When you build a water slide and claim it can kill people, you should expect consequences if it kills people.
When you test a water slide with dummies and the dummies fly off the slide, and you do nothing to change the slide, you should expect consequences.
When a particular raft is known for going airborne and you keep it in circulation you should expect consequences.
Yes. Falling off the stairs could kill someone. That’s why they put rails up to help prevent that from happening. If there were no rails on the staircase and someone fell to their death, you could bet there would be similar charges.
The key issue behind the charge is whether or not this was a predictable outcome. The designer claimed it was. The tests showed it was. The operation of the slide showed it was.
I think it’s a more complex question.
We don’t put dummies on horses to evaluate how dangerous horseback riding is.
Here is my SWAG — the ride is about as innocent as white water rafting if ridden properly, which 99.999% or so riders have done. Again consider what an outlier the sole death case was. This was spectacular, a doozie of a death. No bell curve here. I’d say let’s investigate what kind of MOVE made by the rider could launch him into a wall like that, and then do we have telltale evidence of him alone doing it?
It’s like a gun. If I point it away from myself and shoot, the mishaps will be few. If I stick it to my head and shoot, it’s a different story. I would not want a world in which grossly improper behavior in use brings a ban on a thing.