Now that Stardust Racers has reopened, let's talk about what Universal Orlando has done to try to ensure that another death does not happen on this or any other Universal thrill ride.
Universal reportedly has been asking wheelchairs users to walk unassisted from their chair to the ride vehicle on Stardust Racers and other thrill rides, including Monsters Unchained at Epic Universe. Before, guests could use assistance to move a shorter distance from their chair to the vehicle on rides that required such transfers.
While this new requirement will keep guests with certain spinal conditions from riding, it might also prevent others who do not lack the upper-body strength for supporting themselves on a high-speed or twisting thrill ride from boarding.
It does not take much of an imagination to foresee a situation where Universal's decision ends up in court. If you are curious about what the Americans With Disabilities Act actually requires from amusement rides, here is a summary from the U.S. Access Board, an independent federal agency that oversees accessibility rules. And if you would like a quick overview of case law interpreting the ADA's requirements, here is one from the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Program on Regulation.
Whether it becomes an issue whether legally Universal can impose this new requirement - and let's be clear, Comcast has lawyers who believe that it can - is there an alternate approach that could accommodate more Universal Orlando guests while ensuring their safety on these thrill rides?
There is nothing in the ADA that requires a coaster manufacturer or theme park to require all riders to use a restraint system that would accommodate a wheelchair user. In fact, the law encourages specialized accommodation for those who need it. Some coasters already include larger seats to accommodate riders who would not fit within standard restraints. Could Universal - and other theme parks - install different restraint systems on designated coaster and thrill ride seats to accommodate certain guests who need more support?
Lap bar restraints, such as those on Stardust Racers, are far more comfortable for many fans than over the shoulder or vest restraint systems that constrain the movement of a rider's upper body. There's no legal or engineering reason why everyone's upper body movement should be contained and restrained if only a certain percentage of riders need that.
For context, I come to this question as a lifelong IndyCar fan. IndyCar has developed perhaps the most advanced safety procedures in motorsport - an endeavor that involves high speeds and strong G forces far beyond even the world's most intense roller coasters. So my experience watching that series leads me to suggest a hypothetical for the theme park industry, one for which I hope to elicit responses from industry professionals in the weeks ahead.
Properly tightened, a race-style five-point harness could provide more security than any standard coaster restraint, including over the shoulder harnesses with lap belts. Going further, a park-provided helmet with an attached HANS device could provide additional safety for a smaller subset of riders who need even more upper chest and neck stability on a coaster. If that seems over-the-top, remember that many parks provided riders with head gear during the whole VR craze, so this would not be unprecedented.
A five-point harness on a roller coaster would need redundancy to unsure that it could not be detached during the ride, whether intentionally or by accident. Plus, it would need to be designed in a way that would support swift boarding and egress. Those needs, ultimately, are why coaster manufacturers developed alternate restraint systems that remain outside riders' control.
I am not an engineer - only a roller coaster fan who hates to see other coaster fans excluded from enjoying these experiences. No one wants to see another fatality or serious injury on a coaster, and it is better to err on the side of caution than abandon to help prevent that from happening. But the theme park and amusement industry has proven over the years that it can design creative solutions that bring more thrills to more people, when given the opportunity and resources to do so.
I hope soon to see how industry insiders respond to this latest challenge.
I'll probably get some pushback for this, but I'm of the opinion that we in the United States overaccommodate, and when it comes to theme parks, need to consider whether these accommodations are allowing guests to ride certain attractions who really shouldn't be experiencing them. There are a lot of countries where someone who is unable to walk is barred from certain attractions, largely due to the possibility of needing to evacuate from the attraction in the event of a breakdown. Here, though, ADA mandates that the guest be allowed to ride if they can successfully make the transfer, and this had resulted in lawsuits because a disabled guest was stuck on a broken down ride for an inordinate amount of time. Which is worse, denying boarding or risking them being stranded in a potentially uncomfortable position for an hour or more? That is a question that needs to be weighed heavily when it comes to guests with no mobility (which is actually a very different case from those with limited mobility).
