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Ride/Park Accidents

"This is completely unrelated to the operation and maintainance of our attractions"

What? A weirdly dismissive statement. Surely that maintainance includes things like checking for trees that might fall on rides and guests? Hopefully that's just something lost in translation
 
pluk said:
"This is completely unrelated to the operation and maintainance of our attractions"

What? A weirdly dismissive statement. Surely that maintainance includes things like checking for trees that might fall on rides and guests? Hopefully that's just something lost in translation
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I get what they mean in a way though, its not a mechanical fault with the ride itself, its a maintenance issue with not checking trees for rot etc. The ride itself is "safe" but the tree is kind of an external factor. Think of it like a tree falling in a road, there is nothing wrong with the car or the road, which caused it, just the tree. As you say, the park should check whether a tree could fall on guests as well as maintaining the ride.
 
pluk said:
"This is completely unrelated to the operation and maintainance of our attractions"

What? A weirdly dismissive statement. Surely that maintainance includes things like checking for trees that might fall on rides and guests? Hopefully that's just something lost in translation
Click to expand...
What do you expect them to do? Fell every tree in the park? How many big trees surround rides at Alton Towers? Loads. A more sensible thing to do is not operate rides in strong winds.....
 
RIPCorky said:
What do you expect them to do? Fell every tree in the park?
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Absolutely nothing of the sort? It is completely standard stuff to test trees to ensure they are standing safely, it happens in pretty much every public space, from themeparks to country parks to roadsides. It can be done reliably by arborists, and they'd be able to give guidance on what needs to be done in to keep the area safe. So that.
 
RIPCorky said:
What do you expect them to do? Fell every tree in the park? How many big trees surround rides at Alton Towers? Loads. A more sensible thing to do is not operate rides in strong winds.....
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To be fair there have been multiple times massive cordons have been put around trees at Towers, and rides have been closed due to trees been assessed as needing attention and a risk so I think Towers do actually take it seriously.
 
jon81uk said:
I get what they mean in a way though, its not a mechanical fault with the ride itself, its a maintenance issue with not checking trees for rot etc. The ride itself is "safe" but the tree is kind of an external factor. Think of it like a tree falling in a road, there is nothing wrong with the car or the road, which caused it, just the tree. As you say, the park should check whether a tree could fall on guests as well as maintaining the ride.
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A tree falling in the road is poor maintenance of the highway. A tree falling in a ride area is poor maintenance of the ride area. It's not like a passing plane suddenly dropped from the sky.
 
It's an odd one. Clearly someone was ejected from the ride, otherwise there would have been no incident. But the responsibility for ensuring that a person can't be ejected from the ride surely lies with the staff checking restraints if no mechanical fault occurred? The only way that the park can be held blameless and the case against them dropped so definitively is if the guest was acting irresponsibly - however I was of the impression that the train had partially derailed, and I'm struggling to see how a guest could have made this happen.

Definitely a headscratcher!
 
Having looked back at the news reports from 2022 it looks like the “wobbling” of the car was reported by other riders.

"It looked like the last few carriages were loose and wobbling. He'd been thrown out (and) other passengers were holding the carriage because it had become a bit loose."
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Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-63367245.amp

Any possible derailment, or failing between the seat and chassis, would have been identified during the investigation and review of the car.

So, after such a definitive HSE outcome, it really does make you wonder what actually transpired to cause the passenger to fall from the car.
 
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