Roller coaster inspector dies after park employee starts ride

OMG...

Thats horrible!

I am terrified of roller coasters.

That is sad and all, but you would think you can hear the thing coming. Roller coasters aren't exactly quiet.

I will NEVER ride a roller coaster in this country! A tragic death.

That is sad and all, but you would think you can hear the thing coming. Roller coasters aren't exactly quiet.

Yes, but perhaps he was pretty high up on the rails and simply getting out of the way was not an immediate option. A very tragic accident.

@MoBass4u

If anyone is working on a device the power should be of with a lock and only the one who is working on it should hold the key.

well this ride will not make the grade!

That is sad and all, but you would think you can hear the thing coming

And do what, if he was 20m up somewhere along the track? All that means is that he knew almost certain death was approaching.

Here is more info:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnCJedY8aI4

Oops!

I said, "Don't! Stop!"

"Oh, don't stop! OK!"

What a horrible and stupid way to die, all because of these other workers that did not know this guy was up there. Was it some terrible lack of communication or somebody hated him and did this on purpose??

Seems safety in Japan is sometimes not much more than lip-service.

There are standard rules for working with powerful machinery:

1- open the breaker

2- prevent unintended switching on (for example by a lock)

3- if necessary and possible, ground the equipment

Because somebody did not follow the rules and standards (daijoubu), a valuable life was lost.

Dennis and Electric are right. These kinds of things call for just unplugging the thing, and the extra boy scout attitude where you hopefully have more than one person, pointing and saying "check" to make sure you got your safety ready.

safety, japan, lip service, indeed!

In that youtube clip it said when the coaster was activated elementary school kids were on it!

How horrible for them to be the ones to run the guy over!

Weird !!!!!

Tragic. Hope the maintenance people learn from this so that this will never happen again.

All of these theme parks need to be shut down and retooled, with workers booted in favour of some with actual safety training. How many accidents by roller coaster does it take? Anyway, what a horrible way to go. RIP.

An established AND USED safety lockout switch program would have completely prevented anything like this from happening. If the ride is locked out and the key for the lock held by the maintenance workers, then nobody get's hit by moving parts.

omg.....

I agree with Fadamor. Anything that can crush you to death needs a lock-out system, with every employee having their own personal lock they can put onto the master power breaker when they are working in the danger zone to prevent some muppet from turning it on. I used to work in a pulp mill in Canada with a system like that...put into place after a bunch of people got killed or maimed in the 70s.

I'm just surprised that in the hyper safety conscious society we live in here in Japan that they don't have that. Sad news.

Wow, really can't believe that they don't have some form of a safety mechanism which shuts the power off during inspections. Without one it is no different than trying to get something unstuck from the blade of a lawnmower while it is still turned on. RIP inspector.

Don't most coasters have a walkway at least on one side, so that if things come to a halt people can walk down...except for the upside areas?