Executives from the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park in Japan show that a roller coaster can be ridden silently, though park patrons aren’t finding it this easy.
Video screenshot by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper/CNET
This may be one of the biggest challenges of the coronavirus outbreak, much more difficult for most people than strapping on a face mask. Japan’s theme-park associations are telling roller-coaster riders not to scream, The Wall Street Journal reports, because those delighted, terrified utterances release all kinds of possibly infected droplets.
A four-minute video shows two executives from the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park, Daisuke Iwata and Koichiro Horiuchi, formally clad and properly masked, riding the park’s Fujiyama coaster, which revs up to 80 miles per hour (128 kilometers per hour). They’re a lesson in calm. One adjusts his hair and mask. Their hands clench the safety bars tightly. Their bodies shake back and forth, as they take deep drops and tight turns that send them sideways. But from beginning to end, they’re as quiet as sleeping kittens.
The video ends with a pretty laughable message: “Please scream inside your heart.”
The science may make sense, but also, ha ha ha ha ha, good luck with that. Stomach-dropping terror respects no health guidelines. And riders who spoke to the newspaper said they might try to comply, but they aren’t too worried if they end up shrieking. We’re all riding an emotional roller coaster these days, anyway.
The screaming ban is voluntary and riders won’t be punished, the Journal article reports.
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