this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
529 points (98.7% liked)

tumblr

4957 readers
4 users here now

Welcome to /c/tumblr, a place for all your tumblr screenshots and news.

Our Rules:

  1. Keep it civil. We're all people here. Be respectful to one another.

  2. No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia or any other flavor of bigotry. I should not need to explain this one.

  3. Must be tumblr related. This one is kind of a given.

  4. Try not to repost anything posted within the past month. Beyond that, go for it. Not everyone is on every site all the time.

  5. No unnecessary negativity. Just because you don't like a thing doesn't mean that you need to spend the entire comment section complaining about said thing. Just downvote and move on.


Sister Communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 22 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 44 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I watched the one about the waterslide (at Schlitterbahn) that decapitated a 10 year old kid in front of two women. It was the tallest waterslide, was built in like 1/3rd of time, and the guys who built it had never made a waterslide before. Their safety testing was trial and error, which showed the raft fly off the ride at the first hill multiple times. Their solution was to put a net with hoop supports, which is what cut the kid's head off.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 20 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The only positive was that the kid was the son of a Kansas Republican, and Republicans only care about safety hazards when it affects them directly, so there actually were consequences.

Still an awful thing though. I live in KC and remember that news.

I also remember drying through Kansas and seeing the freakishly tall slide.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 41 points 2 years ago

Don't forget they are staffed by one teenager when the operating manual calls for 2 adults and a supervisor.

[–] WatDabney@sopuli.xyz 14 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I don't ride amusement park rides for exactly that reason. The motion and speed and such don't bother me, and it's not that I get dizzy or nauseous or anything. It's that I'm hyper-aware of the fact that all it would take to kill me is for one little mechanical part to fail or be incorrectly installed.

I actually fixate on specific parts - the whole time the ride's going, I'm looking around and thinking, "If that pin shears, I'm dead. If that bolt wasn't tightened down, I'm dead. If that flange twists, I'm dead."

There's nothing even vaguely fun about that.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 48 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Even if you were to ride an amusement park rollercoaster every single day for the rest of your life, you would be a couple magnitudes more likely to die on the car ride to or back from the park than by a malfunction of the attraction. Most malfunctions will result on the car stopping on an horizontal section then getting evacuated on foot, and that would be scary but you wouldn't be in any danger. You are in greater danger of harm or death stepping into a bathtub for a shower than on a rollercoaster cart riding at 120 km/h and pulling some Gs. Humans suck at intuitively assessing risk.

[–] WatDabney@sopuli.xyz 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yes - I know all of that. And it doesn't make the slightest difference.

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You're not THE Wat Dabney? The inventor of the inverted firkin?!

[–] WatDabney@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 years ago

The very same.

[–] lars@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 2 years ago

Homo sapiens is good at building rollercoasters, not probability especially vis‑à‑vis emotion. And they aren’t very good at rollercoasters either.

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I take it you don't go near cars or other vehicles either, then? Lol

[–] WatDabney@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I can manage cars, but I have a sort of mental block I've had to adopt to stop myself thinking about tires blowing out. It helps that I can't see them.

I generally only ride elevators if it's more floors than I can comfortably climb stairs, and I don't like them. Given the opportunity, I always take the stairs. And I spend a lot of my time on elevators specifically trying not to think about the arrangement of pulleys and cables that's the only thing standing between me and death. Again though, it helps that I can't actually see them.

Airplanes are sort of odd, because they don't much scare me. I think the whole thing is so complex and foreign that I can't get a firm idea of what specifically could fail, so I don't have any specific thing on which to focus the fear. I dunno - I just know that they don't scare me.

Trains are a bit unsettling though, I guess because wheels and rails are something on which I can and thus do focus. It's va fairly distant rhing though, and thinking about it is the exception rather than the rule.

And so on...

[–] PetteriSkaffari@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

This train of thoughts (lol) can keep you healthy, but the risks involved are rather slim. Better to be afraid of mayonnaise and French fries I guess.

[–] zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

With how elevators are engineered these days, it would be difficult to cause one to fall even deliberately. Multiple simultaneous system failures would be required that aren't fragile to begin with. Not sure about the particulars of your anxiety, but that one you might find some relief from through research.

[–] brygphilomena@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

You can also see tests of them, which gets performed on each and everyone before certification, where they are loaded to their max weight and are allowed to slam into the buffers at the bottom. It would be uncomfortable, but survivable.

[–] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Dude there was a picture of that schlitterbaun or w/e water slide in KC under construction and I was like "There's no way this could end badly." Less than two years later sure enough it lops heads off.

[–] NickwithaC@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

*head

But yeah, fuck those idiots.

[–] tslnox@reddthat.com 6 points 2 years ago

So

Bloody Stupid Johnson then?

[–] ech@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

There's a family of possums in there. I call the big one Bitey.

[–] PaupersSerenade@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

Disneyland had a death due to poor management at one point, probably others. The one I’m referencing the Columbia on the Rivers of America. It’s not in the story, but my recollection was that it was a new manager (who shadow each attraction for a day or two when they’re promoted) that directed the cast to tie down when it was going too fast. The momentum ripped up the cleat which practically amputated the leg of the cast member and flew into a guest’s face, killing them.

Just flexing my useless Disney info, but kinda making the point that the ship itself was well built/designed, but management was shit.