Regarding the harness idea, B&M does have a harness system that can be installed on their attractions to allow guests who don't meet the limb requirements to ride. However, in all my years visiting Knott's Berry Farm, I have only seen it used on Silver Bullet once, and based on what I've heard from friends who (formerly) worked at the park, the number of times it was used each year was in the single digits. If something like that is going to be used by around 0.00001% of riders, is it really worth the cost to develop it? Plus, even if the harness holds a rider in place, it does nothing to change the forces exerted on them, which have the potential to do a significant amount of damage to someone afflicted with certain conditions. That racing harness is not to reduce the stresses on the driver, but to keep them in a position where they can maintain control of the vehicle and, in the event of a crash, reduce injury from impacts with components inside the car. Neither of those are significant risks on a thrill ride, where the primary purpose of the restraint is simply to keep the rider in the car.
Ultimately, I think Ryan the Ride Mechanic put it best in his video regarding the incident: Parks tend not to develop overly specialized restraint systems because by accommodating those guests, they are taking on liability for those guests. If the guest straps themselves into the seat, they're saying "I meet the requirements and am fine to ride," so if something happens to them, it's on them. If the park takes extra measures to strap someone into the ride who otherwise wouldn't qualify to ride, they're saying "You're good to ride," so if something happens it would be on their hands.
Yes, I agree we need to protect the public from themselves. If you have a spinal injury or debilitation you should not be riding on an aggressive coaster.
Sometimes we just have to say No. Like I mentioned on the Thread board. Robert had to make sure a woman was not pregnant when riding the Big Thunder railroad. And that is a mild coaster.
There are still so many questions on the incident where the 32 year old passed. We may never know what happened.
I'm with AJ on this. While ADA is a landmark piece of legislation that completely changed the lives of disabled people for the better, it has created an expectation in this country that everything now has to be designed with the most rare and unusual disabilities in mind. Nowhere else on the planet must engineers modify designs to accommodate the rarest of circumstances, and while ADA has made the US a leader in design and engineering for accommodation, it has also created a climate of litigation and expectation that when a disability cannot be accommodated than the offended party in some way needs to be compensated.
When it comes to restraints, there are a few different options. The idea of a 5-point-style harness is interesting, but I just don't think it's really practical in a busy theme park. I've ridden plenty of attractions that have used a manually strapped harness, and they all take a significant amount of time to fit and tighten properly. Most rock-climbing harnesses and the restraints used for slingshot attractions, some go-carts, and skyfliers in theme parks often use some type of manual strapping. The issue is that all of those attractions that use these types of restraints are extremely low capacity and most of these restraints need to be manually checked and often tightened by an attendant that's far more complicated than checking a lapbar or OTSR. The Vekoma Flying Dutchman coasters (i.e. Batwing) used a modified 5-point harness where guests would sit down and slide their arms/shoulders underneath padded straps that latched in front of your chest with a seatbelt-style buckle. A separate lapbar would then lock in your lower body to secure riders completely in their seats. At first, there was clearly a learning curve for guests to understand how to get on and off these coasters, but after a few years, most people understood how to get on and off to make turnover pretty quick. However, the complexity of the system eventually caused issues since there was a lockout system for the buckle on the shoulder restraints to prevent guests from unbuckling themselves during the ride by pressing the button. The system that locked out the button often malfunctioned in the station, preventing guests from unbuckling when it was time to get off the coaster, often requiring ride ops or other guests to help riders get to button to work so they could unlatch themselves. Some of the issues were probably because of the lack of maintenance budget at the parks where these coasters were installed, but in general I felt that the Flying Dutchman restraints were a bit too complicated for general audiences, and would cause massive delays if they were used on a ride at a destination park.
The current generation of B&M OTSRs are also kind of similar to a 5-point harness with a vest restraint that ratchets to fit a guest's upper body while a lapbar secures at the waist/hips. The restraints are generally comfortable, and provide similar security to a 5-point harness but are far easier to use, check, and maintain.
I did come across an interesting solution recently on our visit to Lagoon in Utah. Wicked, an LSM launching coaster from Zierer, has "booster seats" for smaller guests that fit snug into the molded coaster seats to allow for smaller kids to ride. It's a pretty clever solution that probably could be modified for other coasters to allow for the use of a 5-point harness that could be added to the booster for guests that needed additional restraint.
However, I still think there's something to be said about restraints that can't be configured to accommodate every single type of guest. The most obvious issue is when guests are too large to fit in the seat or have body dimensions that prevent the restraint from locking properly. That is something I just have never understood when it comes to attraction accommodation - why do ride manufacturers and theme park operators have to go above and beyond to create systems that can allow wheelchair-bound guests to ride attractions, but someone who's 50 pounds overweight can be fat-shamed in the station without any sort of recourse? Why can obesity, one of the most common "disabilities" in the country/world, be so easily dismissed under ADA, but parks have to account for thousands of other rare disabilities when planning and designing attractions and bend over backwards to provide accommodation?
