"Scanning"

[coasterluver]

Anyone who's been to the park recently, you've probably noticed the spin off of Six Flags visual scan on all the rides. Where the op says "scanning" and all the attendants must put their thumbs up and spin in a circular motion for 5 or so seconds to "scan and see that everything is clear". In my opinion, its pointless and just wastes time while making the ops look stupid. But what are your opinions?

[Hooky965]

If they are scanning the area rather than "spinning", it makes sense, as it would train ops to look outside of their former area of responsibility (say, checking lap bars) to scan the area for safety.

If they are literally "spinning", which I would assume is done at a low speed so it doesn't resemble a dance move, it would be something that they have been told to do, but aren't really buying in to. I'd presume that the reason behind it is something similar to what I am describing above, but something would clearly be getting lost in the translation.

[jscll]

I believe this "visual scan" technique came from the water park industry. (At some water parks [fortunately not Wild Water Kingdom, yet] the lifeguards are required to constantly wave their arm over the area they are responsible for, kinda like kindergarteners pretending to be elephants. Somehow this is supposed to indicate to guests that they are doing their jobs.)
Fortunately, most operators at Dorney are too self conscious to partake of this pathetic ritual -- I think my bias may be showing. Seeing this practice at Six Flags parks, most notably America and especially New England, it seems that it ends up happening that the operators spend most of their time looking in irrelevant directions. (i.e. down the midways or at the ceiling.)
Another issue with this technique is that it delays operations (which is why I despise Six Flag's got five -- it takes four seconds too long.) By the time an operator reaches their post, they should have verified that the entire area they are responsible for is completely clear and should know where all the other attendants are (if applicable.) On a busy coaster platform, the operator at the main controls provides a degree of redundancy to the process. Unfortunately, Six Flags has been removing this redundancy by using a sub panel which is used by one of the harness checkers instead of by a main panel operator, hence why they need to adopt these obnoxious practices. Now, unfortunately, it seems that Cedar Fair thinks that if they adopt similar policies, despite not needing them, guests will feel safer.

[PepsiFan01]

I noticed the lifeguards were doing something different than previous summers. They were walking back and forth in their areas, which they always did before, but this year they were repeatedly bobbing their heads looking down at the water as they walked, and then sweeping their heads up at the end, like "aaaand done!" and doing it all over again as they walked the other way. Anyone else notice this?

I also noticed the Ops doing the "scanning" technique. As soon as they ran through what they needed to say, they said "Scanning" and held their thumb up and scanned the area briefly, then started the ride. It definitely seemed pointless because they had already seen the area was ready. It just seemed like one more thing they knew they had to say and wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.