Ian-S

That extended video reminds me of something that happened on the swarm at summer nights, basically the brake run did it's job just a little too well and we were left stranded on the last turn hardly moving, eventually after 10-15 seconds physics took over and the train continued on the run down round the rest of the corner to the second brake run and we trundled into the station most people none the wiser to how close we'd just been to being stuck.

...and there's the now familar tick of another tooth dropping onto the plate, think I' going to stop eating pizza. Most of my teath have broken off at the gum line and the root has either come out itself eventually or been absorbed by the gum, not sure what that does long term buy hey ho, you only live once as they say. But yeah don't be sticking unsanitised tools in your gob, if you must insist boil them in a pan first, I sometimes find a cotton bud with the end chopped off is enough to dig out any squashy bits of teeth though. Last time I was at the dentish they gave me gas and it took me four hours to wake up from it, when I did according to my mum I immediately continued counting down again from 7 (I only got to 8 before it knocked me out before the op) much to the shock of the nurse. She said I also must hsve told her 50 times the gas wouldn't work (the numbing/painkilling injections they gave back in the early 80's had no effect on me, hence the gas).

Restoration of existing stuff should never be seen as improving, the stuff should never have been left to rot in the first place. If the person here who first said they'd heard loggers was closing is any indication, then Colosus, Slammer and Rapids will all close at the end of this season for "improvements" (they said that was going to happen too iirc, loggers closes at end of 15, rest to follow end of 16). Frankly they should just bulldoze the Darren Green Moneypit, chalk it up to a bad experience and go back to what they know works, I.e. coasters and flumes.

Doubt their insurance will cover them for negligence, mine doesn't, even less so if you admit it was your fault. No, compensation will be coming from profits, and probably justifying more cuts, or lack of new rides, in coming years. It's also been questioned in the past where these fines go, in the case of the banking industry, the fsa fine were shared out between the other banks, rather than being paid to a central fund.

Must be something in the air since I broke another tooth over the weekend, got any of that valium going spare? Considering, I'm now convinced my teeth issues are related to the equinox since I always suffer bad tooth ache while the earth shifts on it's axis, never at any other time of the year, anybody got a spare tin foil hat?

My first reaction was "how much?" but I guess the way the Judge looked at it is they never denied liability, have done good by the victims and have acknowledged and fixed the flaws so bankrupting them would do nobody any favours, especially the victims. It's also in line with previous non-fatal fine levels, if you ignore inflation. I see the judge has rulled it was not human error at fault, I think here he's trying to differentiate between human error and human negligence, but joe public is so thick to understsnd this they may assume he means it was a computer error, but whether the press will run with this is another thing, wonder what Vicky will think of this?

Who?

Not the way I was taught but that was 30 years ago so things might have changed. Regarding the 999 Sam, I think its more the fact none of the bystanders called it, I have been in that situation and it was the first thing I did (car crash, not rollercoaster crash tho). Also I'm actually not sure there was lots of people there, the background looks pretty empty in the video, but thats still no excuse for those thast were, I guess it was a case of assuming someone else / the resort had called already, there's that word again....

Yup being the point exactly, check don't assume.

It's easy to see why it wasn't seen, especially if the operator wasn't looking closely, with hindsight we know there's a car there but on quick glance it's hard to see it exactly because it's partly obscured by the track and the seats are a similar pattern to the track itself onscreen. Edit: Also it wasn't a 90mph impact, if it was all 16 would be dead from basal skull fracure with those restraints, a 45mph impact into a stationary object is just that, a 45mph impact, it only becomes s 90mph impact if the object you hit is also doing 45mph iñ the opposite direction to you, it's splitting hairs I know but it's stretching the truth on little things like this that the press then pick up and run with without at least passing it by a physics student for confirmation that makes the whole situation worse for all.

Did someone say naked actors were in the mazes? So let me get this right, there's naked people in there that can manhandle you any way they want, but you're not allowed to return the compliment? Where's the fun in that?

About 30 minutes by car, or two hours on a Saturday (yes it took us two hours to go 3 junctions earlier this year).

Obviously not, to quote a saying from my youth, it seem the YTS lad was in charge that day.

Sorry to double post but just for reference the biggest H&S fine up to now was Transco in 2005 at £15Mil. I know thr Judge said expect up to £10Mil but surely this will eclipse Transco. One thing that I find alarming is that it took nearly 20 minutes for somebody to call 999, nobody standing around watching thought to do it?

Mer, they were getting their reports from a local reporter tweeting from the public gallery, he called the skyride a rollercoaster earlier and it was immediately parroted by the media, but the main lot (bbc/sky) have got people there now, those guff reports have now been pulled so that's why I asked. I can easily see this being the biggest fine in history given the circumstances.

Has their been any reference to the claims made that a staff member told a member of the public to mind their own business when said minion pointed out the stalled car to them? I do wonder if these reporters are misunderstanding some things, since they called the 'Skyride' a rollercoaster earlier. Engineer/ride operator, do they know the difference?

PTSD you mean? I'm not keen on taking photos either but sometimes it can be helpful to investigators, especially if the actual event is captured, but sure it's just disrespectful to carry on taking photos/videos once the seriousness of a situation becomes clear.

My wife was an avid Air Crash Investigation watcher, now she won't even go into a static non-flying plane at museums, so I've got fat chance of getting her on anything more than Vampire, I bet even if I roofied her she still wouldn't go on.

Considering Alton's social media team didn't evern know the new name of one of their rides earlier this year I put about as much faith in what they say as I do a chocolate fireguard.

I'm suprised they havn't filled in the lake that loggers goes round, compared to other parts it's only a small width entrance that needs blocking off, they'd have a really nice area then. Does anybody know how deep the water is? I remember the original RMC plan was to fill the quarry but it was cheaper to flood it, there's a couple old RMC sites near us and they are really deep, one even does deep water diver training it's so deep.

Don't you mean the crash would have been avoided had the existing procedures been followed properly?

I still can't wrap my head around how nobody considered hest would be an issue, has nobody working at Merlin ever heard the saying 'engineer for the worst'?

Standard and Premium only get 20% off the gate entry price at parks outside the UK, it's only the VIP passholders that free entry worldwide, so there's no real benefit in those terms. We already decided earlier this year to downgrade, only me and mini-me are renewing and the Mrs will use our bring-a-friend vouchers for the rare times she joins us.

Skin Snatchers = Walking Dead no?

It's hard to tell, as Mr Coaster points out operations are so slow that even with there only being a few dozen people in the queue for Fury they still managed to turn that into a 20 minute wait on a weekday in April. It will be worse at weekends, but on a week like that you should just go along with the assumption that Vampire will be 90 minutes and take anything less as a pleasant bonus, keep those expectations low and you won't be disapointed.