Some recent articles have explained all of the safety and regulations behind roller coasters. Like this article from Popular Science from May of 2026. The article covers the ASTM standards for construction and restraints and the conclusion of the article is that coasters are very carefully designed and injuries are extremely rare.

“They’re looking at everything from the track, how the footers are sunk into the ground, the forces being exerted, the station being built, the trains that will be on it, the containment system that’s going to be used, the types of harnesses, secondary restraints,” he says. “All those are factored into their design considerations.”

But there may be more to it. After reading about the brain injuries caused by the X2 coaster at Magic Mountain – we should all question the effects of amusement park rides on brain health.

Back in 2017, a paper out of Stanford did just this. The following is an excerpt from:

Kuo C, Wu LC, Ye PP, Laksari K, Camarillo DB, Kuhl E. Pilot Findings of Brain Displacements and Deformations during Roller Coaster Rides. Journal of Neurotrauma. 2017;34(22):3198-3205. doi:10.1089/neu.2016.4893

“…Our findings show that despite having lower linear accelerations than sports head impacts, roller coasters may lead to brain displacements and strains comparable to mild soccer headers. The peak change in angular velocity on the rides was 9.9 rad/sec, which was higher than the 5.6 rad/sec in soccer headers with ball velocities reaching 7 m/sec. Maximum brain surface displacements of 4.0 mm and maximum principal strains of 7.6% were higher than in running and similar to soccer headers … Strikingly, on the same ride and at a similar position, the two subjects experienced significantly different head kinematics and brain deformation. These results indicate that head motion and brain deformation during roller coaster rides are highly sensitive to individual subjects. Although our study suggests that roller coaster rides do not present an immediate risk of acute brain injury, their long-term effects require further longitudinal study.”

Since 2017, research on mild brain injury, the kind that accumulates over time but shows no acute symptoms, has come a long way. It might be time to revisit roller coaster safety.