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Are Australian theme park rides safe? Reports in the news of Gold Coast theme park rides stopping are on the increase. It asks the question: are these attractions safe to ride? Click here to continue reading

Theme park enthusiasts in a nutshell: "MAINSTREAM MEDIA DON'T GET THE FACTS RIGHT! WE WISH SOMEONE WOULD SET THEM STRAIGHT FOR ONCE!" (Richard writes a great article that's intended for most folks to read and understand without getting bogged down in a level of over-bearing technicality) "IT DOESN'T EXPLAIN THE INTRICACIES OF EVERY SINGLE RIDE IN AUSTRALIA, BURN PARKZ!" Probably one of the most useful and insightful reads in terms of the theme park industry at large to happen in a very long time. We need more of this. I'm sure if you support Parkz and Richard's writing and, you know, offer positive and supportive feedback instead of tearing down one of the few institutions trying to actually support enthusiasts, maybe @Richard would be inclined to do a series of articles that give enthusiasts something a little more detailed just for them.

A really impressive and we'll thought read. I am sure it will get a lot of shares! Shame such an articulate article has to come from a fan site supporting the Parks, rather than the Parks themselves.. then again this way it comes across as an independent and unbiased view. Seriously though hats Off Team Parkz and to all you involved with this ?

I dunno, I'll read it again later but it seems a little one sided, much like the media's one side reporting. To be a bit more balanced I think it should touch on that accidents do occur, even with safety protocols in place . For example, such as two trains colliding such as Alton Towers (Smiler) but the article explains why this can't happen, even though it has. Suggesting stoppages aren't terrifying for some is a generalisation. Maybe for riders that have a fairly intimate knowledge of rides and how they work would be ok with it but the general public (who are the majority of riders) are a different story. As much as I know these rides are pretty safe, being stuck at the top of the Giant Drop would be scary for most riders (how long are we stuck up here? How do we get off? Will the brakes still work? Do they know what's wrong with the ride?) to suggest it's not isn't fair. And I don't think computers make decisions, they work on instructions. Unless the rides use some fancy new Skynet. I'm sure I'll torn to pieces for making these comments!

Ah okay. I wonder what the two new mazes this year will be!! But i guess this is a conversation to be held in the Fright Night chat.

In my observation there's no subtlety in reporting, and as a result the distinction between reliability and safety does not exist in the media. It would be easy for us to say that some attractions have reliability problems, but we would stop well short of saying they have safety problems - whereas the media would show no distinction.

That sign would be tacky as hell in that location anyway. It's a peaceful tropical area of the park, the sign takes away from the area. However, the fact the sign is pointing away from the ride takes it from tacky to embarrassing. Can people see why I'm as negative as I am?

I wonder what the dodgems are being closed for...

The biggest problem for the member of the public is, how do you (they) differentiate between a "stoppage" and a "break down". Do you define a stoppage as something that doesn't require an evacuation? what about if you are stopped for over an hour before they restart the ride? If not an evacuation, do you then consider time to be the factor? if you are stopped for more than a few minutes, do you consider that a stoppage and not a break down? In reality its far more complex than that. The average member of the public probably doesn't know enough, or care enough about the operational side of things to be able to tell the difference. That and it's not exactly like our parks tell everybody the actual reasons for things happening. So it's not like it becomes common knowledge/practice anyway. So anytime they ride they probably expect they aren't going to be stuck/stranded/stopped at all, even if it is only a few minutes. So everything is going to simply seem like the ride has broken down. Education is a problem too, because you are only going to be able to educate those people who go looking for the information, it's never going to become a mainstream media interest that causes every person to view/read anything published. Again, the majority probably aren't all that interested about how they work outside of they go fast or turn upside down. Even with some really clever marketing, the number of people you actually reach within your target audience is probably so low that it's viewed as a waste of money. The main problem probably lies in that all parks tightly control what is said/released to the public/media. From the lack of simple explanations when incidents occur, right down to a simple warning about stopping during use. So it's difficult for every day stoppages and malfunctions to actually become every day knowledge for your guests. It would take a vastly different approach (and many years) for a simple ride fault and a planned, walk off evacuation, to become as normal as getting a flat tyre or having your battery fail and having to call RACQ. No doubt there is a level of fear involved there; acknowledging something has gone wrong and fearing being persecuted or indeed sued, plus you have the very real chance of incorrectly reporting an issue until it is fully known (which may take days/weeks, etc), so I can see why parks want to stay tight lipped when it comes to issues like this. If you opened up your park for filming maybe short 5-8 minutes segments, explaining each of your rides (i.e. 1 segment for each ride), including details on when it was built, how often (and how involved) they are closed for maintenance, how often they are checked and how it's safety functions work to protect you, maybe even simulating a ride fault that causes a stoppage? along with its key facts like height, speed, forces, etc (which most general people find kind of interesting); then made it available through various media channels, it could possibly be marketed as a behind the scenes access sort of deal anyone can access (without having to pay a large sum of money). Maybe have a host and the same engineer involved in each segment so people kind of relate to the same people each time? I wonder if all this change in attitude simply starts with additional warnings, perhaps something like, "While all checks and maintenance is thoroughly performed, amusement rides are complex pieces of machinery and may stop running without notice". Coupled with having a prepared, informed response for operational staff when even simple ride stoppages happen, maybe it would start to make it seem like nobody has anything to hide, and it's just a part of normal park operations that sometimes things will stop, but there are competent people behind the scenes that will be working to keep everything safe and get things going again.

