Coasters to Face G-Force Limits?

jonerik writes "NBC News is reporting that today New Jersey will begin examining the possibility of placing limits on roller coaster G-forces. Pointing out that the G-forces on coasters are considerably greater than even those experienced by astronauts and race car drivers, legislators on both the state and national levels want to start reining in coaster G-forces which have been blamed for a number of injuries and deaths over the past few years. Pansies. Why do they think people ride roller coasters to begin with?"

Comments

57 known cases

[CaptainSuperBoy]

According to Markey's page, there have been 57 known cases of this type of injury. Only 57 cases, ever! Millions of people go to theme parks every year! Has the whole world gone crazy, when congressmen are spending their budgets investigating a one in a million occurrence while ignoring the continual erosion of our civil liberties? It's my right to go on a roller coaster and kill my brain any damn way I want to!

Just another example of what big government causes.. useless legislation, inquiries into problems that don't exist. Your tax dollars at work! Welcome to the New USA, designed to protect yourself from yourself. I'm ashamed to say this buffoon is from my state, Massachusetts. I'll also mention that not a single injury of this type has actually happened in Mass - I guess he's just trying to prevent the one or two injuries that MIGHT happen this season.

It just makes me angry when people focus on extremely rare, freak problems.. like people making such a fuss about school shootings, or shark attacks last summer. Statistically speaking, these things simply do not happen! Why don't we focus on a real problem?

Re:57 known cases

[sholden]

Legislators are stupid ... similiar situation: a couple years ago here in california, some school kid got himself darwined by running across the street and into the path of a car after getting off a bus.

Our legislators in their finite wisdom decided that to avoid this in the future, drivers would have to *stop* on *both lanes* of trafic anytime a school bus was unloading. The fine for not stoping ? 1500$.

I have nearly gotten in 5 accidents because of this -- people slam on their breaks when the buses flip on their stop sign because they're afraid of the amazing fine (and guess what -- cops are following the buses so they can *give* amazing fines). Then invariably a busy street or expressway comes to a halt with screaching tires. And yes ive narowly avoided some fantastic collisions only by luck.

Which indicates that you shouldn't be driving.

There's this concept of keeping enough distance between you and the car in front so that if they slam on their brakes you have time to slam on yours - without being even close to hitting them.

Only an idiot who drives way to close would manage to come close to crashing in those circumstances, let alone do so five times.

What happens when the car in front sees some kid step out from between parked cars and you don't because from your viewpoint they are obscured by something? Do you almost have an accident because the other driver slams on their brakes?

Braking hard is dangerous (especially if the guy behind you is changing radio stations at the time) but sometimes you need to. Hence you should always leave enough room and assume the other driver just might need to (or maybe the other driver is an idiot who will slam on his brakes because he missed his turn off)...

Kids have underdeveloped peripheral vision, they are bad at judging speeds and distances of object moving at the speeds cars go, they are easily distracted, and often do not notice what is happening around them when focused on something (like getting their ball that just bounced onto the road, or seeing their mother who is an idiot and is on the other side of the road). All this means they will run onto roads...

Stopping for buses to (un)load seems silly to me, a slow speed limit when the bus is (un)loading seems better.

Blackout on Nitro in New Jersey

[shoemakc]

I do know that I blacked out for a few seconds while riding Nitro in Six Flags / New Jersey. It was right at the top of a peak and I imagine the coaster was pulling some serious negative G's.

Anyway...I remember my vision starting to darken and then go black....and returning a few seconds later. I'm a young adult, in fairly good shape and could see how this could become a serious problem for other riders.

Remember....think back to early Coney Island when there were very few safety regulations, and injury was more the norm then the exception.

-Chris