Ride/Park Accidents

[pluk]

Serbia - 4 children injured across two incidents a travelling fair within a couple of days of each other.

Danger in Serbian amusement parks: After Niš, three children injured in Batajnica - owner arrested - Vreme

Within 24 hours, two different cities, two incidents in amusement parks, four injured young people.

www.vreme.com

Seoul - 2 hospitalised after log flume boat capsizes ejecting four riders into the water.

An accident occurred at the water ride of Lotte World Adventure in Seoul.According to Lotte World on.. - MK

An accident occurred at the water ride of Lotte World Adventure in Seoul.According to Lotte World on the 10th, all four passengers fell into the water at 11:20 a.m. at Lotte World located in Jamsil-do..

www.mk.co.kr

And talking of water rides, the adventureland fatality from 2021 was due at court this week for a civil case by the deceased's family against the operator, but this has been settled out of court. Probably the last we will hear of this, with the manufacturer having settled already.

Settlement reached in wrongful death lawsuit over amusement park tragedy

The agreement was confirmed by court filings as jury selection was set to begin for the civil trial. The terms of the settlement remain confidential.

local12.com

 

[Skyscraper]

In case anyone's interested, BBC Panorama have done an investigation into the safety of funfair rides, speaking to industry insiders and those who have been involved in UK accidents.

Panorama - Funfairs: How Safe Are They?

Millions of us enjoy the thrill of the funfair. But how safe are the rides we’re getting on? Reporter Rahil Sheikh investigates.

www.bbc.co.uk

Frankly, it's quite shocking.

 

[Smiley]

Frankly, it's quite shocking.

Frankly, it's quite expected You can argue these rides are designed to be put up and taken down every week, but only if wear is managed and parts changed.

Poor operations and maintenance - not sure I'd be taking my son.

 

[Poisson]

Let me guess - it varies operator to operator and the incident levels are very low. Just like every other risk in life.

 

[Smiley]

Let me guess - it varies operator to operator and the incident levels are very low. Just like every other risk in life.

Yes but look around TP. Every nut has a safety line on it, qualified engineers, and qualified staff. Travelling funfairs are IMHO less safe for a variety of reasons.

You're not going to get a faster, scarier waltzer (I'll be first on). But I've seen too many rides supported on blocks of wood that look a bit iffy. If Hyperia was mounted on blocks of wood I'd give it a miss. However it's securely mounted on a sinking island so no worries

 

[flyingguitar]

I never ride funfair rides.

a lot of permanent park flat rides are traveling rides just with proper bolted foundations (sometimes on grass the traveling rides can sink on one leg causing massive amounts of stress)

Traveling rides problem is that it very heavily depends on the operator, there are reputable fairs who take care of their stuff, however there is also the operators who don't, and because the nature of fairs it is essentially hit or miss if you get a good one, and it is difficult to determine the quality from the plac causing a lack of accountability. where as alton towers or thorpe are permanent, and the same known operators each year with known safety standards, and proper foundations.

also at permanent parks, they may loose some money from a ride going down, however since they are POP the impact isn't too large. but as funfairs they are PPR downtime has a direct cost when it goes down, and even if one seat goes down then that seats is costing you money (see BPB).

also (in America at least) they can apparently start dismantling the ride before they close the ride (removing the safety pins on the support pins) and remove a percentage of those support pins

Germany apparently inspects the ride at each installation, I would imagine it is more safe. however inspections aren't perfect.

Ryan the ride mechanic did a good video on this about a year ago:
From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rCj7CPzDsA

 

[DiogoJ42]

When it comes to safety, I'll trust a family whose entire livelihood is invested in a machine that costs twice what your house does, over a minimum wage teenager working at a theme park any day.

 

[Poisson]

You're not going to get a faster, scarier waltzer (I'll be first on). But I've seen too many rides supported on blocks of wood that look a bit iffy.

Waltzers are a bit dull. Try a (Huss) Breakdance or a (Mondial) Shake.

Wooden blocks is the standard way of doing it. The best way to level temporary rides.

 

[flyingguitar]

When it comes to safety, I'll trust a family whose entire livelihood is invested in a machine that costs twice what your house does, over a minimum wage teenager working at a theme park any day.

Are you being serious, proper designed rides like the ones installed at parks have multiple layers of safety, the operators are the first but they aren't the only safety layer. ride restraints

also the fact that their entire livelihood is on one ride is the exact wrong incentive structure, the "minimum wage teenager" isn't going to care if the ride goes down (dosn't cost them money) the ride techs also won't care as it isn't costing them money, the parks such as AT and TP barely have incentives to ensure all the rides are up (primarily being a negative guest experience, merch) and thus the incentives at every level are that if the ride is unsafe, bring it down to ensure it is safe as it isn't worth the risk.

however if your livelihood depends on it, you have massive incentives to ignore safety critical problems see a big crack in a support, and the ride is essentially scrap then your livelihood is screwed, safety relay blown and can't get another one for a few days you could just jumper out the safety system it won't matter.
throughput is everything as for one you are PPR meaning that seat checks may be rushed, and if just one seat is down it would cost thousands of lost revenue over the entire day meaning there is an incentive to ignore restraint problems (jumping out sensors, ignoring broken restraints).

that is also ignoring the quality of some of the rides (e.g look up safeco)

the big parks can afford quality rides (such as B&M, huss, intimin, etc) and afford any big maintenance problems that may pop up (for instance rita is down, no doubt it is expensive to fix)

also who do you think are operating the funfair rides?

 

[Zeock]

It was interesting to hear about regulations being ignored, as it feels like a necessity to me for all funfairs to follow regulations down to a T in order to prevent accidents.