The Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia is manufactured by Bolliger & Mabillard, a company with a “stellar” safety record, according to Brian Avery, a professor at the University of Florida who specializes in ride safety and risk management. But, notably, the ride does not include a secondary safety restraint for riders, Avery said.
The “scalloped-like bucket seat” on Goliath features a waist restraint that sits on top of the thigh and part of the waist, Avery explained. The ride does not have an over-the-shoulder harness like some other roller coasters, he said.
“It’s really a design consideration,” Avery said, explaining that during the ride’s development designers typically do a “hazard containment assessment,” to determine the best mechanism to restrain the occupants while experiencing the coaster’s speed and transition forces.
Still, a secondary restraint is something Avery believes should be considered. “If you have your primary fail, what are you left with? Yeah, nothing,” he said. “And it’s an impossible feat to stay contained if it did fail, because of the forces, the speed.”
But roller coasters are designed “to flirt with the edge of danger,” Avery says. “We want to feel the thrill of it, and some of that is you go airborne, some of it is you’re getting sucked back in your seat. So it really is what people are chasing.”
“There are inherent risks associated with amusement rides and devices, and we can’t escape that. But those risks should be identified. They should inform the public, and there should be measures to mitigate or eliminate those,” he added.