Mechanical Rides California

ERDOS: He's not in Brooklyn anymore

As an ex-New Yorker, I've always had difficulty assimilating into the Western lifestyle and greatly admire any transplant who seems to have little difficulty in the exercise of California conformity.

My hero in this area is Michael LoPresti. He's the 20-year-old son of a New York City couple now living in Valley Center.

Michael collects and restores vintage tractors. A half-dozen of them rest on the family front lawn in various stages of repair. He restores them to their original condition, except for the one he added rear passenger seats to, complete with some sort of hydraulic gizmo. I'm fairly certain he also tinkered with the horsepower.

Michael will invite you for what you're certain will be a lumbering, lackluster ride on an old tractor, when inevitably, there comes a point when you'll ask the driver, "Are we supposed to be going this fast?"

And that's typically the moment your entire seat will fly skyward. It's a maneuver that answers an earlier query you had when you climbed aboard and asked why there were seat belts on a tractor.   

But mechanical miracles are just one small example of how Michael departs from the rest of us transplants. When he's not busy with his studies at Cal State San Marcos, he finds time to earn a few bucks by helping out his neighbor, who's got a cattle ranch.

And if it's rare to find a New York transplant with his mechanical skills, trust me when I tell you, none of us has ever pulled a calf out of a cow.

That's what I call a reach.

He even assisted in a C-section. I regret it now, but I saw the video. When you see a small cow emerging from the side of a larger one, you quickly realize the big city you left behind is but a fleeting memory.

In addition to livestock midwifery, Michael will come to your ranch and convert your upright cow into a standing rib roast. Please don't ask for details.

Michael assists his neighbor, who is the professional in this unique field of commissioned cattle carver, and although cows and hogs are their usual mission, Michael tells the story of the 2,000-pound charging buffalo they brought down with a single bullet, then proceeded to convert into bison burgers. That's yet another experience I can't seem to recall observing on the streets of Flatbush.   

Often, the euthanized livestock are carved and sold to a lady in Alpine who feeds them to her tigers. Yes, I said tigers, and no, I'm not making this up.

Benchmarks » Blog Archive » Amusement park faces liability for ...

With millions of potential plaintiffs flocking to amusement parks this summer, personal injury attorneys will be happy to learn that at least one California court has eliminated the assumption of risk doctrine in a most unlikely context: the ever-popular bumper car ride.

The court held that held that the primary assumption of risk doctrine is inapplicable to amusement park rides “where the illusion of risk (as opposed to actual risk) is marketed.”

This would seem counterintuitive in the extreme with respect to bumper cars since the ride involves driving funny little cars around in an enclosed space, the object being to crash into your fellow drivers.

As you’re lining up to get your turn in a bumper car, why wouldn’t you think that there’s a chance of a freak injury as you’re being knocked about?

Well, Dr. Smriti Nalwa certainly didn’t anticipate a fractured wrist when she boarded the Rue Le Dodge bumper car ride at the Great America Amusement Park in Santa Clara, California.

The OB/GYN physician and surgeon took her two kids to the park on July 5, 2005. During a bumper car ride with her 10-year-old son, her car was struck head-on by another car. Immediately following that collision, she was struck from behind.

Instinctively, Dr. Nalwa tried to brace herself during the crash, thus the broken wrist.

Dr. Nalwa sued Great America for common carrier liability and negligence under California law. According to Dr. Nalwa, Great America was at fault for not taking steps to eliminate head-on collisions on its bumper car ride.

Evidently, the amusement park industry has recently recognized that there is a particular hazard with head-on collisions. Across the country, parks have begun to remedy the problem by adding an island in the middle of bumper car tracks so that riders all drive in the same direction. Great America modified its bumper car track in 2006, after Dr. Nalwa’s accident.

Great America nonetheless argued that both the common carrier and ordinary negligence claims were barred because Dr. Nalwa’s injuries were the result of bumping, an inherent risk of riding bumper cars.

A state trial judge granted Great America’s motion for summary judgment on this basis, but that decision was reversed earlier this month by the California Court of Appeal.

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