We could build a bridge out of him...

I lost nothing

In fairness, I didn't say burn Parkz, maybe we just burn @Richard instead? I mean that's still how we find out if he's a witch, right?

@reanimated35: -The 2015 results were published in August 2016 and are the most up-to-date. -Brushed up the whole injuries section to make it a little less confusing. -They define a serious injury as: "an injury resulting in immediate admission and hospitalization in excess of 24 hours for purposes other than medical observation". It's all in the linked report if you need some bedtime reading material. -The stats are US based but by virtue of fairly consistent manufacturing, maintenance and operation practices I think are fairly easily carried across to Australia. -Detail about sensors, blocks, components and operating/evacuation procedures are best dealt with in greater detail in another piece. Your points about the parks' immediate and long-term responses to these incidents are particularly interesting, and something that was culled from this article at the last minute. -Magnetic brakes like any component have a serviceable lifespan. Routine maintenance would dictate when they reach that point; they're not something that is liable to spontaneously stop working. -Clarified the 'how common are stoppages' section to hopefully address the question a bit better. But trying to quantify this meaningfully would be next to impossible; for instance do you count a harness reset and recheck that takes 30 seconds and most riders wouldn't notice?

@AlexB, @reanimated35, @mission -- this article went through about 4-5 rewrites between October last year and being published today. The decision was made to omit overly specific detail and tech talk in the interests of making this article easily digestible. A whole lot of material that covers block brakes, sensors, and incidents like Smiler, Green Lantern and others was left out and will possibly form the backbone of a handful pieces to address specifics. For this piece, we're just highlighting the fact that stoppages are safe and normal. We put the stats on injuries and accidents right up front in the article. Accidents happen and at no point was that glossed over. Beyond that we delve into stoppages because that's what the media is focusing on here. None of the last month or so of incidents show anything other than systems working as intended. Arkham Asylum's extended downtime probably indicates a component failure but the ride stopped on a safe section of the course and riders were escorted off. Was that worthy of days of coverage? The elephant in the room is of course Thunder River Rapids. There's no point in discussing that until further information comes to light. The distinguishing fact remains: unlike every other major ride operating on the Gold Coast, it was developed in-house, which hasn't been the modus operandi of either operator for several decades.

The purpose of the article was to explain to a lay audience that just because rides stop, that doesn't make them dangerous, and to allay their fears about stoppages., It was written in the context of lots of articles about ride stops. Educating people about unrelated freak events doesn't help tell that story, and the risk is that if you tell a lay person about a freak thing that happened they won't read through to the end. Also yeah most most people find ride stoppages boring rather than scary. That's not really something that's up for debate.

The noise from the motorway is not insignificant. I'm sure film makers have a number of tricks up their sleeve for dealing with noise. I doubt they would need to close TopGolf. In the past though, night scenes were actually filmed during the day. the technique was literally called 'day for night' and involved either underexposing the film in camera, or in post production, sometimes adding a blue tint. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_for_night photographic purists will enjoy reading about the different filters used. This article also talks about numerous techniques used in Mad Max Fury Road https://www.fxguide.com/featured/a-graphic-tale-the-visual-effects-of-mad-max-fury-road/ but this tell it how it is:

@YLFATEEKS I think it's fair to say the delivery didn't go well. Poor thing, maybe in a future life it'll be reincarnated as a joke about mother in laws or something.

^Might also be as mental as putting in for holidays with dates subject to opening of MW’s new coaster.

That's the thing though, a lot of us haven't been to Dubai or Abu Dhabi and have never seen a Lego store, or die hard Lego fans haven't had a place like this where they can buy it all. And yesterday they were letting you enter the store from inside the park, I think on the weekend because it was so busy and there were queues they couldn't just let people in.

I don't get what all the fuss is about. I (literally) poked my head in on the weekend and it's just a standard lego store you see overseas, such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi. They also aren't letting customers in from the park side, so you have to get a stamp out and line up outside. I couldn't be bothered. I know I saw the opera house pack in Dubai last year, and I remember it being a lot cheaper than A$500

Maybe because it's a highly visible ride and has been subject to a few reports over the years. Maybe MW wanted it on that one too as it's the most advanced in terms of safety, systems etc (I'm assuming this as it's the newest, but could very well be wrong).

Yes I was slightly surprised Movie World chose Green Lantern as the focus.

The "best coaster" in the Golden Ticket Awards usually goes to wherever the most recent ACE event has been held. Get ACE to hold an event at WBMW and it'll have a good chance

Thanks for the well researched reply @Jamberoo Fan. I should have known whatever I wrote would be scientifically analysed for accuracy and a field study completed as to why I'm wrong.. i provided you an opinion, in the moment. That's the way I post here, in the moment. I don't have enough time in my life to research statistics on the Disney Shop (nor do I think that's relevant). Does that mean I am sometimes wrong, hell yes and I'll own it when I am. You have stats for everything, and apparently 80% of stats are made up, so I guess at least you're right 20% of the time...

What needs to be kept in mind is, that to the GP, these rides are "scary and dangerous". Us tragics know how the winch system on Superman works, the block systems, brakes on Giant Drop etc. Quiz the average punter and they would probably think it possible for Giant Drop not to slow down, and that Superman is powered directly by a big electric motor. Education and communication is the key to this issue in my opinion.

@reanimated35 We need a Parkz Planet Coaster Community. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink @Richard You share with me @reanimated35 and I will let you borrow my KFC that I stole.

Wow. Thanks. I didnt know that...