I don't usually feed trolls, but I'm tired and irate tonight!
I can count at least once on every park visit I make (on average 50 or 60 a year), where one person in the party I'm with hasn't done up their seatbelt correctly, and the physical check picks it up.
The ride itself was well maintained, as are all of the rides at Oakwood. The fault lies in the ride itself. Nobody is quite sure exactly what the fault is, but it appears that under either high pressure, or some other circumstances, the Intamin lapbar restraints can open. It was 100% locked and secure when the boat left the station, and this was proven in court. The ride CANNOT leave the station if the restraint is not correctly locked. It was just an extremely unfortunate set of events which led to the death. The chances of one failing is extreme, the chances of both astonomical, but as Terry Pratchett says "million to one shots happen 9 times out of 10" [bad paraphrasing
].
Bob wrote:Statistically Fairgrounds are more dangerous then the roads. Highest risk is with the travelling fairs
According the Bob's big book of made-up statistics perhaps. I'll pojtn Bob here:
http://www.rideaccidents.com/
It looks like the kind of thing he'll have wet dreams over. the site is a list of every fatality on an amusement ride from around 1972 and about the last 10 years have details of all accidents too. If there has been an accident, it's probably listed there.
The statistics of course are around a 1 in 24 million chance of being injured on an amusement park ride, and 1 in one and a half billion of being Killed. This is based on the fact that around 319 million people visits parks and ride rides a year, but only around 134 (per annum) are admitted to hospital due to an accident.
I could easily find 134 ROAD accidents a week in Staffordshire which required hospitalisation, on a much smaller number of cars (than people going to parks).
Of course, I also don't have exact figures, and the statistics tend to be a bit wild, but the sources are well recognised and researchable, and above all, just blatantly obvious to anyone with an IQ higher than that of your average slug.