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Incident on The Smiler 02/06/2015

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The only way to work it out is by using many many years worth of statistics, simple as. You can't try to fudge numbers using estimates for how an event could happen as you will miss many different probabilities.

Edit: Is it really Friday?! After finishing exams I've lost all sense of time, only when the sun is out or not!
 
looks like one of families has declared war on towers, after money and criminal prosecution. According to the BBC. Who had an interview with a lass who took a video, again asking why response was slow. Apart from yours to grad ya phone and film people in serious distress. Insted using phone to actually phone 999
 
I see the reporting on the BBC gets no better! What worries me is if they tell so many untruths about all their news articles as it seems they understand very little about the issues they report upon. Watching the news is constantly making me angry, they talk about the towers being closed as if it should bother Merlin, I truly believe they have done the right thing for the right reasons and all the news can do is talk about money!
 
money talks a beeb. Hope merlin now dont disgrace themselves in a Thomas cook way and actually work with 4 victims to give them the compensation they deserve. And the other 12 of course. Damage control.
 
TomLad said:
The only way to work it out is by using many many years worth of statistics, simple as. You can't try to fudge numbers using estimates for how an event could happen as you will miss many different probabilities.

Edit: Is it really Friday?! After finishing exams I've lost all sense of time, only when the sun is out or not!
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Although I was flippant with my lottery comment earlier, it is actually pretty easy to work out fatal accident rates. There is a HSE publication called Reducing Risks Protecting People - otherwise known in the safety industry as R2P2 - which has lots of good stuff about tolerable risk criteria. It also includes examples of injury and fatal accident rates in different industries and activities. For fairground rides, the probability of an injury is 1 in 2,326,000 rides, and for a death it is 1 in 834,000,000 rides. So the 16 people hurt in 4 million rides statistic isn't far off the industry average.

By contrast, the rail travel fatal accident rate is 1 in 43,000,000 journeys, and for diving, 1 in 200,000 dives - but nobody is clamouring for train journeys or diving to be banned. I think this just goes to show that fairground rides are actually very safe, and people shouldn't be put off going on them. If you are really interested in such things, R2P2 is worth a read - but it is a bit dry!
 
MichelinMan said:
Although I was flippant with my lottery comment earlier, it is actually pretty easy to work out fatal accident rates. There is a HSE publication called Reducing Risks Protecting People - otherwise known in the safety industry as R2P2 - which has lots of good stuff about tolerable risk criteria. It also includes examples of injury and fatal accident rates in different industries and activities. For fairground rides, the probability of an injury is 1 in 2,326,000 rides, and for a death it is 1 in 834,000,000 rides. So the 16 people hurt in 4 million rides statistic isn't far off the industry average.

By contrast, the rail travel fatal accident rate is 1 in 43,000,000 journeys, and for diving, 1 in 200,000 dives - but nobody is clamouring for train journeys or diving to be banned. I think this just goes to show that fairground rides are actually very safe, and people shouldn't be put off going on them. If you are really interested in such things, R2P2 is worth a read - but it is a bit dry!
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May have a gander, but diving is that bad?! it is mad though that you're 20 times more likely to die on a train yet no-one seems to have a problem with that. Oh perception is a beautiful thing.
 
BBC local news just reported bosses were considering permanently closing the smiler.
More lazy reporting as this is very very unlikely given its cost.

Regarding compensation I find it unbelievable that the family for one of the four has already instructed a lawyer whilst she is according to said lawyer still "critically ill".
Yes there will obviously be compensation but time and a place surly.
I would also think this will be handled by AT insurance company not towers themselves.
 
TomLad said:
May have a gander, but diving is that bad?! it is mad though that you're 20 times more likely to die on a train yet no-one seems to have a problem with that. Oh perception is a beautiful thing.
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Yes, that is why diving is excluded from most travel insurance policies.

By and large the general public tend to be awful at evaluating risk levels. Not helped by sensationalist media sometimes. For example, I often read stories about the how the cancer risk is doubled from eating a certain food. But the risk has maybe gone from 1 in a million to 2 in a million - the order of magnitude hasn't really changed, but it makes a good story that sells papers (and more importantly gets funding for the researcher who has sexed up his findings!).
 
MichelinMan said:
(and more importantly gets funding for the researcher who has sexed up his findings!).
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I must use this saying more often. Although they say sex sells, so that's probably exactly what all of the media are currently doing! Shame though, you don't really hear about how well managed this whole situation is :(
 
From all the rumours I've heard I really hope it isn't true that one casualty has lost there leg I do hope they all recover quickly


Really got massive respect for nick varney upon how he's dealing with the press
 
Sorry, just watched the majority of this infamous interview, and you just have to laugh. Please, people, stop getting infuriated by it. She comes across as thick, there is no other way to put it. People watching it can make of it what they will, but she didn't do herself any favours and you struggle to take her in any way seriously.
 
