If you’re an adrenaline junkie, you probably enjoy going on roller coasters and other high-speed
theme park rides.
Over the years, park owners have tried to push the envelope to make their rides faster
and scarier than ever before in order to attract people to come to pay their admission fee.
Sometimes, the attempt to scare the pants off of a crowd may go way too far.
These are some of the scariest rides that have ever been built.
10.
The Cannonball Loop
Action Park in Vernon, New Jersey was a perfect encapsulation of what life was like being
a kid in the ’80s.
If you got hurt, most parents had a “rub some dirt on it” mentality.
Action Park was (in)famous for tampering with the rides to increase speed limits, and make
it far more exciting than any other park that played by the rules.
They earned a reputation of being dangerous enough to fracture bones, and a total of 6
people actually died.
Let’s put it this way: this park’s reputation for playing fast and loose with safety was
enough to inspire a movie starring Johnny Knoxville.
Still, parents kept bringing their kids back every summer anyway.
One of their most dangerous attractions was a water slide called the Cannonball Loop.
It was a fully enclosed tube that made you go so fast you did a complete 360 inside of
the slide.
When the owner of the park first designed the slide, they sent a dummy down and it came
out the other end without its head.
After a few adjustments, he had to pay park employees $100 to go down the slide, because
they were so terrified to even try it.
According to the testimonials, riders would almost get knocked unconscious as their bodies
were slammed around inside of this tube that was powered by gravity and a trickle of water
from a garden hose.
One woman got stuck inside of the top of the loop, so they had to install an escape hatch…
because they somehow didn’t even think of that before an incident occurred.
Once the authorities at the New Jersey Carnival Amusement Ride Safety Advisory Board caught
wind of what was going on, it was eventually shut down in 1996.
9.
The Takabisha Roller Coaster in Japan
You know that terrifying feeling of going down an incredibly steep roller coaster, where
your stomach suddenly feels like it’s up in your throat, and you feel like your body
might fly out of the seat?
Well, the one ride that will make you feel this more intensely than anywhere else in
the world is the Takabisha roller coaster at Fuji-Q Highland in Japan.
The coaster’s vertical drop is at a 121 degree angle, which makes it the Guinness
World Record holder for being the steepest roller coaster in the world.
The ride costs $12.50 for the experience, and it only lasts about two minutes, but it
just may scare you to the point where you feel like you’ve taken a few years off of
your life.
8.
The Stratosphere
The Stratosphere Hotel and Casino has your typical entertainment with gambling, drinking,
and food.
But the thing that makes this casino unique is the fact that it is so incredibly tall,
standing 1,149 feet into the air.
At the top of the tower, they somehow managed to install several different Thrill Rides.
Their “X Scream” coaster is 109 stories high, and it rushes forward at high speeds
before the car leans forward to make you feel as if you are about to fall over the tower
and into the city below.
Their “Insanity” ride suspends people off of the same building, only this time passengers
are strapped into harnesses and spun around in a giant circular contraption that resembles
an octopus.
There is also a ride called “The Big Shot,” which brings passengers up to the very top
of the tower, only to plummet them back down.
Last but not least, their “Sky Jump” lets you literally jump off of the side of the
building.
So, just in case you’ve ever been tempted to try that without actually dying, now you
know where to go.
7.
The Human Catapult
In the early 2000s, the Middlemoor Water Park in Somerset, England had an attraction called
the Human Catapult, also known as the Human Trebuchet.
It was exactly what it sounds like: People had to pay a £40 fee for the privilege to
be placed inside of a giant medieval style catapult and hurled like a rag doll through
the air, with only a net to catch them.
The owners of the ride must have known that this was ridiculously dangerous, because every
person was given a helmet and neck brace before entering the trebuchet.
However, no one at the park seemed to realized how physics work.
Since everyone has a different size and weight, there would therefore never be a predictable
trajectory of where they were actually going to land.
In 2000, a woman even broke her pelvis after she was flung from the trebuchet.
The owners should have taken this as a warning to shut it down, but in 2002, a 19-year old
Oxford student named Kostydin Yankov died after landing just a few feet shy of the net.
6.
Tower of Terror II
When it was first built in 1997, the Tower of Terror II at the Dream World Theme Park
in the Gold Coast of Australia held the record for being the fastest and tallest roller coaster
in the world.
As you might have guessed, the name of the ride is inspired by the Tower of Terror in
Disney Parks, but this Australian version of the ride is far more intense than what
you will find in “the most magical place on Earth.”
