THRILL Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University
Amusement attraction design, engineering, and analysis
This piece in Newsweek reports on a roller coaster at Fuji-Q Highlands that reportedly has unusual number of riders sustaining fractured bones.
The piece cites this paper in Safety Science, although it attributes the report to the journal and not to the author, and just uses the paper to cite IAAPA, and doesn’t get into the actual findings reported in the paper. We received no media inquiry for comment .
Happy to provide information and quotes for this good effort by CBC to provide a balanced report.
“Amusement ride accidents are spectacular, but experts say they’re rare”.
Continue reading “Amusement ride accidents are spectacular, but experts say they’re rare: CBC”The worst thing that can happen at a theme park, amusement park, water park, or carnival is an injury to a rider. The rider and their family obviously are hurt worst, but the owner/operator and the entire industry shares the pain.
Many people work very hard to make sure rider injury does not happen, and because of the success of that effort, it rarely does happen. In the immediate aftermath, thoughts often go to negligence. Was the inspection skipped or shortcut? Did someone leave a part out? Did the rider bring it on themselves by misbehaving?
Continue reading “When the worst happens”