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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?"
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There are an aweful lot of roller coasters in New Jersey, and most aren't in big theme parks (like Six Flags and stuff).
Most are on the board walk on small piers, and there have been a number of deaths (actually, usually at least one every summer) from poorly design and/or maintained coasters. Regulating coasters is not necessarily a bad idea.
It makes sense to not allow high speed coasters on little piers that don't have enough staff to maintain it properly. I think that is the basis of a law like this.
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People ride them to have fun, get a thrill.
:)
Not to have their bodies exposed to more forces and danger than most astronauts ever experience - if you think about it, the astronauts are safer. The astronauts have teams of medics, special suits, and a large, strong spacecraft around them. Compare this to the average coaster-rider who is sitting in a flimsy piece of metal, or even wood - nothing protecting them from the G-forces, let alone the wind. And most people are going to ride the same coaster multiple times in a row if possible - I know I do.
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Does anyone have any links to stories about deaths which have occured from riding roller coasters? Other than having a heart attack, [which means you shouldn't have been riding in the first place] how would riding a roller coaster kill you?
This whole thing about creating a legal g-force limit is once again our government stepping in and saying "you people are too dumb to make your own decisions... we're going to protect you from yourselves". Its similar to the stupid McDonalds Coffee incident. People should be held accountable for their own [sometimes stupid] actions. You don't see the government banning skydiving because some people smacked into the ground and died. You're expected to know and accept the risks.
People need to stop blaming other people for the results of their own actions.
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?
I can't believe that they think that a Roller Coasters ride has more Gforce then getting shoot up into space at an ungodly speed.
It's not the speed, it's the huge change of speed in a short time that makes the difference. Relatively gradual accleration to significant speeds is not nearly as traumatic as a quick acceleration and then an abrupt deceleration.
Don't forget, also, that the people piloting military planes and shuttles have gone through significant physical training and monitoring to make sure they're in good shape. The same cannot be true of the vast majority of couch-potatoes visiting the fair. And if the stress on the adult body isn't enough, imagine what the stress might be like on a teen or preteen's body, especially to the brain stem, when suddenly given a 3 or 4 G shock. Maybe nothing, maybe a lot more... especially as the stress gets repeated.
Go ask a pediatric neurologist about the effect repeated stresses like this could have, or go ask any trauma surgeon what repeated low-grade whiplash, which is a potential risk at these levels, can do to anyone.
Think about it - the whole point of roller coasters is to give you a "rush" by stressing your body extremely. It makes sense to at least examine the need for regulation, to make sure roller coasters don't get too extreme.
Get off my launchpad!
"potentially harmful effects of large gravitational fields"
Roller coasters do not generate "gravitational fields." They generate no gravity whatsoever. The do create acceleration forces which cause effects similar to gravity, and we actually know quite a bit about those forces. Fighter pilots regularly undergo forces of up to 9 Gs, and this is an area that the military and NASA have studied extensively. They have things called "centrifuges" which can subject people to very high accelerations. All fighter pilots spend time in the centrifuge learning how to handle high G loads.
As for your cousin, I suspect he had some other nascent condition which the ride exacerbated. The fact is, you're probably more likely to be hit by lightning than to be hurt on an amusement park ride, and no one is saying we should make it a crime to go outside in the rain.
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
These are legislators solving a problem that doesn't exist
I'd say they are taking a very small problem that has already been reported and nipping it in the bud. This reminds me--the very same people who are now saying that Bush knew about 911 are the very same people that would probably have sluffed off a hijack warning before then. So, what we have here are some politicians who are actually demonstrating forsight, and getting blasted by comments like yours. Would you prefer to see a statisticly significant uptick in brain damage incidents at New Jersey hospitals before action is taken?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
If that argument worked, do you think that marajuana, heroin, meth, e, etc. etc. etc. would be illegal?
The government's job is to attempt to preserve the lives of those who are willing to risk them.
And those who are willing to risk them have the job of coming up with new un-regulated ways of risking them.
Speeds along the process of innovation, and adds some interesting entries to the Darwin Awards timeline.