Since it first opened, other rides around the world have beat the Tower of Terror II’s
speed record, but it doesn’t make the ride any less terrifying.
Park guests begin the ride inside of a tunnel before they are hurled backward going 100
MPH.
Once the reach the top of the 38-story tower, they are suspended vertically in the air before
being catapulted back down to Earth from a 100 meter vertical freefall.
The ride is so intense that you actually experience 3.25 seconds of weightlessness.
5.
The Eejanaika Roller Coaster
So apparently the third dimension is not enough, because a trend in the early 2000s was to
make “4D” roller coasters.
The first one of its kind was called “X2” at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California.
The ride experience included flamethrowers that spewed flames over the passengers, as
if you needed to be even more terrified for your life in that moment.
But like with most technology, Japan was like, “Y’know what?
We can do it better.”
The Fuji-Q Highland Theme Park in Japan created the the Eejanaika roller coaster, which was
a remake of the X2, only everything about it is faster and more puke-inducing.
The seats rotate 360 degrees as you’re hurting 78 miles-per-hour down a track.
The coaster has four rails instead of the usual two, in order to achieve spin control
and stability so that the cars can complete 14 rotations during the course of the ride.
4.
The Smiler
Located in the Alton Towers Resort in Staffordshire, England, a roller coaster called “The Smiler”
holds the record for the most inversions on any roller coaster.
But in 2015, riders’ worst nightmares were realized after there was a horrific crash.
An empty car lost control on the ride, and passengers crashed into it going over 90 miles-per-hour.
CCTV footage captured the entire incident on video, so there was no denying that this
was caused by negligence.
Thankfully no one was killed, but five of the passengers now have injuries that are
going to affect them for the rest of their lives.
Two of those people even had to have their legs amputated.
While the others were lucky enough to not have been seriously injured, they still have
PTSD and psychological trauma from the crash.
Alton Towers was taken to court and forced to pay millions in fines for their mistakes.
However, once they made 30 different adjustments to improve the safety of the way they ran
their business, the roller coaster was allowed to re-open once again in 2016, and has been
operational ever since.
3.
The Giant Canyon Swing
The Giant Canyon Swing is a pendulum that is suspended 1,300 feet above the Colorado
River.
The attraction only takes up to four passengers at a time, because it has a weight limit totaling
800 pounds.
Passengers have to sign a safety waiver, absolving the park of any responsibility the pendulum
were to suddenly plummet to their doom.
It swings them back and forth at speeds of 50 miles-per-hour, which is just as fast as
many roller coasters out there.
It’s apparently a great way to see the beautiful scenery of the Colorado River — that is,
if you can actually keep your eyes open long enough to witness it.
Apparently, the ride is so scary that even the owner of the park, Steve Beckley, only
went on the swing once and never again.
And he only did it for the sake of TV cameras, because ABC’s Good Morning America was there
to film the opening of the ride.
He has refused to go on it again.
2.
The Perilous Plunge
The Perilous Plunge was the world’s tallest water slide, located at Knott’s Berry Farm
in California.
The attraction brought riders up 115 feet before dropping down an incredibly steep decline
at 50 miles-per-hour.
Visitors to the park raved about how fun the ride was, and it became a new fan favorite.
In 2001, just a year after its opening, a 40-year-old woman fell 100 feet to her death,
landing in a shallow pool of water below.
Normally, passengers were required to wear a seat belt and a lap bar, and employees were
required to check the restraints.
However, this woman was on the ride at 10 at night, most likely toward the end of a
tired employee’s shift.
However, investigators could not determine if this was the fault of the park, or if she
had jumped from the car on purpose.
However, Knott’s Berry Farm was forced to completely redesign the ride to make it safer,
so the Perilous Plunge was allowed to stay operational until finally closing for good
in 2012.
1.
The Formula Rossa
Last but certainly not least, we have the Formula Rossa ride at the Ferrari World amusement
park in Abu Dhabi.
That’s right — it’s exactly what it sounds like.
If you love the luxury car brand, you will absolutely love touring the Ferrari theme
park.
Don’t be fooled by the fact that this next roller coaster kind of looks like the Cars
Radiator Springs Racer ride in Disneyland.
The Formula Rossa is not just for kids.
This roller coaster is shaped like a fire engine-red Ferrari, and it goes from 0-to-149
miles per hour in just 4.9 seconds.
It goes so fast that passengers are required to wear safety goggles to cover their eyes,
and the skin on their face starts to push itself back from the sheer force generated
by the velocity.
It currently holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest roller coaster in the world.