Monorail may be inspected by DOT if new bill gets passed

[Kwami]

I don’t see a problem with a government agency inspecting it. As long as there is no game playing by the inspectors. I would assume it is FLADOT not USDOT. There have been issues with concrete chunks falling off and the track having issues. There have been maintenance issues in the parks causing rides to shut down. This is no longer the Disney we all grew up with.

There's no evidence that Disney's monorail and other fixed-guideway systems are any less safe than other transportation systems. In fact, since the monorail came online more than 50 years ago, there has been only one accident leading to a fatality and only a handful that lead to minor injuries. The missing concrete chunk was fixed very quickly.

On the other hand, Brightline is inspected by FDOT and has a pretty bad record for safety.

Besides, none of that is the point. The point is that this bill is targeting Disney as retribution for Chapek's statements against a proposed law. Retaliation by the government in response to speech against that government is always illegal.

 

[BrianL]

Rides are shut down for maintenance issues before they become unsafe. If Disney was bypassing the safety signals and continuing to run them, that would be the unsafe choice. I don’t understand how Disney choosing to stop and inspect rides themselves when they see signals that things aren’t as they expect is spun as an unsafe action.

Yeah, and wile the Monorail has had issues, they were quickly addressed and repaired. That concrete falling off was not an operational or safety issue, and it has been fixed. Yeah, the rides go down for various reasons, but they are not being operated while unsafe or anything.

 

[OKW Lover]

There's no evidence that Disney's monorail and other fixed-guideway systems are any less safe than other transportation systems. In fact, since the monorail came online more than 50 years ago, there has been only one accident leading to a fatality and only a handful that lead to minor injuries.

And that accident was due to human error. A safety inspection would not have prevented that.

 

[Scalemaster34]

And that accident was due to human error. A safety inspection would not have prevented that.

Three people made mistakes in that situation... that isn't human error. And NTSB came down pretty hard on Disney not following their own stated procedures (good thing they settled with the Family before it came out). A spot safety inspection might have picked up on some of the procedural errors Disney was making, as these had become common "short cut" to save time. Don't get me wrong, I don't want the state doing inspections... But I wouldn't point to that accident as a reason against it.

And will say that Disney's record on safety is very good in the industry, but sometimes it takes an accident or near miss to help companies realize that policies and procedures do no good, if employees - including managers don't follow them.

 

[SuzErwin]

Three people made mistakes in that situation... that isn't human error. And NTSB came down pretty hard on Disney not following their own stated procedures (good thing they settled with the Family before it came out). A spot safety inspection might have picked up on some of the procedural errors Disney was making, as these had become common "short cut" to save time. Don't get me wrong, I don't want the state doing inspections... But I wouldn't point to that accident as a reason against it.

And will say that Disney's record on safety is very good in the industry, but sometimes it takes an accident or near miss to help companies realize that policies and procedures do no good, if employees - including managers don't follow them.

This the actual conclusion by the NTSB for the one fatality (compared to Brightline's 55+):
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/accidentreports/reports/rab1107.pdf

"The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the July 5, 2009, collision between two monorails at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, was the shop panel operator’s failure to properly position switch-beam 9 and the failure of the monorail manager acting as the central coordinator to verify the position of switch- beam 9 before authorizing the reverse movement of the Pink monorail. Contributing to the accident was Walt Disney World Resort’s lack of standard operating procedures leading to an unsafe practice when reversing trains on its monorail system."

The last sentence is referring to a lack of standard operating procedures for the monorail manager, who was filling in for an ill central coordinator who had left work early; the monoral manager was in communication via radio but was not in front of the monitors. Presumably during an inspection and indeed in 99.89% of the time, the central coordinator would have been at his station to note that the shop panel operator had failed to complete the positioning of the switch beam.