-Sara
Space launches have steadily reduced their peak G forces over the years. During the Mercury and Gemini programs, the Astronauts were exposed to as much G force as modern jet fighters do in a dogfight, and for as long. The heavier Saturn launch system of Apollo was gentler, and the Space shuttle is very tame by comparison. Russian cosmonauts still get a better (in roler-coaster terms) ride than their American counterparts.
Given how tame the shuttle is, maybe it's technically true, if misleading, to say that roler coasters give the rider more G that an Astronaut experiences. (They did after all say "astronaut", not "cosmonaut") A space shuttle jockey, just barely goes over 3G. Some roler coasters may peak at 5. But here's the difference: The shuttle sustains the 3G for the entire duration of the post-SRB-separation boost. That's several minutes of continuous burn. I doubt whether any roler coaster ever peaks over 3G for more than 2 or 3 seconds at a time, if that.
The physiological risks associated with high G are not determined by the magnitude of the G alone, but mainly by other factors:
The duration that high G is sustained. Long duration deprives the brain of blood long enough to cause very bad things to happen. No real risk there on roler coasters.
The onset-rate. How suddenly the G force starts and stops. High onset rates cause all kinds of problems, including back and neck problems, inner ear problems, and even brain dammage in extreme cases. Once again, no issue in a well-designed roler coaster.
Head movement. High G forces, especially combined with high onset rates, are aggrivated by sudden head rotation. This can be a problem even if the G forces are only momentary. Inner ear problems can result. Roller-coaster designers have little control over this factor, so perhaps it is a real concern.
Negative G. (Negative means the blood rushes to your head). High negative G can cause all kinds of problems, including burst blood vessels in the eyes. I've personally never heard of a roler coaster that goes beyond about -0.5G or so, and even then for less than a second, so I doubt that this is an issue.
Sudden transitions from positive to negative, or vice-verca. All the bad things associated with high positive G are accentuated if it immediately follows a period of negative. And vice verca if negative follows a period of positive. This will become a real issue if roler coasters ever start exploring the negative regime. Frankly, I doubt that they will. The average rider views positive G's as exhilirating fun, but would find negative to be obnoxious and uncomfortable.
Frankly, I'm much more worried about the structural design and maintenence of the coaster than the G-profile. But then, I've flown to WAY higher positive and negative G forces than either roler coaster or space shuttle experience, and I know the breathing techniques, and I know to keep my head relatively still. Roler coasters all seem really disappointing to me.
Lack of -training-? No, I think it's jsut that there's a lack of skilled drivers. That involves training, but is not the sole factor. We have drivers that are fearful, drivers that do things they shouldn't while driving (eating, talking on the phone, etc.), poor dextrousity, poor eyesight, and such. Training is just a small factor. Probably also a factor, is the ease that exists in getting a license. It shouldn't be as cheap as it is (cheap to renew, yes, after a basic review of continued competence), and the testing procedure shouldn't be as momentary - they should have to drive on, say, an obsticle course in an unfamiliar vehicle (one big cause for accidents), etc...
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
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
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
I'm reading a lot of people's statements about P(killed on ride) vs P(killed in car on way home). This isn't the only story: long-term effects are also a big deal. In addition, even that probability is so corrupted by noise (you can get great numbers for driving, but not so great numbers for flying, because the rates of injury/death for flying is so low) that even if such signs were posted, they would be completely meaningless. For example, if no one had ever died or been injured on coaster A, what would you post? "You have a 0% probability of being injured on this ride?" That's a liability lawsuit waiting to happen.
So what if we said "don't regulate dining establishments; if you don't want to get Hepatitis, then you can make your own evaluation of the place's cleanliness. On it's face, this seems outrageous; however, most of us have the skills to decide if a food preparation place is hygenically adequate. How many of us (or the general populace) has the skills to decide if a roller-coaster ride is safe, esp long-term? (I'm paranoid about things like this, to the extent that I don't do LASIK because there are no 50-year studies).
Summation: informed consent is a good thing; some level of protecting idiots from themselves is also important, especially since most of us don't have domain knowledge in roller-coaster design. Safety vs car is apples-to-oranges, hence we should require, for example, 99th percentile Gs/time and jerk/time graphs, just like we have "SAR" for cell phones, for which no one actually knows safety parameters... By this logic, however, we should grade food establishments, make them post their grades, but never shut someone down for an F...
