I was always a nervous kind of kid. Every time we went anywhere or did anything fun, I would imagine all of those crazy, one in a million chance things that just might go wrong.

This was never more true than when my family would make the trip to an amusement park. Even though it was always fun and exciting, every time I would go on a ride, I would imagine the cart suddenly falling off of the track or the safety belt breaking. So when I turned on CNN and saw that a roller coaster at an Arkansas amusement park lost power, leaving riders hanging upside down for half an hour as a result, it seemed like someone was peaking into my childhood nightmares and broadcasting them on television.

It seems like in the last year or so, there have been a lot of scary story about amusement parks and the dangers involved with riding the rides. Several people who were not properly secured in various types of ride have fallen or been thrown from them. Children who did not meet the height requirements have been allowed to ride dangerous rides and recently a woman who was too big for a ride was allowed to occupy two seats and fell from the ride as a result.

I know there are a lot of amusement parks out there and tons and tons of rides. It’s to be expected that accidents and mistakes are going to happen, but since I have heard about so many of them lately, (and because I went from being a nervous child to a nervous adult) I’m pretty sure my summer vacation isn’t going to include a stop at an amusement park.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 11th, 2007 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Evening Sun Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.