Wild Mouse roller coaster

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A Wild Mouse roller coaster (or Wildemous or Mad Mouse) is a type of roller coaster characterized by small cars, which seat four people or fewer and ride on top of the track, taking tight, flat turns at modest speeds, yet producing high lateral G-forces. The track work is characterized by many turns and bunny hops, the latter producing abrupty negative vertical G forces. When approaching a turn from a straight section the intended impression is that one will simply continue straight, and thus plunge off of the device, this since there are no transistion sections as are in a conventional high speed coaster track and the turn itself is obscured upon close approach.

The feeling of a Wild Mouse coaster is amplified by using cars which are wider than the track itself, giving the impression that the riders are hanging off the side or that they might fly out, thus giving it the name "wild".

Some may include trick track — a "straight" piece of track banked slightly side to side designed to throw the rider left to right. Some wild mouse coasters, such as Primeval Whirl, also have spinning cars

The Wild Mouse was invented by German designer Franz Mack. In the original wooden Wild Mouse coasters of the 1960s and 1970s, the cars were so small that they could only fit two adults. While the low capacity of these rides led to long lines, the cars were small by design.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the Wild Mouse type coaster was nearly extinct. However beginning in the mid-1990s the Wild Mouse coasters popularity surged and countless have been built since.

[edit] Examples of Wild Mouse roller coasters

• Primeval Whirl at Disney's Animal Kingdom
• Mulholland Madness at Disney's California Adventure
• Mad Mouse at Michigan's Adventure
• Wild Mouse at Hershey Park in Hershey, PA
• Rattlesnake at Chessington World of Adventures, Chessington, England.
• Mad Mouse at Myrtle Beach Pavilion in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
• The Exterminator at Kennywood, in West Mifflin, PA.
• Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster at Warner Bros. Movie World in Queensland, Australia
• Wild Mouse at The Pleasure Beach in Blackpool, Lancashire, UK
• Mad mouse - Valley Fair Shakopee,MN
• The Fly at Canada's Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada

[edit] Accidents

• Twenty year old Gemma Savage died on 21 June 2001 following an accident the previous day when two carriages collided on the Treetop Twister at Lightwater Valley, Ripon, England. Police decided not to prosecute a maintenance worker, who claimed that he had only received an hour's training on that ride and had not seen its manual. Faulty wiring had also caused a malfunction on the ride. [1]. In October 2004 Deputy Coroner John Sleightholme at Skipton Magistrates' Court ruled death by misadventure.

• In December 2005, two sisters, one 11 and the other 9, fell 10 feet (three meters) off Alpha 8, a wild mouse ride at Escape Theme Park, Singapore, and sustained back injuries. They were rushed to hospital, in critical but stable condition. The cause could be a faulty car restraint. The ride has been closed since.

• At the 2006 Indiana State Fair, a 24 year old woman was thrown out of the ride's car and sustained minor injuries. The cause has been determined operator error.

• At the 2006 SC State Fair, a boy, (estimated at the age of 12 years old) whose name hasn't yet been released (as of October 25, 2006), was thrown out the ride's car and suffered a fractured femur Saturday, October 21, 2006. The ride was the same one responsible for the injuries in Indiana (see above).