Ultimately, this is a common trend that has continued to plague our society by having to cater to the lowest common denominator. Even with posted signs, warnings, and other notifications, theme parks are always under the threat of litigation from guests who are hurt when riding theme park attractions. While parks should absolutely provide "reasonable accommodation" for guests with disabilities, attractions should not be "nerfed" just because a handful of people can't handle the motions and forces on the ride or cannot be properly secured in the ride - or simply ride in ways that put their safety at risk. My feeling is that whenever you sit in an attraction seat, you're taking a calculated risk, and that short of pure negligence by the operator, any injuries that you sustain during that ride are on you. Attraction design is always a give and take with compromises made to ensure they can be experienced safely by the largest number of people, but there is a line between giving and taking that should not be crossed to preserve the thrill and excitement that will be lost if attractions are designed so that every single person on the planet can ride.
I think it is quite simple:
If you are disabled to the point that you have the inability to have sufficient upper body strength to support yourself, you don't get on.
If you are obesely overweight that you can't fit in the seat and/or be secured by the restraint(s), you don't get on.
It would be great for everybody to have an equal opportunity to ride an extreme attraction but the reality is not everybody is physically equal.
Parks can introduce a disability ticket and an obese ticket with a pro-rata discount based on the rides and attractions they are not suitable for.
I am not being insensitive as it will ultimately save lives.
While theme parks and rides are for everybody they can't accommodate "every" body. It's a tragedy it happened but it wasn't with ill intentions on the part of Universal or from neglect. I think they should do what Disney does for people of size. Take em and discretely give them a fast lane for their group for any other attraction they can safely board.
>>Parks can introduce a disability ticket and an obese ticket with a pro-rata discount based on the rides and attractions they are not suitable for.
So I help people with Welfare Benefits claims in the UK (Including disability claims). I don't think its going to be viable for a park to do that, it's not even really viable for a government to be doing that, but they still try. Disabilities are often very bespoke, and even similar diagnoses can manefest in different ways... Plus who is going to do this assessment and whats going to happen when there's a disagreement about what rides are suitable? It would be a customer service (and probably legal) nightmare. Then you'll probably also get people try to negociate "I don't want to ride the water rides, can you pretty pleae certify I can't so I don't have to pay for them?"
And thats presuming people with disabilities choose to self disclose, which you can't make them do.
Is for the general rule, we may need to set it as a guide percentage. A new attraction design should be able to accomodate x% of the population without any difficulty, and y% with reasonable assistance. If you fall into the (100-x-y)% then sorry, this ride isn't for you. That will probably mean that the requirements will change over time as weights change, and the survivability of disabling conditions continues to improve, but it seems the fairest way to do it.
Rides already exclude certain people - thats what the safety notice is for.
I don’t know if I’m in the minority about this, but I feel more secure with an over the shoulder restraint. Although I absolutely love VelociCoaster and Iron Gwazi (and I’m sure I’ll love Stardust Racers, when I get a chance to ride), I do get more anxious when that waist restraint comes down, and that’s all there is! I mean, I’ll still ride them, but I’ll be holding on a little tighter than usual!
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Your post is giving me flashbacks to when Knotts put something that resembled 5 point harnesses on Perilous Plunge. Dispatch times were atrocious, the ride was way less comfortable/fun, and a few years later the ride was removed (i'm not sure if it was because of the dispatch times or because it was an unreliable Intamin...probably a mix of both).
I am not going to comment on Stardust Racer incident but the instillation of 5 point harnesses on major coasters is not the solution. We have no idea of knowing even what caused this incident so any "solution" we come up with here is totally meaningless. Amusement parks don't have to let disabled visitors onto roller coasters if its not safe for them, amusement rides are basically totally unregulated. The providing access in the line for the ride is regulated by ADA just like anything else that's built post ADA laws, but other than that the government isn't going to tell amusement parks who to allow on their rides or not.
(Note: in the case of Perilous Plunge the same accident happened a few years later at Oakwood with the original restraints, so Intamin clearly had design flaws with the way they designed the original restraints).