Accident at Alton Towers

[TommyAlex]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Big One was the two trains colliding on the brake run or something when it opened, so it wasn't anything massive.

Look, I would understand why people would want the ride closed if it was a mechanical error or whatever. But we know it was down to human error. Human error is not the rides fault. Cars aren't modified if a drunk driver crashes, it's the drivers fault. I think people need to understand this. It was an error by people working on the ride, it shouldn't happen again.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Big One had an identical accident to Magnum, didn't it? Implying that's the ride type. Cedar Point responded with their dumb rain rule.

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[Robbie]

Big One had an identical accident to Magnum, didn't it? Implying that's the ride type. Cedar Point responded with their dumb rain rule.

Dunno about Magnum, but Big One had pretty much the same accident twice (computer failure on brake run).

 

[DelPiero]

The Magnum incident was never blamed on a computer failure, but was blamed on the brakes not fully stopping the train because the track was extremely wet. The train slipped through the brakes and hit the stationary train at 10mph.
The most recent Big Once incident was computer failure stopping the brakes from engaging at all and the train collided at 35 mph.

Similar, but not identical.

 

[Chris Brown]

temp

Someone has done an interview regarding the smiler reopening, now I want you to guess which of the four front row riders it was before opening the link, was it;
A. Joe Pugh
B. Leah Washington
C. Daniel Thorpe
D. Vikki Balch

http://www.itv.com/news/2016-03-18/...cky-balch-criticises-rollercoaster-reopening/

 

[mouse]

Re: Go Ape for Chessington WoA, summer 2016

Hmm... I'm gonna go for D, legal and ride safety expert Vicky Balch.

 

[Hixee]

Moved your posts from the GoApe topic into the correct one.

 

[Robbie]

The way the Alton PR spokeswoman has positioned herself in front of the portal from Galactica is shameless. Blimey, they could at least pretend to feel bad about re-opening.

 

[cjbrandy]

I completely empathise with her and understand her anger, all of us would be furious and salty at something if it gave us a life changing injury. If she could Im sure she'd love to personally demolish the ride and that's understandable because of what happened to her on it.

I wonder what the Mail and The Sun will do on the 19th when it reopens. Will there be a front page headline along the lines of "Dangerous ride which lost 2 riders their LEG reopens this weekend." We'll have to wait and see!

 

[Howie]

^I don't think we'll see anything in The Sun, as they're starting their Alton Towers ticket giveaway on Saturday.

"Anger as Death Trap Roller Coaster Reopens to Public - turn to page 5 to claim your 2 free tickets!"

 

[GuyWithAStick]

Considering the name is in the link, I guess D...?

 

[Smithy]

Hey, she's got to find a way to supplement that seven figure pay out by continuing her media appearances and cashing in on the accident.

Notice how the one bloke hasn't so much as given an interview. That's the approach. You openly court attention by making multiple media appearances then you're fair game for people like me who think whilst it was a horrible accident, get the **** over it you're minted from it I don't need your sob stories.

 

[Robbie]

Notice how the one bloke hasn't so much as given an interview.

There were two blokes, and one of them - Joe Pugh - appeared on Good Morning Britain to say the ride shouldn't be re-opened.

http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yor ... h-11060495

(You can be forgiven for not knowing this though, as it's Good Morning Britain and no-one watches that!)

 

[davidm]

^ and the other one hasn't ; I think that was the point. :?

 

[Robbie]

^ and the other one hasn't ; I think that was the point. :?

Fair enough. Although his mum goes on quite a bit, and he does pose for carefully crafted photo opps...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life- ... rs-7509924

 

[Sandman]

Notice how the one bloke hasn't so much as given an interview.

There were two blokes, and one of them - Joe Pugh - appeared on Good Morning Britain to say the ride shouldn't be re-opened.

http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yor ... h-11060495

(You can be forgiven for not knowing this though, as it's Good Morning Britain and no-one watches that!)

I'm fairly sure not long after the crash Joe Pugh spoke highly of his treatment by Merlin post-accident, and said that it's understandable that the ride might re-open. To be fair though, these victims are all fairly young and impressionable, and I'd imagine the media likes to manipulate their opinions in order to hit the story from a certain angle. I've noticed the victims are always praised as 'brave' and whatnot when they go on tv/radio for interviews. Sort of patronising but I imagine maybe it makes them feel good too.

 

[scw55]

I understand why the victims might feel the wish for the ride to be demolished. Vengeance? Fear of safety?
They are natural feelings, but not justifiable to deny the ride to everyone else in the world.

Let's hope this incident will be forgotten, appropriate lessons learned, and will become "didn't a think happen at Oakwood" type thought.

 

[witchfinder]

Well it doesn't seem to have put the general public off. I checked the queuing times for Alton Towers periodically today and The Smiler was at 90 minutes most of the day...

 

[owentaylor121]

Yep, The Smiler was extremely popular yesterday, but all the other rides has fairly big queues aswell, it was fantastic to see the park back to how it used to be when it comes to guests.

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[Martyn B]

I dunno, going by what I saw, Smiler was the only ride with a substantial queue.

On that note, it's funny that there's now so few rides at Alton, they've resulted to adding the Frog Hopper to the ride queue times list!