Roller coasters are awesome and fun and completely horrifying.
But just how safe are those wild rides that we'll happily spend hours standing in line
for?
There are a few things the industry probably doesn’t want you to know.
Here's why you might never want to get on a roller coaster ever again.
It's worth noting that roller coaster-related fatalities really aren't that common, but
there have been reports of bizarre things happening inside the skulls of occasional
riders.
According to Science Direct, the most common neurological injuries suffered by roller coaster
riders are subdural hematoma, which sounds vaguely unsettling, and cervical artery dissection,
which are the kinds of things that make you never get on another roller coaster again,
ever.
The main thing to keep in mind is that roller coasters can exacerbate pre-existing conditions.
In 2001, a woman died on the Goliath roller coaster at California's Six Flags Magic Mountain.
According to the LA Times, the coroner concluded that she had a brain aneurysm, which is a
bulging blood vessel, that she was likely unaware of when she got on the ride, and the
stress of the ride itself helped the aneurysm rupture.
So basically, don't ride roller coasters if you have a brain aneurysm… which is something
you may not know about unless you ride a roller coaster.
Okay, so the whole brain aneurysm thing is kind of a wild card, but at least we know
that federal regulations and safety rules will keep us from ever getting on a poorly
maintained or inherently dangerous ride.
Right?
Umm … well.
According to the Boston Globe, the entire amusement park industry is under-regulated.
There's no federal oversight, and each state has its own set of thrill-ride safety laws.
Cross the state line, and you’re entering a whole different rodeo.
Only portable amusement rides the ones that are hastily assembled at your local fairgrounds
once a year are subject to federal regulation.
So that means the states are picking up the slack, right?
Well, according to the IAAPA, as of 2018, six states had no theme park ride regulation
in place at all, at any level.
A 2017 report by Safer Parks says 30 states lack, quote, "comprehensive government oversight"
and roughly 10 states punt the responsibility to county governments or private inspectors.
Weirdly, Florida is pretty good about doing those safety inspections, but they exempt
any theme park that has 1,000 or more employees.
So Disney World, Universal Studios, and SeaWorld get to do their own safety inspections, even
though other parks in their state are subject to inspections by state-trained inspectors.
So just in case you were thinking that the big parks are the safest places to go with
the kids, well, that depends on how much you trust Disney and on how you define "safe."
Safety at big, fixed-location theme parks really depends on state regulations, but maybe
traveling carnivals are safer, since they're subject to federal oversight, right?
C'mon.
You didn't actually think that might be true, did you?
Because we've all experienced that unsettling feeling of looking at a wacky roller coaster
and thinking to ourselves, "That thing looks like it's going to fly apart."
Unlike fixed-site roller coasters, the coasters and other rides at traveling carnivals are
frequently disassembled and reassembled, which is scary if you spend too much time thinking
about it.
All it takes is a few loose bolts to send the whole thing careening across the midway.
According to Thrillist, traveling carnivals are on the road 9 to 10 months of the year,
and they might change locations weekly.
But carnival operators will tell you that the assembly and disassembly process helps
make the rides safer because it allows technicians to view every part of the ride and catch potential
problems as they arise.
On the other hand, carnival workers are overworked and underpaid, and there is no routine inspection
by federal investigators they usually only step in after an accident has already happened,
which isn't very helpful, frankly.
So it doesn't seem to matter if you're at a carnival or an amusement park, no one can
really guarantee your safety when you board that ride.
"Is it supposed to stay upside down like this?
“I don't think so."
Well, at least you can be sure that the guy strapping your kid into that crazy-looking
roller coaster has undergone rigorous training and is uniquely qualified to make sure everyone
stays safe while onboard.
Right?
Well, get ready for some bad news.
"From here on, it gets really scary"
The head of Cedar Point's ride operations department told the AV Club that ride operators
have to take a course before they're allowed to start working the individual rides.
So that sounds awesome and super-reassuring, except the course, she later revealed, only
lasts about two and a half hours.
So the people who take your kid's life into their hands when they strap him or her into
a machine that travels 80 mph only have to undergo about 1.25 percent as much training
as, say, a barber working in New York state.
But don't worry, they also have to spend some time training at the ride, and 8-10 hours
being "shadowed" by an experienced ride operator before they are declared a-okay to run a giant,
dangerous piece of machinery full of vulnerable children and undiagnosed heart patients.
And it's not like people working low-paid jobs doing super-redundant things don't take
their jobs seriously or anything.
Happy riding!
