Accident at Alton Towers
- Thread starter silenthillXD
- Start date
silenthillXD
Hyper Poster
Rumour on TPR is that it could be opening up in the next couple of days. Personally i'd expect another couple of weeks, but I guess it is possible.
silenthillXD
Hyper Poster
Yeah I agree, it seems too soon, and there's little to no evidence it could be opening this week. Testing appears to be going well and additions are being made, so who knows it could reopen soonish. My bet is they'll either open it a week or two into Scarefest very quietly, or they'll do it a couple of weeks into next season.
SilverArrow said:
That's just the start, they could well face criminal prosecution too if they're shown to have been criminally negligent.
Two big cases in the UK, Hydro at Oakwood and Treetops at LWV had two different outcomes for the ride ops responsible (though they were for deaths, this is still pretty much as serious).
With Hydro, the ride ops weren't prosecuted as the park was shown to have given insufficient training to them to carry out their jobs in a safe way. So the blame was on the park.
With Treetops, the engineer who allowed the carriage to continue across a block section (very similar to this situation) knew that he shouldn't (though in that case, I believe he wasn't trained on the ride and overrode a system he knew he wasn't trained to touch). I think this is somewhere in between - but expect there to be a criminal hearing down the line and potentially the engineer and ride op being prosecuted.
SaiyanHajime
CF Legend
"‘I’d like to see them tear it down after what happened." - Mother of injured, from this article.
Oh here we go! Wondered when this **** would start. After they've just been told it was caused by human error. Surely your instinct would be to immediately demand to know whats going to happen to those responsible, or criticise management or training or question the safety of ALL rides? But no. I just find it so hard to sympathise with people who aren't very smart, regardless of the awful things that have happened to them.
Also, from the same article, "Mr Varney said: ‘I genuinely thought that the right thing to do was to meet with each of them individually to explain our main findings and to answer their questions directly.
‘The question [of the potential for a reopening] was not raised in a context of the drop in revenues.
‘In all my conversations I expressed our sincere apology and acceptance of responsibility.’"
I can totally understand why the victims would feel sick to their stomach at the idea of the ride reopening, not through any logic but due to personal involvement. I feel physically sick when I think about blood tests because I had a bad experience as a kid, imagining that on the extreme level of being stuck for hours on this ride in pain and then loosing my leg is impossible... I can see why they would be emotionally triggered by the thought that Merlin is experiencing a drop in profits in a "well good!!" kneejerk reaction.
I know first hand how people will outright lie to the media about events that took place. I have no idea if that's more the media twisting, or those involved intentionally twisting it or if it's a natural reaction, but I too find it very hard to believe that Varney sat down and said "look, we're loosing a lot of money, so we're going to be reopening the ride soon!" Like, surely anyone with half a brain can see that clearly didn't happen.
“This has happened to me on their ride so why would they want to reopen it so quickly? It has changed my future. My independence has completely gone and I cry all the time.” - From here.
I hope next time she's stuck in traffic on a motorway due to a terrible accident, she doesn't expect the road to reopen. That would be insulting!
Once when I was working at a park I witnessed a guest faint and another guest get incredibly angry that we wouldn't just move her out the way to continue operations. Everybody thinks only of themselves. All the time. There's never an ounce of consideration for logic or the wider world. Until you work with the public in an environment that brings that out, you can't even begin to imagine how awful people are.
Oh here we go! Wondered when this **** would start. After they've just been told it was caused by human error. Surely your instinct would be to immediately demand to know whats going to happen to those responsible, or criticise management or training or question the safety of ALL rides? But no. I just find it so hard to sympathise with people who aren't very smart, regardless of the awful things that have happened to them.
Also, from the same article, "Mr Varney said: ‘I genuinely thought that the right thing to do was to meet with each of them individually to explain our main findings and to answer their questions directly.
‘The question [of the potential for a reopening] was not raised in a context of the drop in revenues.
‘In all my conversations I expressed our sincere apology and acceptance of responsibility.’"
I can totally understand why the victims would feel sick to their stomach at the idea of the ride reopening, not through any logic but due to personal involvement. I feel physically sick when I think about blood tests because I had a bad experience as a kid, imagining that on the extreme level of being stuck for hours on this ride in pain and then loosing my leg is impossible... I can see why they would be emotionally triggered by the thought that Merlin is experiencing a drop in profits in a "well good!!" kneejerk reaction.
I know first hand how people will outright lie to the media about events that took place. I have no idea if that's more the media twisting, or those involved intentionally twisting it or if it's a natural reaction, but I too find it very hard to believe that Varney sat down and said "look, we're loosing a lot of money, so we're going to be reopening the ride soon!" Like, surely anyone with half a brain can see that clearly didn't happen.
“This has happened to me on their ride so why would they want to reopen it so quickly? It has changed my future. My independence has completely gone and I cry all the time.” - From here.
I hope next time she's stuck in traffic on a motorway due to a terrible accident, she doesn't expect the road to reopen. That would be insulting!
Once when I was working at a park I witnessed a guest faint and another guest get incredibly angry that we wouldn't just move her out the way to continue operations. Everybody thinks only of themselves. All the time. There's never an ounce of consideration for logic or the wider world. Until you work with the public in an environment that brings that out, you can't even begin to imagine how awful people are.
The difference is that in a written article, the writer can basically guide the responses they want. A quote doesn't necessarily have to be a quote and they may not have been about to say that.
"I bet you must still think about what happened on that ride and it must be awful for you to think about it opening again soon."
"Yeah."
"I bet you must still think about what happened on that ride and it must be awful for you to think about it opening again soon."
"Yeah."
Alot of the reports in the papers still use alot of the quotes out of context just to carry on that merlin is an evil nasty corperation crap that parts of the press do have going on. The tv talks all sound and feel more open and less enforced into the anti merlin stuff.
I would like to see smiler re open soon. But it would be best to open it next season.
I would like to see smiler re open soon. But it would be best to open it next season.
spicy
Giga Poster
The Mirror now reporting that the Smiler is being tested with "Crash test dummies"...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ne ... rs-6580607
Yes, of course that's what they are, crash test dummies... I despair..
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ne ... rs-6580607
Yes, of course that's what they are, crash test dummies... I despair..
Mysterious Sue
Strata Poster
Perhaps they just thought it would look worse to leave it out?
Element115
Roller Poster
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest- ... -ride-safe If this is true, then its looking good for opening soon.
Nemesis of oblivion
Strata Poster
Hope it opens this season so any bad press that they may receive from the ride re-opening won't effect their 2016 season so much. All sounds promising but at least even if it doesn't, we have a pretty awesome sounding Scarefest to round the season off! 
AirtimeFreak
Mega Poster
I'm going tomorrow so will have a little look and see whats going on
owentaylor121
Giga Poster
The park confirmed on Facebook and Twitter that The Smiler will not be open for Scarefest.
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