The Viper (a relatively new steel coaster) at Six Flags Great Adventure is horrible in terms of comfort. The ride isn't that exciting and thanks to the design of the shoulder restraints most of the ride experience is liken to being repeatedly punched in the ear.
Your comment kind of simplifies the human bodies ability to withstand G forces. I just finished watching a whole program on the Discover Channel about crash testing and the effects of certain forces on the human body, so obviously I'm now a certified expert. Moving right along the program just reinforced what common sense would tell anyone who has been in any kind of accident: it's not just how hard you hit, it's how you hit, what position you're in when you hit, how many times you hit and the angle that you hit at.
The numbers you mentioned sound a bit off from what the program was stating in terms of what the human body could safely endure. They showed a man traveling at some thing like 630mph decelerate to zero in about a tenth of second, which worked out to roughly 45Gs horizontally. His lung(s?) collapsed and his retinas temporarily detached. He eventually recovered and managed to live another 45 years but its still not what I would consider a fun day at an amusement park.
The program also went on to state that the human body can only survive 15Gs of momentary force vertically before the spinal damage occurs. I wonder what 6Gs of sudden momentary lateral force would do to someone's neck.
It would also seem that human anatomy would play a big role in what forces and change in forces the human body could survive without damage. A person sitting perfectly upright may be able to survive a 6G load in one direction, but what happens when they are subjected to the same force with their body and head are shifted to one side from the previous 4G turn or loop? I sure as hell don't know, I doubt New Jersey state legislators know either.
Rider operators do not want to kill customers, just momentarily make customers think they are going to die. There are so many variables in play that any legislation that tries to "make these rides safer" is going to fail hopelessly. I'm all for making ride operators/builders prove that their machines are minimally dangerous but to put blanket limitations on them just doesn't seem to do anyone much good.
-- Button up, your ignorance is showing
No, that's not their job. But sometimes they think it is, and that is pretty god-damned unfortunate.
Trenton, N.J. - A New Jersey judge today declared that it would be illegal to expose citizens to gravitational fields greater than 0.2 G . "Every year more people are falling or jumping to their deaths," explained Justice Iverson, " a situation that cannot be allowed to continue. Every day on television I see coyotes cruelly crushed by falling anvils, and its time something was done. I am issuing an extradition writ for a Mr Isaac Newton who I believe is responsible for the problem."
Cynics have suggested that Iverson is merely trying to improve his golf game. Since the ruling, he has been regularly driving the greens at exclusive Rolling Hills Country Club - with his sand wedge. Justice Iverson is aged 92.
In related news, senior mafia officials pledged to 'eradicate chance' from casinos across the USA.
Not to have their bodies exposed to more forces and danger than most astronauts ever experience
From the original post:
the G-forces on coasters are considerably greater than even those experienced by astronauts and race car drivers...
I flew military jets for 9 years, and I think these comparisons are crap. When people used to ask me how jets compared to roller coasters, I would tell them that the two experiences are totally different. It's a matter of scale. Sustaining 4G or more for even 10 seconds, let alone 30 or 60 seconds or more, is an experience that simply cannot be reproduced by any rollercoaster that can fit in a theme park. The effects of the sustained G are DRAMATICALLY different than the one or two second hits (or three or four...whatever) felt on a high performance rollercoaster.
I recently road with my brother on a rollercoaster that I considered to be quite exciting, with corkscrews and consecutive loops, and when it was over he asked me how many G's he thought we had pulled. Based on the sensations I had felt (compared to my years in jets) I guessed 1.5-2. I was surprised to see a brochure later that claimed the ride pulled 6G. The two or three second hits just didn't have time to register.
Another example: a person using an ejection seat pulls an ongodly amount of G -- something like 30 or 60, although the actual number escapes me. Obviously this is enough to kill a man, but the brief time period involved make it survivable. I've known people who ejected and were able to walk around with no problem immediately afterward.
The point is that comparisons to astronauts and race car drivers is misleading. The maximum G must be examined only in conjunction with the period of time over which the G occurs. Brief hits DO NOT COMPARE to sustained G. Maybe rides should be limited and maybe they shouldn't, but the forces faced by astronauts are not part of the debate.
Evil is the money of root.
Yeah - and people who get stoned are really good drivers, too, I suppose?