Hi everybody, been a long time reader of the forum, more recently though because of the tragic events that happened on the smiler. I thought that i would pass some thoughts on it all.

Im a lover of BPB, love wooden coasters in general and the air time they give and i am always moaning about the restraints that are on them. I.e. when the big dipper was built you most probably gripped on or had a flimsy lap bar. Anyway alton towers was the place where i first rode a roller coaster. Oblivion was my first coaster i ever rode. I loved it and went back for more. Air, Nemesis, Rita all rode and loved every minute. I love towers nearly as much as i love pleasure beach, as they are similar there is a ride for everyone.

BPB has had some terrible press in the past, alton towers has an excellent rating of safety, the mine train is the only major issue i can think of on the top of my head. It is annoying that Sky news are commenting that protocols were not adequate. Unfortunately a series events happened that simply you could not consider, evaluate the risk as alone the issues that caused the smiler crash were most probably equivalent to a lightening strike.

The analogy i would use is, as i work in a kitchen company i work for ask us to cook food to 75 degrees. We now have to update this to 82 degrees. Is this because we were serving food dangerously? No simply put the company is looking to reduce the risk/ likely hood of food poising happening in the first place.

All merlin are doing is increasing the odds that the circumstances that caused the smiler issue cannot happen again, and should be applauded by the GP and news. Accidents happen but generally they are not solely down to one issue normally lots of small ones that end up causing a massive shock.
 
Kay Burley blocked me on Twitter, my life is ruined :( If you can't take it don't dish it is all I can say!

Do we have any idea when Towers will open then? I've been out the loop with news today. I take it they're aiming to have the park open as soon as staff are trained on these new procedures.

It will be interesting to see what changes have been made around the park. I can see all Smiler branding gone, although I wonder if they will extend this to the theme park map too and create a new one without The Smiler.
 
AshleeKel said:
She thrives on controversy, and always has - it guarantees her viewers, as people tune in thinking 'what will she say next?'.

Although with lots of people on here complaining to her via Ofcom, I'd find it funny that out of everything she's ever done, it's criticising Nick Varney of all people that lands her in hot water!
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However I'm sure that's just because we are biased to support Varney. I'm sure if this was say a car enthusiast forum and she was ripping into some bigshot car dude (I know nothing about cars) we would do the same!

GeorgeT said:
Seeing Nick now for a few times I have to say this man is such a pleasant and kind person. It`s just great to see that he made it to the top of such a big company :)
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I'm inclined to agree, I think he is better than we give him credit for. John Wardley's autobiography was good at portraying that too IMO.
 
I just wonder how this will affect park attendances in the short term? From a purely selfish point of view I hope less people will be at the park when I am there in a few weeks! But I just wonder how school parties might be affected? I will be there midweek just before the schools in England break up (schools in Scotland break up earlier) and last time my family did this a large number of people in the park were school groups on end of year outings. I wonder how many parents will stop their kids going now because of the adverse reaction?
 
MichelinMan said:
I just wonder how this will affect park attendances in the short term? From a purely selfish point of view I hope less people will be at the park when I am there in a few weeks! But I just wonder how school parties might be affected? I will be there midweek just before the schools in England break up (schools in Scotland break up earlier) and last time my family did this a large number of people in the park were school groups on end of year outings. I wonder how many parents will stop their kids going now because of the adverse reaction?
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Haha, I don't know about you guys but I'd happily go on The Smiler the first day it opens again, 2h 30m queues down to what... 1h max maybe not even that. Yes please!
 
I know i've been pretty vocal about Alton Towers and Merlin this year, about how all they care about is profits etc but I have to be honest here and say i've gained a new found respect towards Towers and Nick with regards the handling of the whole thing. Reading through social media again, in particular Twitter, the staff at Alton are doing a superb job at responding to people, and to be fair, it seems that the majority of people are also appreciating their efforts, even though their travel plans may have been affected

With regards Nick Varney, its clear to see he really does care. This recent BBC Interview with him clearly shows that and as he says, the victims will want for nothing and they will do everything they need of them to assist. There are not many companies where the CEO will say such a thing, in fact, the only one I can think of was Richard Branson when there was the Virgin train crash who acted in the similar way - people first, profits second.

It cant be an easy decision to close the park this many days, they must have lost well in excess of £2m now and the drop in share prices, but you can see that he genuinely cares more about the customers and to ensure this doesnt happen again.

I think Alton Towers and Nick Varney really have acted in the right way and I have much respect to them for doing so.
 
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