“Zipliner’s Still Soaring in Courtrooms”
Zipline owners who use dangerous free-wheeling (two-wheeled) trolleys with gravity and hand brakes have been the #1 accident-causing factor for a decade. Passive or auto-braking trolleys are safer and are easily adjusted to stop consistently. In fact, auto-braking trolleys at the Park City [UT] Mountain Resort have safely stopped zipliners for two decades.
The standards (American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) F24, the European Ropes Course Association (ERCA), the Professional Ropes Course Association (PRCA), and the Association for Challenge Course Technology (ACCT)) are requesting and entertaining solutions.
The standards require a 3:1 safety factor. So, zipline owners may lose two braking options: patron-assisted or gravity-braking. Gravity (m/s^2) is an acceleration anyway. Owners may need to build larger arrival platforms to accompany an emergency brake/compression spring array or start using autobraking trolleys.
In 2016, Troy Richardson & Rex Bush, Esq. published “Zipline Injuries on the Rise” in a plea for improved braking regulations. The article stated WHERE THE STANDARDS COULD BE IMPROVED. Yet in 2020, Granite Insurance gave the ACCT 2016 accident numbers, 6—7 zipliners for every 100,000 participants, saying over half were braking-related. In 2023, Granite predicted 15 zipline accidents for every 100,000, doubling accident totals (Adventure Park Insider Mag. Spring 2023, p. 42).
The problem lies with stopping a zipliner's momentum. For instance, an 80-pound zipliner is three times easier to stop than a 240-pounder. A simple analogy compares a rubber kickball and a bowling ball rolling down a skateboard ramp (parabola); and the bowling ball has more mass (heavier), rolls higher, and has more energy (momentum) to stop.
Zipline owners who use dangerous free-wheeling (two-wheeled) trolleys with gravity and hand brakes have been the #1 accident-causing factor for a decade. Passive or auto-braking trolleys are safer and are easily adjusted to stop consistently. In fact, auto-braking trolleys at the Park City [UT] Mountain Resort have safely stopped zipliners for two decades.
The standards (American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) F24, the European Ropes Course Association (ERCA), the Professional Ropes Course Association (PRCA), and the Association for Challenge Course Technology (ACCT)) are requesting and entertaining solutions.
The standards require a 3:1 safety factor. So, zipline owners may lose two braking options: patron-assisted or gravity-braking. Gravity (m/s^2) is an acceleration anyway. Owners may need to build larger arrival platforms to accompany an emergency brake/compression spring array or start using autobraking trolleys.
In 2016, Troy Richardson & Rex Bush, Esq. published “Zipline Injuries on the Rise” in a plea for improved braking regulations. The article stated WHERE THE STANDARDS COULD BE IMPROVED. Yet in 2020, Granite Insurance gave the ACCT 2016 accident numbers, 6—7 zipliners for every 100,000 participants, saying over half were braking-related. In 2023, Granite predicted 15 zipline accidents for every 100,000, doubling accident totals (Adventure Park Insider Mag. Spring 2023, p. 42).
The problem lies with stopping a zipliner's momentum. For instance, an 80-pound zipliner is three times easier to stop than a 240-pounder. A simple analogy compares a rubber kickball and a bowling ball rolling down a skateboard ramp (parabola); and the bowling ball has more mass (heavier), rolls higher, and has more energy (momentum) to stop.
