Re: total ride time

["Joe Long" <jlong@mti.net>]

On Thu, 15 Jan 1998 07:23:12 EST, CMKSAGEHIL <CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com>
wrote:

>One slight correction--the reason the MAJORITY of the Board (and a VAST
>majority as I remember--I was on the Board back then too) came up with the
>12/24 hour rule was precisely BECAUSE there was so much controversy over ride
>managers setting their own times, and THAT was the issue that was causing so
>much contoversy.  It didn't work then, people got sick of the abuses and
>unfairness caused by it, and the issue has been FAR quieter with the 12/24
>hour rule in place.

I recall it differently.  I never heard of *any* controversy over ride
times until the year Les & Trilby rode7,000 miles each.  That year,
some rides allowed 24 hours to do 50 miles to accomodate them.
Another ride that year set a 14 hour limit to do a 100.

The Board IMO over-reacted to this specific problem by putting *all*
rides into the time straightjacket, and it's caused problems and been
controversial ever since.  A couple of times we came close to getting
some flexibility added to the rule, but fell short of a majority, so
the controversy continues.  It is a bad rule, and the controversy will
never end until it is fixed.

I've "been there, done that" on this kind of issue.  In 1980 the Board
reacted to some abuses of elevator rides by banning *all* elevator
rides.  For years there were attempts to allow some form of elevator,
which went down in flames every time.  Finally, the Board came up with
our current formula of allowing elevators for completion only, and the
issue was resolved.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and sometimes the only way to get a
bad rule fixed is to keep coming back until the Board fixes it.

-- 

Joe Long
jlong@mti.net
Business Page  http://www.mti.net
Personal Page  http://www.rnbw.com