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5 Year Old Jumps Out Kiddie Coaster at Coney Island

Re: Idiot 5 Year Old Jumps Out Kiddie Coaster at Coney Islan

1. There's no such thing as an idiot 5 year old. All young children are prone to acting unreasonably under emotional stress (which they can easily suffer from).

2. The coaster is small, there may not have been room for the mother to ride (I could barely ride with Maxi-Minor_Furie on Pinfari Big Apples and Super Dragons once he got to about four or five as there wasn't room for us both in the same car). She quite simply may not have fit.

3. The child was "tall enough" to ride unaccompanied. So the mother shouldn't have had to ride with the child. She did leave put him on with an elder sibling which should be fine in most cases.

I'd like to say that the ride should be built so that a child can't get out, but usually a tightish bar is enough to dissuade a child from trying to get out. The ride op should be watching at all times though in case any riders are in stress to stop the ride.

I've seen rides with belts to stop kids from getting out, but not every kiddie coaster I've been on has had them, or every ride. I do think they're a good idea though, because kids are nothing if not unpredictable. If the boy had been wearing a belt, he probably couldn't have got off the ride.

It has to be said, that after 15 years and probably hundreds of thousands of ride cycles, that this is the only time anything like this has happened. So even though it's bad and potentially avoidable, it's not a bad safety record.

Anyway, this is not the child or parent's fault as such because:

1. The "ride rules" stated the child was tall enough to ride unaccompanied.
2. The child was able to get themselves out of the restraints on to the track while the ride was in motion.
 
Re: Idiot 5 Year Old Jumps Out Kiddie Coaster at Coney Islan

Jason Voorhees said:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/horror-coney-island-amusement-park-small-child-woman-injured-ride-article-1.1427165

That's whatcha get with ghetto kids.
Click to expand...

And you know they were 'ghetto' because? Or maybe, like many parents on this earth, the child suffered from two idiots as parents, not realizing they have to ride with their kid?
 
Re: Idiot 5 Year Old Jumps Out Kiddie Coaster at Coney Islan

Park co-owner Dennis Vourderis said:
the boy met the 36-inch height requirement for the Sea Serpent.
Click to expand...

Wonder Wheel Park Website said:
Height Requirement: 36" unless accompanied by a responsible attending person
Click to expand...

It really isn't the parent's fault; for once, it really, really isn't*.




*unless they knew their child was mentally or emotionally deficient and likely to behave erratically on a ride.
 
Re: Idiot 5 Year Old Jumps Out Kiddie Coaster at Coney Islan

Which, let's be honest, anyone with young children and with the multiple 5 year olds I know.. if the kid was incredibly scared all of a sudden, the possibility of doing something like this escalates when not with a adult.

And as you noted, lets not forget the rest.. other factors could be part of this that haven't been noted.
 
Re: Idiot 5 Year Old Jumps Out Kiddie Coaster at Coney Islan

Parenting is more than following sets of instructions and rules, we know that. However, when you don't have any real experience of something, you do sometimes just assume that the basic guidelines put in place by experts are enough.

I've put both kids on rides at five and younger without any adult supervision. I do it where I know (because of my hobby) what I think is a decent restraint. I also have a good idea of the ride type and how shocked the child will be. Again, that's experience because of this hobby.

Both my kids could still have flipped out, but I would have known they'd be safe because of my knowledge and experience.

If there was doubt, I would ride with them.

If I had no experience or knowledge and saw a sign saying "your child is safe to ride as long as they're tall enough" - I'd believe the sign. I may still err on the side of caution and ride with them, but there's no guarantee. In a situation where you have no idea, you defer to the experts (in this case, a sign saying the child is tall enough).

If I had a highly strung child, I would always ride with them - obviously we don't know that in this instance, but most parents of difficult children are more cautious naturally.
 
I'm with Phil on this one, but I still don't understand why he felt the need to jump off.
 
I'm with Phil to a point, however.

There are attractions I've worked with where patents do not have to supervise and often ask "do I have to go with them?" To which my typical response would be "no, but id rather you did." Because, I know from experience that, sorry to say this, most parents are absolutely stupid. They won't stand by watching, anything could happen, and when I need them they're gone.

Kids ARE unpredictable, but another observation I've made is that 9/10 parents cause distress in their kids by forcing them on things they do not wish to ride.

