Autopia/Grand Prix & pregnant women
Colette D Marine
carefully and responsibly, we still couldn't insure that the cars
would come to a stop before ramming into the car in front of it.
This is why pregnant women are advised against riding. You must wear
a seatbelt which is pulled across your midsection. One hard hit from
behind (extremely common), and you have a miscarriage on your hands.
Frequently, however, we would let a pregnant woman ride if another
member of her party agreed to drive the car behind her and stay at
least 2 car lengths away, but even this doesn't always solve the
problem because who's to say the pregnant woman's car is going to
stop soon enough to avoid hitting the car in front of it.
Grand Prix/Autopia also advises people with back problems not to ride
for the same reason.
I might point out for those of you who doubt how much force a single
hit from behind can produce... while I was there, a kid who had just
begun to step out of the car was thrown a good 6 feet or so onto the
next track. Fortunately for him (and Disney's lawyers), there were
no cars coming on to the track at the time.
Doubt no more, disbelievers. Those safety regulations are there for
a reason.
Colette D Marine
they are again, more or less.
When I worked at Disney, I worked at the Grand Prix (WDW's version of
Autopia). In my opinion, and in the opinion of a lot of cast members,
this ride is extremely dangerous. It looks harmless enough, but it
is one of the least cast-member-controllable rides at the park.
Those are real cars, and those are real tourists driving them. There
is only a gas pedal -- no brake.
david smith
I worked in Tomorrowland, right next to the Grand Prix in WDW and from what
I saw and heard, mostly about cast members, but a few about guests, in one
month, there were at least 3 or 4 serious accidents including broken bones,
burns, etc. So it is one of the most dangerous rides at any Disney park,
most of the others, cast members can stop the ride/cars or get to them quickly
or both, in the Grand Prix, they just can't.
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Adrian McCarthy
My alma matter, Harvey Mudd College, has a program called the Engineering
Clinic. Outside corporations sponsor a team of engineering students to solve
some real engineering problem that they are facing. One such clinic, a
couple years back now, was sponsored by Walt Disney Imagineering to solve the
Autopia bumping problem. Some of my friends were on the team, and I went to
their year-end presentation. Some of you might find the details interesting.
The problem was to eliminate bumping of the cars *in the loading area*.
Imagineering unofficially acknowledged that out on the track, a few bumps are
nothing more than a little fun. The real problem is when a car is hit while
somebody is climbing into or out of one of the cars in the loading area--lots
of twisted ankles and stuff.
There were other constraints on the solution, too. It couldn't cost more than
some number of dollars per car (I think it was pretty high like $1000/car).
It also shouldn't significantly reduce the throughput of the ride (number of
people who could ride per hour).
Several solutions were suggested. The most practical was a redesign of the
loading area so that there were several loading lanes. An automated switch
track could the send the incoming cars to unoccupied lanes. If I recall, the
computer simulation showed that this might actually increase the throughput
of the ride as well. Imagineering liked the solution, but said that the
space requirements were too tight at Disneyland and WDW. This solution would
probably be used, however, at the newer parks like Euro Disney.
The high-tech solution was based on the little sonar devices that the first
autofocusing Polaroid cameras used. One was mounted on the front of each
car, and it could detect if it came too close to the vehicle ahead of it.
(It had to have a pretty fancy vibration mount to reduce the noise in the
signal.) They also designed an actuator that would disable the driver's
pedal and stop the car. I don't remember the details of this part, but it
was pretty nifty. The cars were already designed to override the driver's
pedal with the operator's lever, and I think it interfaced with that
mechanism nicely.
Using magnetic reed switches and magnets imbedded in the track at the
beginning and end of the loading area, the system could be made active only
in the station, allowing people to bump out on the track.
Their throughput simulation and cost/car met the Imagineering specs, and
Imagineering seemed to like the solution, but they never implemented it.
It was definitely the talk of the school when these folks were working on
the project. Disney lent them two of the cars for testing on campus. Near
the end of the project, they got to go into Disneyland before the park
opened and test on the Fantasyland track. (That year the Fantasyland track
was closed most of the time, but the Tomorrowland track remained open.)
They have neat video tape of the on-site testing.
Perhaps one of the folks on the team from Mudd reads this group and can fill
in some of the holes.
Aid. (adr...@gonzo.mti.com)
david smith
>In article <10...@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> col...@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Colette D Marine) writes:
>>[stuff about safety regulations on Autopia]
>
>the project. Disney lent them two of the cars for testing on campus. Near
>the end of the project, they got to go into Disneyland before the park
>opened and test on the Fantasyland track. (That year the Fantasyland track
>was closed most of the time, but the Tomorrowland track remained open.)
>They have neat video tape of the on-site testing.
Very interesting data on the cars, but if this is WDW in Florida, and
there hasn't been a MAJOR redesign (except for the area for Mickey's
Birthday Land , now Mickey's StarLand) then there is only one track,
it is the spliting between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, not really in
either but connection them.
>
>Perhaps one of the folks on the team from Mudd reads this group and can fill
>in some of the holes.
>
>Aid. (adr...@gonzo.mti.com)
--
David Smith TCD...@CONVEX1.TCS.Tulane.Edu
Geoff Allen
>Very interesting data on the cars, but if this is WDW in Florida, and
>there hasn't been a MAJOR redesign (except for the area for Mickey's
>Birthday Land , now Mickey's StarLand) then there is only one track,
>it is the spliting between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, not really in
>either but connection them.
There are two different Autopia tracks at Disneyland. I assume Adrian
was talking about Disneyland and not WDW in his post.
Geoff
--
Geoff Allen \ Disneyland is going to be a place where you can't
uunet!pmafire!geoff \ get lost or tired unless you want to.
ge...@pmafire.inel.gov \ -- Walt Disney, 1953
Glenda Radvansky
I was one of the people that worked on that Clinic project. Let's see
if I can answer a couple of the questions about the Autopia ride.
Yes, the project that we were specifically asked to work on was for
the Disneyland Autopia(s). The suggestion for the redesign of the loading area
was supposed to be presented to the designers of the Euro-disneyland. I haven't
heard anything back on that though.
One of the team members worked through the next summer to help complete
the plans for the prototype. Last I heard, they were planning on putting our
design into production in '93. If it was successful at Disneyland, they were
going to extend it through all the Autopia rides.
Just about the only thing Adrian had wrong was that we only had one car
at the school to play with.
glenda
--
Glenda Radvansky uunet!bcstec!iftccu!radvansk
You spend your life worryin' 'bout what you could have been,
Can't you like being you?? - Ho Jo
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