How are amusement park rides tested for safety? And is it true some are held together by only a few bolts?

Melvina Bieri: Any one of these rides at the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas Nevada. Big Shot sends you up 160 feet at 45 miles per hour. To a total height of 1080 feet above the strip. Wonderful if one can keep their eyes open at sunset. The X- scream is a giant teeter totter that extends you out about 25 feet from the tower's edge. *50 feet from the hard pavement below! Your afraid of heights this one will kill you! Insanity the ride is a mechanical arm type ride that extends one about 65 feet from the tower's edge and spins you at a 3 g force. If you are scared of not knowing where you mind to go then you might not have one after this ride! I rode all three in one hour once and enjoyed a wonderful dinner after wards to! Great place for young couples of the adventurous sort....Show more

Fannie Collingwood: Rides are tested extensively before they are even made using computer software with physics properties programmed in. Then the ride is built. It is tested repea! tedly using one car, several cars together, cars weighted as if they were full of people, and multiple trains running at the same time. Then, usually the ride creator will go on it to see how it actually is in real life. At that point it's ready to go for the public.BUT!!! that does not mean that a ride is *maintained* properly, or kept in best shape. It may be perfectly safe as designed and built, but after 2000 trains ride on it the brakes may need adjusting, or whatever. That's usually where you get in trouble.As for being held together by only a few bolts, almost all mechanical stuff is held together by just a few bolts (like cars, trains, airplanes, factories.) It depends what your definition of "a few" is....Show more

Luis Farlow: Honestly I don't trust a fairground's rides that much as they are just pulled around all over the place to different locations. But I trust an amusement park and a theme park's rides as they are more likely to be professionally ins! talled and go under maintenance a lot more.

Manual Burti! s: Yes, it is very true. My father was killed by an exploding ride at a fair in 1997.

Reyes Brunell: Fairground rides are built differentely from amusement and theme park rides. But yes, some rides are built and put together with nuts and bolts.While the rides at fairs and carnivals are fun, they're more dangerous than amusement park rides since they are torn down and rebuilt constantly. Plus, most states don't have the strict policies on inspections prior to operating the rides so it's very easy for them to break during operation. It's also part of the reason why you hear about more accidents and deaths at fairs and carnivals than at amusement and theme parks....Show more