Leaderboard

You could visually sight the restraint is down far enough by literally just looking if it's in contact with a guest, there are few rides I can think of that actually require you to confirm minimum closed. Really, the only concern you should have is if the restraint stays down when in the closed position. You aren't checking any of this to confirm it is locked or latched as once it's no longer in the released state, every position of the restraint cylinder is a closed position and cannot travel the opposite direction. You are checking to make sure it hasn't failed hydraulically and released the cylinders, hence the pull up. The minimum closed part is done and confirmed electronically and won't allow a dispatch until achieved. The cylinders cannot function without power and the closed position is effectively the off position preventing the fluid to return to accumulator and the other side of the cylinder. Electrical faults for contactors and relays are monitored for state changes, so if a relay or contact is sticking or has failed, it will flag a fault for the circuit being in the wrong state and you'll see the position on the panel. It doesn't just know what position the restraint is in based on the flag, it also can see what state the circuit is actually in too. So really, the only way a restraint can release without warning is in the event of a hydraulic failure. If the hmi tells the seat it's no longer released, the control valve closes, and the restraint cylinder can only be moved in one direction towards fully closed position allowing you to close the gap when loading (the press down), or to account for body mass shift when the ride is in motion. The nitrogen accumulator in the system keeps the fluid pressurised, so once it's in the closed position it should be impossible for it to move towards open until power is cycled. Especially when using two cylinders for redundancy as any one cylinder is designed to be strong enough to keep the harness closed in the event of failure. It's why left and right tests are done during daily inspections because you'd never know one has failed until the second one did too and you had a catastrophic release. Newer coasters went further to combine everything with a flagged sensor of some description to provide double redundancy of harness position, usually with an optical or magnetic sensor. So the manufacturers really only want a physical pull against the restraint to confirm nothing weird has gone on. Additional locking devices like seat belts are a secondary feature and the locked position of the tongue is also monitored in the mechanism itself. So there's not even a reason to worry if the crotch belt is done up, it already knows it is regardless of who fed the tongue into the latch. It's like checking your checks have been double checked in the case that a failure of a 2nd or 3rd redundant system has also failed. For most manufacturers they are happy to trust the machine element over the human one. So a physical pull up against the restraint is usually good enough for them to be happy that the guest is more likely to be injured or die of pretty much anything else you can dream up before the ride control system fails.

Disney have the same - they quiet happily dispatch rides with people on the exit platform. Universal do the same - no seatbelt and a pull up on the harness - if you can feel resistance its locked. Same with Sea World/Busch parks in USA. Disney do a visual inspection for several smaller rollercoasters. The number one thing that slows down the operations at Village Roadshow parks is the requirement for crew members to put on seatbelts - i've never seen this anywhere else - even RMC's where the seatbelt is quiet important they let you do it and visually see its done up before the shin/lap bars come down. Also the policy that requires the crew members to walk down the train together with each other.. makes no sense. I'm not expecting 30 second dispatches from VRP's parks ever - but there has to be a happy medium between safety and abhorrent dispatch times.