Part of what makes thrill rides so appealing is that they subject us to forces we don't
usually encounter while we're just walking around doing boring normal-person things,
or even when we're breaking traffic laws on a long, straight freeway or winding mountain
road.
As of 2016 the G-force record for a roller coaster was 6.3 Gs just for comparison, astronauts
only experience about 3 Gs during a rocket launch, although granted, those G-forces last
a lot longer than they do on the typical roller coaster ride.
A 2016 report compared acceleration-deceleration eye injury to shaken baby syndrome and noted
that doctors should consider roller coasters as a potential culprit whenever these types
of injuries don't have other explainable causes.
In 2016, NBC says there were 30,900 emergency room visits for injuries "caused by amusement
park attractions."
In the industry's defense, though, it's not clear how many of those injuries happened
on roller coasters vs., you know, choking on a corn dog while riding the merry-go-round
or something.
So it might be more useful to just look at roller coaster deaths and then extrapolate
from there just how dangerous thrill rides actually are.
Between 2010 and 2017, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says there were 22 thrill
ride fatalities.
Not all of them, though, were people getting killed on rides sometimes people get killed
doing other things, like getting struck while trying to retrieve a lost item.
And the industry points out that 335 million people visit amusement parks every year, so
the fatality rate is really very low.
Those numbers, though, don't say how many people are actually riding.
Still, the International Association for Amusement Parks says your chances of sustaining a theme-park
injury serious enough to get you an overnight hospital stay is about one in 16 million,
which is way, way better than your 1 in 700,000 chance of being struck by lighting in any
given year.
Not surprisingly, third-party investigations often dig up different figures than the theme
park industry itself according to CNN, the International Association for Amusement Parks,
or IAAP, conducts its own annual safety survey on fixed-site amusement rides.
The IAAP reported almost 30,000 fewer accidents in 2016, so either carnival rides are like
24 times more dangerous than fixed-site amusement rides and other attractions, or the IAAP is
seriously under-reporting the number of injuries that happen at theme parks.
And let's not lose sight of the fact that not everyone seeks medical attention for an
injury, and that theme park authorities almost certainly aren't made aware of every single
accident that someone has on park grounds.
So both of those statistics are likely to understate the total number of accidents that
happen on roller coasters and other park attractions.
Those extreme, modern roller coasters with their twists and drops and G-forces might
seem scary, but no roller coaster gives you quite the same sort of thrill as a 100-year-old
wooden coaster, for one simple reason high-tech roller coasters are high-tech, which provides
at least the illusion of safety.
A wooden roller coaster that was built 100 years ago is a wooden roller coaster that
was built back in the days before seatbelt laws were a thing and when people used radioactive
water to treat arthritis.
Not all wooden coasters are old, though.
According to the New York Times, some parks are installing brand-new wooden roller coasters
because wooden roller coasters have features you won't find in steel-rail designs.
They're slower, so they can have tighter turns than steel roller coasters can.
But they're also temperamental and require more maintenance.
A badly designed wooden roller coaster might be slow and dull on a cold day and fast and
potentially dangerous on a hot day.
Wooden coasters will sag over time, too, and humidity can loosen the bolts, making the
ride feel shaky and rickety.
It's all good, though, even a 100-year-old coaster is safe provided it's well-maintained.
Skyline Attractions President Jeff Pike told Mental Floss
"It just takes more maintenance to make sure the wood and fasteners are in proper operating
condition."
And all theme parks, as we've learned, are well-regulated and can totally be trusted
to make those judgment calls.
A waterslide is kind of like a roller coaster it has the crazy turns, dips, and terrifying
acceleration only instead of locking harnesses, you’re barreling untethered through a plastic
tube.
Fun!
You probably thought waterslides were the safer, watery version of a roller coaster.
But a roller coaster is pretty much the same for everyone riding it, and on a roller coaster
you're a passive participant: You just hang onto that safety bar and wait for it to end.
Waterslides are not so simple.
For starters, people are unpredictable, and they can break rules and talk their way onto
rides that they maybe shouldn't be on due to height or weight restrictions.
“Guys guys guys, the slide’s for kids only.
Size requirement … “
“Shut up, man!
Hahaha.”
Maybe that's why NJ.com found in 2014 that waterslides in that state were responsible
for significantly more injuries than roller coasters.
So do you have the physical prowess to handle that waterslide?
Will you be safe going down it?
Maybe!
Probably!
But make sure you fit any size restrictions for the ride, and try not to do anything too
crazy on your way down.
Remember, your main goal in amusement park rides is to stay alive.
Having fun comes second.
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