Yet Another Bay Area Roller Coaster Accident

​One bizarre and disfiguring roller coaster accident at a local county fair is odd enough. But two? In a week?

Just days after a ticket-taker at the Sonoma-Marin County Fair inexplicably wandered into the path of the "Wacky Worm" ride and suffered a severed leg, that very same model of roller coaster yesterday malfunctioned at the Alameda County Fair, injuring seven riders.

To be fair, the June 24 accident involved not a mechanical malfunction but a worker's error (the employee, who is still hospitalized, purportedly cannot remember the incident). That ride was subsequently declared safe by state inspectors and re-opened.

Parts required to fix the Alameda County Fair's Wacky Worm ride are expected to arrive today. The roller coaster will have to undergo inspections before re-opening; it is uncertain when it will re-open.

The fair's ride inspector, Barry Schaible, meanwhile just told KTVU-TV that roller coasters are "the safest form of transportation in America."

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