Roller Coaster Safety

You hear stories about people being stuck upside down on a roller coaster for 4 hours and that someone lost their memory on the mind eraser, but if you think about it, you don't really hear about any of this very often.  It turns out this is because roller coasters are actually the safest rides at all theme parks.

The reason why theme parks do this is simple, they invest so much money in these rides that any repeated problems could put them out of business. 

Roller Coasters are inspected every day before anyone is allowed to go on the ride.  Yes, I know it is a pain having to wait in line watching the ride run a few times before you can go on it, but safety is a priority and better the ride break down with no one on it anyways.   Each morning before a park opens maintenance workers will go through making inspections.   A few of the operations they go through are...

Lubrication:  tracks need to be properly lubricated otherwise the friction can decrease the life span of the roller coaster.

Train inspection:  All roller coasters have an area where the bottom of the coaster can be checked out for any problems or missing bolts.

Obstruction Removal:  It is a necessity to remove any and all objects from the tracks to ensure no problem with the running of the ride.  This is done by the worker walking the track and making sure that there are to be no foreign objects on the tracks.

Testing:  As I mentioned earlier there is a ride testing before opening, and also before reopening a ride if there were any problems during the earlier days of operation.

It is nice to know that these thrill rides are only a way to scare you and there really isn't anything to be scared about.  I never had a problem getting on a ride before but now I know that I should feel just as safe getting on one.