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Disney Bans Selfie Sticks
New submitter albimaturityr writes with a story from the Orlando Sentinel that Disney is banning selfie sticks from its parks, starting with Disney World (as of Tuesday) but continuing with its other parks in California, Paris, and Hong Kong. Says the report: The issue has been building at Disney. Previously, the sticks were prohibited from its rides, and "no selfie-sticks" signs were at select rides, such as Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Magic Kingdom. Cast members have given verbal warnings to rule breakers.
Several incidents preceded the change, but officials have been discussing the rules for some time, Disney said. This week at Disney California Adventure park, a roller coaster was halted after a passenger pulled out a selfie-stick. The ride was closed for an hour.
There's good reason to be skeptical of rules. Too often, rules are not honest. The usual tactic is to not give any explanation. When that won't fly, safety is the #1 excuse for a rule. But so often, it turns out that someone profits from a rule, and that is the real reason for it. Even when there are genuine safety concerns, there is often also a profit motive. That seems highly likely with this particular Disney rule. Why couldn't people use electronic devices or carry nail clippers on planes? Why did so many cities try red light cameras? Why can't people bring their own food and drink to the movie theaters? Why can't we play movies on our computers' DVD drives?
Yeah. Don't blindly trust The Rules.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Having worked at one of these parks, I can speculate as to what happened:
A worker monitoring the cameras on the ride saw the rider with the selfie stick and did as they were instructed, to hit the emergency shut off. This stops the ride, and halts all the cars/trains at their next safety stop point. Once that happens, the only way to get the ride going again is to reset it and do your opening procedures over again. The computer for the ride won't allow the ride to operate unless those checks have been performed and passed. Sometimes it might even require one of the engineers from the park to give their sign-off as well.
But to even begin, you have to evacuate everyone that is currently on the ride. So you have to go out on the track to where they are, release them from the ride, and escort them back to the exit. If there is anyone with mobility issues in any of the cars, that could become a very complicated task. IMO, an hour is very quick to do all of that.