|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
A recent incident at Seabreeze Amusement Park involving the Bear Trax kiddie roller coaster has raised serious concerns about ride safety and operational protocol. An occupied train was dispatched without all restraints properly secured—a failure that could have ended far worse than it did.
As a contributor and administrator for Coasterpedia, a popular amusement parks and attractions wiki, and as a longtime patient advocate with industry ties, I feel obligated to call attention to the deeper systemic issue at play: a lack of critical safety redundancies that are now standard across much of the industry and the systemic failure that allowed this major oversight and incident to occur.
It is easy to scapegoat the ride operator in situations like this, and unfortunately, that appears to be the park’s current direction. But this incident reveals more than just a one-time human error. It reveals a gap in infrastructure and oversight—specifically, the absence of a modern restraint verification system that prevents a ride from dispatching unless all restraints are properly engaged. Such a system would have prevented the train from even moving an inch out of the station, let alone beginning to climb the lift hill.
These systems are no longer considered a luxury. They are the industry standard.
Seabreeze is generally regarded as a diligent, safety-conscious park with a long history of operational excellence (and rightfully so). They are respected members of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA). But that’s precisely why this oversight is so disturbing. Bear Trax, an E&F Miler Industries kiddie roller coaster, was installed in 1997 and has undergone several updates over the years—including the addition of various sensors and safety measures. Yet the park has somehow failed to install a fundamental safety feature: restraint lock verification that halts dispatch if a restraint is not secure.
In the attractions industry much like the aviation industry and medical field, the rule is clear: redundancy saves lives. Relying solely on manual visual checks is no longer sufficient. The verification system in question acts as a fail-safe—not a replacement for operator vigilance, but a crucial backup in the event of human or mechanical failure. When a ride is dispatched under unsafe conditions such as the restraint being unsecured, and no system steps in to stop it, the problem lies beyond operator error. It lies in planning, investment, and leadership from maintenance and in-between supervisors and managers, consultants, insurance carriers, and eventually all the way to the top.
These safety features are especially vital on children’s rides, where chaos and distraction are inherently higher on ride platforms as children board and disembark from the attraction.
Operators must be trained to handle unpredictability, and systems must be in place to account for it. In this case, the operator recognized their mistake and immediately acted to stop the ride when it was brought to their attention, just as they should when being notified of an issue. A ride can always be restarted if the issue turns out to be a false alarm.
A properly designed ride platform should always assume the worst-case scenario and build safeguards accordingly. Those safeguards should then never be taken to be the latest available measures. They should be actively reviewed constantly to insure that these worst case scenarios remain accounted for and addressed with redundancies as time progresses with no less than a minimum annual review of all ride safety systems across the board to audit their relevance, or whether something newer and better has come along that could do a better job at insuring safety. The same goes for ride manufacturers.
A brief review of E&F Miller shows their website fails to use the latest cyber security measures to keep guests safe long before they arrive trackside. This alone should prompt E&F as well as regulators to review the safety technology being used on all E&F roller coasters currently in operation and production. As a company that specializes in children’s and family roller coasters, and one with a history that dates as far back as 1940, it should be expected that the company would be employing the most robust cutting edge safety features on their rides.
Being a manufacturer almost solely devoted to children’s roller coasters brings with it an added responsibility in the industry and increases the responsibility tenfold for them to continually notify customers who utilize their rides in the parks of the latest safety systems available to add into their rides as time goes forward and new systems are created in the industry. Whether E&F has done that remains to be seen. But it is also the responsibility of a park to be asking these questions of the manufacturers of their attractions on a minimum annual and continued basis.
Accountability is a two way street and it requires all involved parties at every single level of involvement to be asking these vital questions. IAAPA itself tries to foster such conversations between manufacturers and parks constantly and even hosts multiple annual conventions around the world to help manufacturers, parks, designers, and even enthusiasts introduce one another to new systems in the industry that could be implemented to increase safety. The innovation at these conventions doesn’t just bring new rides, but additional safeguards to improve already standing rides too.
Seabreeze should not wait until the off-season to address this major avoidable incident and clear exposure of a safety flaw. Every day that the ride continues to operate without this redundancy is a day the park is rolling the dice with public health and safety. The financial inconvenience of shutting down a ride mid-season is nothing compared to the reputational and legal fallout of an avoidable tragedy.
Let me be clear: **this was preventable.** And it could happen again tomorrow unless immediate action is taken.
As a patient advocate, I also want to highlight the broader implications. Many guests—including disabled patrons and those with chronic illnesses—require trustworthy assurance that safety is prioritized and that the latest available safety technology is being utilized to keep them safe at all times. An incident for them could be even more catastrophic than someone without the disabilities they may face. Continuing to run a ride with a known vulnerability and without essential redundancies does not demonstrate care for rider well-being. It sends the opposite message.
Rather than quietly deflecting blame or making changes in the shadows, Seabreeze has an opportunity here to lead. They can own the mistake, communicate transparently with their guests, and implement the necessary upgrades without delay. Doing so would reinforce their commitment to safety and reassure the public that they value lives over losses. It would ensure that their reputation remains untarnished by this incident, and instead is strengthened by their recommitment to continually auditing all safety features and recognizing where the lack of redundancies exist and can be improved.
I also urge the park to consider further training for the operator involved, rescinding their dismissal, rather than punitive dismissal. They were placed in a situation where human error was not adequately backed by mechanical safeguards. This failure belongs to the system, not the individual alone. To scapegoat them as the only cause here is not just missing the mark, but willful ignorance to the root of the problem that allowed for the situation to occur in the first place. There are many graves from willful ignorance in the early history of amusement parks.
We must not begin to dig new ones.
Finally, I encourage Seabreeze to become more vocal about the safety measures they take. Guests would rather hear that a ride is temporarily closed for a crucial safety upgrade than learn it’s closed indefinitely because someone got hurt. Safety must be visible, tangible, and proactive—not reactive. That is one of the very fundamental tenets taught by IAAPA in all of their training courses that almost all amusement parks go through on a continuing basis.
Let me be clear. This is not an alienation of any one party, but an overall insight into the systemic failures that lead to this incident having circumstances that allowed it to ocurr. It is a call for all sides to recognize the failure and immediately take swift action to immediately address these serious and potentially life threatening safety oversights that have come about. They are just that, an oversight that needs to have a systemic correction to repair the foundations before any further cracks develop.
Currently Seabreeze faces a choice right now: lead by example or risk becoming a cautionary tale while damaging your legacy through a lack of imperative immediate action. The clock is ticking, and the next incident might not end with a lucky escape.
**Safety delayed is safety denied. Seabreeze must act now.**
Ian Scheil
Rochester
Editor’s note: Asked about the incident and restraint verification system mentioned in this letter, Seabreeze Amusement Park provided this statement:
For more than 100 years, Seabreeze has been committed to safe, family fun. That commitment guides every aspect of our operation.
An internal investigation into the incident confirmed that a ride operator failed to properly secure safety restraints on a kiddie ride before dispatch—a clear violation of our safety protocols. The ride was safely stopped before it fully left the station, and the restraints were secured before continuing. The employee involved is no longer with the park.
We take matters like this very seriously and appreciate the guest who brought it to our attention. We were glad the family chose to stay and continue their day at the park, and we remain committed to maintaining the trust families place in us.
_____
The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See “Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing [email protected].