Well, for some value of really good - see this for details.
Here is a paragraph from the report referenced:
In this context, positive and negative Gs are relative to the body orientation: positive Gs are directed from head to feet; negative Gs are directed from feet to head.
In physics, there may be no difference between positive and negative Gs, but there are definite physiological differences in how the body reacts to positive and negative Gs, and how much the body can tolerate in each direction. Like the previous poster said, negative Gs cause increased blood pressure in the head, which can lead to bursting blood vessels. Contrariwise, positive Gs cause decreased blood pressure (and flow) to the head, and can eventually cause blackouts.
"Why do they think people ride roller coasters to begin with?"
Like many things, the reason people think they do something is not necessarily the reason people do it. If a person gets on a roller coaster, enjoys it, and does it again, they may figure they like the G-forces they experienced. But a lot of people don't understand physics or the human body or their own mental processes, so their simple correlation of one part of the experience with the cause of the enjoyment is not necessarily indicative of a causal relationship.
Ask objectively, is it the G-forces people enjoy? Isolate the G-forces to see. Suppose you put somebody in a roller-coaster car mounted over some artificial gravity plating. You dial up the G-forces to two gravities, three, maybe even six. Then you ask the person if they're having fun. The answer will pretty much be no. At two gravities, maybe some people will be interested in what they are feeling, but it isn't really exciting. At higher gravities, they'll be uncomfortable. Even if you don't sustain six gravities but merely pulse the plating for fractions of a second, they'll still be uncomfortable. Above two gravities, there is really nothing new to the experience; it is just more of the same, and it is boring, if not painful.
Objectively, I think a claim that G-forces (really acceleration) are the source of enjoyment won't hold up. Here are some other candidates for the true sources of pleasure: The thrill of the appearance of danger. The unusual perspective of being upside down. The surprise of the unknown as acceleration and velocities change without warning and in unusual ways.
The appearance of danger is thrilling because evolution naturally produces a fascination with danger. Evolution causes an organism to be fascinated with danger because if your brain focuses intensely on danger, you are better able to avoid it. (You recognize it, you avoid it, you figure out what to do,...) Because avoiding danger is very important to survival, your brain is very attracted to focusing on danger. And it is not just focusing; there is also pleasure. The reason for the pleasure is to reward you for having learned something. You have done something good for your continued survival, so there is pleasure associated with it.
Being upside-down and experiencing unusual changes in acceleration and velocity may be entertaining simply because we are curious and enjoy being stimulated. Curiousity is also a feature of an organism making its way in a complicated world. It's pleasurable just as above, because learning enhances survival, although not as intense as apparent danger.
Personally, I enjoy free-fall more than high acceleration. It's a more unusual experience, and zero-gravity is qualitatively different from two-gravities. And, of course, the feeling of falling is highly correlated with great danger, so it produces some of the same intense mental focus on the experience.
So, no, G-forces are not the real reason people ride roller coasters. They may play a role, but there are plenty of other factors, and there are plenty of ways to use accelerations entertainingly without cranking up the acceleration to dangerous levels.
You know that metal bar on the back of the trailer? Yeah that's what is supposed to protect you from being decapitated, all trucks have them.
;-).
If you had ever worked with large trucks first hand you'd realize that those things are largely worthless.
First, there are loading docks that actually latch onto the underride bars to keep the trailers in place - how many times do you think people forget to disengage them before trying to drive off. This doesn't always tear the guard off, just weakens it.
Second, those guards are often too high to stop a car from underriding. The theory is that they will hit your engine block, collapse and scrape along your hood - buckling it - until you stop. Um, yeah. That works great if you're in something with a hood that high. (hint: Metro and Miata drivers are screwed)
Anyway, I agree with you that there is a higher percentage of safe and conscientious drivers with a CDL than not. The real problem is that 1 bad truck driver can 100x more lethal per incident than some poor schmuck in an Aspire with no clue. Unfortunately, there are too many schmucks on the road creating too many incidents.
Back (sorta) on topic, there definitely needs to be *some* sort of regulation on coasters - operationally as well as mechanically. At the bare minimum, I'd like to see info outside the ride on max speed, max G, sustained G and running time - so I don't wait 2 hours in line for a 10 second ride!