find yourself at Walibi Holland, avoid El condor the SLC coaster its painful - possibly one of the worst coasters that I have experienced - take a few extra runs on Goliath instead.
 
I'm surprised there hasn't been an incident on Riverquest at phantasialand. I fell into a spare seat on the first drop as I wasn't expecting it to be so violent. People regularly stand up as well because the boats full with water.
 
Has anyone been on the rapids at Parque Warner Madrid? I was astonished by just how violent that was. It felt unsafe.


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