As roller coaster deaths pile up, should someone intervene in park safety?

Christy Strawser (0:01)

The day's biggest stories, the people behind the headlines, the conversations you won't hear anywhere else.

I'm Christy Strawser, you're listening to Audacy's On Deadline. A 42-year-old man died from falling from a 170-foot roller coaster at Six Flags in Georgia, which has raised all kinds of questions, especially since the cameras capturing images for souvenir photos snapped pics of his descent, and they went to fellow riders. Here's Dave Glover in St. Louis.

Dave Glover (0:27)

I know that the Six Flags over Georgia incident was awful. I mean, you guys saw that. I mean, did you see the pictures, the still photos from the...

Inez Martin (0:35)

Insult injury.

Dave Glover (0:37)

It's a horrible... I mean, everything about it's horrible. I don't think they know yet. I'm sure they're gonna take time to investigate whether it was a pure mechanical failure or if he was never put in properly to begin with, or if he messed with something. There's not much you can typically mess with as the rider though. Like once that thing locks, that's not really... You really don't have much control over those lap bars or the shoulder harnesses.

And I don't know if that ride has a separate seat belt or not. Some do, some don't. So some of them will have the harness plus a seat belt as kind of a fail save, others don't. So I'm not sure. I've never been on that ride, never been to Six Flags over Georgia.

Inez Martin (1:12)

I wonder if this is one of those things in the future we'll look back and go, can you believe these people rode roller coasters?

Dave Glover (1:18)

I don't think so.

Inez Martin (1:19)

Like they did this on purpose to themselves.

Dave Glover (1:21)

I mean, to me, it's not much different than people who skydive.

Inez Martin (1:26)

Exactly.

Dave Glover (1:27)

But my point is, the crazy percentage, there's never a problem. I mean, there are problems, but it's incredibly rare. These things happen, they absolutely do, but compared to the millions and millions and millions of rides over decades that nothing happened, I think I'll take my chances.

SPEAKER_4 (1:45)

I think that's fair.

Dave Glover (1:47)

I'm big on the odds, guys. If the odds are in my favor. Now, if it's the same ride, I probably wouldn't ride that ride.

Carolina Garibay (1:53)

Right, not for a while anyway.

Dave Glover (1:55)

Let's make sure that one's okay. I don't think I want to ride that one.

SPEAKER_4 (1:59)

Wills, that's exactly how I feel about flying.

I used to be really afraid to fly until I started doing it more frequently. Then I was like, there are so many planes in the sky every single day where nothing goes wrong. Most of the time when you hear about something going wrong, it's just a person acting stupid more than it's an actual malfunction. Sometimes you do hear about the malfunctions and that is scary, but it's such a low percentage of the actual air travel that it makes me feel so much better about it.

Dave Glover (2:28)

I know this. I'm way more likely to die driving back and forth to work than I am on a roller coaster.

SPEAKER_4 (2:33)

For sure.

Dave Glover (2:33)

And I do that every day.

Inez Martin (2:35)

And you drive 70 I know.

SPEAKER_6 (2:36)

That's what I'm saying.

Inez Martin (2:38)

You know what makes me feel a little bit better about flying? When I'm in a plane and I'm feeling anxious, first a couple of cocktails and a couple of Xanax, but the fact that when you see these horrific videos where a plane went through severe turbulence and the videos are terrible and people are flying around, they always land.

They always make it down. I don't want severe turbulence. I don't want to get popped up and hit by the ceiling with my head. But as long as I land, I'm OK.

Dave Glover (3:07)

I don't think a plane's ever been taken down by turbulence.

SPEAKER_4 (3:11)

I believe you're right. And I think there was maybe one incident last year where the turbulence was so bad.

Dave Glover (3:18)

People have been injured and maybe even killed.

SPEAKER_4 (3:21)

I honestly think it's only one person that's ever been killed.

Dave Glover (3:23)

Yeah.

SPEAKER_4 (3:24)

Because the turbulence was so bad that he had some horrible injury. And I don't think he was in his seatbelt, not to victim blame. But prior to that, the saying was always like, no one's ever died from turbulence.

Dave Glover (3:39)

Apparently, your odds of dying on a roller coaster are one in 750 million.