And, its like the point you made a while back Phil about Roo's height compared to age and that he could ride an enterprise at 2. I'd hope most parents would think twice? They don't. Some do - Vampire gets done funny looks due to its low height and many people assume their kids can't do it. I'm not saying no 2 year old should ride an enterprise, but you get my drift.

Basically, there are so many factors to consider here, its impossible to make a logical judgement either way.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire S A510e using Tapatalk 2
 
Joey said:
There are attractions I've worked with where patents do not have to supervise and often ask "do I have to go with them?" To which my typical response would be "no, but id rather you did." Because, I know from experience that, sorry to say this, most parents are absolutely stupid. They won't stand by watching, anything could happen, and when I need them they're gone.
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I agree completely. The issue here is common sense, these parents have it ;)

The ones asking "do I have to go with them?" are displaying extraordinary sense (or they're really stupid, but at least care :lol: ).

Common sense says that if it looks like a duck and quacks, it's a duck. So if the sign essentially says "your child will be safe on their own", then it's safe for your child to be on their own.

It takes extra sense, or extra care towards your child, to question that sign. That sign is the verdict of the experts, the people who know what's what, the sign is GOD! So mos tparents will simply not question it.

Also, most parents seem to hate their children and seize every tiny opportunity to spend time away from them... :?

Joey said:
Kids ARE unpredictable, but another observation I've made is that 9/10 parents cause distress in their kids by forcing them on things they do not wish to ride.
Click to expand...

That's the world's toughest call actually. Sometimes you know that you need to push your kids to overcome their fears, otherwise they'll always back down. Knowing if something is an over-reaction to a silly thing, or a genuine terror though is a really tough call. However, an adult should always be with a child they're persuading to do something like this as support and comfort.

Joey said:
Basically, there are so many factors to consider here, its impossible to make a logical judgement either way.
Click to expand...

Not really. Basically a child got out of a moving coaster train. We know that NTG threw a woman and there is fault somewhere. It could be she was too big for the restraint, but that means there's failure in allowing somebody who is not suitable to ride the coaster on to it.

It's the same here really. Like the woman should never have been ejected, this child should never have been able to get out of the train. A seatbelt that a child would find impossible to undo and a restraint tight so that he couldn't get out (the combination of both really).

In this case, there should also be a backup of the ride operator watching the ride to check for any issues. If the ride operator had seen the child getting up, then he could have e-stopped the ride. Now, that's something I'm not going to really get into, how much observing the ride is part of the ride ops job. I really couldn't say and we know people are fallible.

Whatever "system" was in place to stop a child from getting out, and to stop the ride if they did, failed. the child should have been safe on the ride if the park said the ride was safe for that child. That's where the blame will end, I guarantee it. No other factor really comes into it when assigning blame here I'm afraid.
 
furie said:
In this case, there should also be a backup of the ride operator watching the ride to check for any issues. If the ride operator had seen the child getting up, then he could have e-stopped the ride. Now, that's something I'm not going to really get into, how much observing the ride is part of the ride ops job. I really couldn't say and we know people are fallible.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily if it's the ride I'm thinking of. It's not a powered coaster, so if the kid got up and jumped mid circuit, it would be too late for the operator to do anything about it. There's no e-stopping a ride that's already left the lift hill.
 
Come on Andy, as if I'd say something unless I already had it covered ;) :P

“He climbed out of the car at the top of the hill and fell in between the cars,” said Vourderis, adding the boy fell about 1½ feet to the track.
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One would assume that it would be clear that he was struggling to get out of the ride on the lift hill. Even if the coaster had gone too far over the drop by the time he'd climbed out, he should have really been spotted.

Though that's not the kind of thing I would say 100% should have happened. It's a fallible system and an unreliable backup. I'd never go as far to lay the blame on the ride op in this instance - unless it was proven they were on their mobile phone or something at the time.

Hopefully that makes sense? I agree that there are loads of different factors that could have caused this, but in terms of laying blame, the child should have never been able to get out, and the backup system of spotting a child in trouble should have caught it.

However, we never know how really safe a system is until its pushed to the limits and after 15 years and thousands of ride cycles, it's no wonder there's a degree of complacency that the system is fine.
 
I do and then I question them. I have extraordinary sense and an exceptionally tedious existence :)
 
You're unusual. Most people not only don't read signs, but argue what they say.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire S A510e using Tapatalk 2
 
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