Sandman said:
TheFlyerMan1 said:
rob666 said:
It was the parks fault, they train the staff and have admitted responsibility from the start.
You can't blame a park for a few people's ignorance.
You can. The company is responsible for all it's employees and their actions when they're at work. If I punch someone at my work or something as equally ridiculous, you can sure as hell expect that not only will I get a bollocking, but so will the company. If Alton Towers and employing people and they aren't running rides properly regardless of training, the axe will still fall on them.
They're not entirely though. You shouldn't have to inform your staff that an illegal assault is illegal and that they shouldn't do it. If it's a clear criminal action, then the company cant stop that. If, however, the company knows that the criminal action happened, they must put processes in place to stop it from happening again (sacking for gross negligence).
That's a much clearer cut case of criminal action though.
What if it was in a park's burger bar? A member of staff regularly uses the same cutting board to chop up raw chicken and salad. A customer gets salmonella and dies. Is it the employee's fault if he was never taught not to do that, nowhere did management say not to do that and he wasn't required to have any food preparation or handling qualifications on taking the job? It's up to management to ensure that their staff are adequately trained to do their job in a manner that is safe to their customers.
If the burger flipper death server in this instance knew not to chop raw meat on a salad board, then he is liable and not the park - as long as the park can prove that he was adequately trained and that they did everything they could to ensure the employee was following procedures. That may be spot checks, regular refresher courses, etc.
That leads though to this...
Ian said:
I'm assuming the ride op who dispatched the train could see the view that is in footage.
If so, after seeing the footage, I think the ride op is squarely to blame. I could see the empty stationary train on the track, why couldn't they? And don't give me any **** about them being "stressed" and "under pressure, or "inadequately trained" to get the ride going again. It is the decent and morally proper thing to check the ride is good to go before every dispatch. It's like waiting at a red light with your eyes shut and driving off because it feels right. I understand that there was miscommunication between the engineers, ops and other staff, which is inexcusable, but the op still should have checked the CCTV and noticed the stalled train before pressing go.
It seems the whole thing was down to a negligent and ignorant culture in Merlin at the time, which I'm confident has now been fully eradicated and they now run a safe, watertight ship.
Ian is right. Whoever started that ride up again without doing simple checks (check CCTV, check car count) is ultimately responsible. The problem with legal blame is that what is "morally" wrong doesn't count.
It was exactly the same with the Hydro accident. The ride ops didn't check the seat belts and didn't check the restraints were closed properly. That's one person remiss in their most important job - rider safety. The courts don't care though because (like Salmonella Suzie/Steven above), they weren't told how to do things properly.
So even though we know that they are ultimately responsible for the accident - it simple wouldn't have happened if they had been doing their jobs properly - the park still has to take the blame. Blame in these cases always travels upwards before heading back down.
Lots of us make mistakes in our daily work, it's just that very few of us are in a position where that mistake can cost lives. Ultimately, if you're **** at your job, management should take you to task and either fire you, or work out why you're **** and train you properly. You are still the responsibility of your management, so they have to be held accountable.
Though I do think it's awful that somebody in a position where lives are at risk isn't just being that extra little bit aware and responsible in their position. The issue of bringing criminal charges is that there must be no doubt of the guilt of the charged. In this case, no matter what we know, the people who restarted it weren't trained properly. They are guilty of doing what they are told - even if that is unbelievable in the risk they took with others.
As for Gerstaluer being responsible - it won't wash, ever.
Yes, Alton have a ride that is **** in terms of quality. We don't know if it's manufacturer or build though. Remember the track being pulled together because it didn't meet? Manufacturing or a footer in the wrong place? We don't know, but we do know that the ride breaks a lot.
However, it breaks on the safe side of things.
If you had a car that had a brake heat issue. So every 20 miles, the brakes overheated and a warning light came on. If you ignored the warning light, the car would stop (with notice). You then had to wait for the brakes to cool down before starting off again. That would be really annoying and you've been sold a duff car. You have a genuine complaint with the manufacturer that there is a defect in the design and there are processes you can go through as a customer to get it rectified.
However, the car is designed to ensure your safety. No matter how annoying it is, if you then unplug the heat sensor so the car doesn't keep stopping due to the brakes overheating - that is your choice. When you crash because the brakes fail, you can't say "I'm suing the manufacturer for making a broken car that annoyed me and I had to circumvent the safety mechanism to stop it annoying me".
Anyway, drove past the county courts this morning and lots of TV vans there already, I assume for the outcome of this.
