Its the unions.
At the risk of too much drift thought Id post this as way of justifying my words of doom.
From the Guardian Newspaper:
Alton Towers, one of the UK's most popular theme parks, is to ban children from wearing high heels and introduce airport-style scanners on its rollercoaster rides, in an unusual crackdown on ''child cheats'' who don't meet height requirements.
For health and safety reasons, children must be at least 1.2m or 1.4m (just under 4ft to 4ft 7in) to go on the park's most popular ''white knuckle'' rides. But imaginative youngsters are tricking their way on to rides by wearing high heels – typically chunky trainers – and even thickly-layered socks.
From this Saturday, children will have their shoes carefully checked. The resort is also looking at purchasing specialist shoe x-ray scanners similar to those used in airports to speed up the checks.
The height restriction is imposed because the seats, safety belts and harnesses in the rollercoaster cars are designed for adults and larger bodies.
Youngsters have traditionally tried to trick their way on to the rides by standing on tiptoe. But since the North Staffordshire theme park reopened in March, one vertically challenged youngster was found to have attached a pair of flip-flops to his trainers with masking tape in a bid to make the grade. A young girl appeared to have swapped shoes with her mother in order to evade the height restriction.
Morwenna Angove, sales and marketing director, said: "While this ban may appear extreme, we are confident it will reduce the number of desperate attempts to gain a centimetre or two."
Oh dear...................
