Trans_Maro wrote:
Sledding must have been safer when I was a kid.
I never needed a helmet and we were allowed to do it nearly anywhere.
We need to ban this modern, unsafe world. That's the root of the problem.
Honest question;
What is the difference between sledding and snowboarding?
You won't see a single person on a ski hill not wearing a helmet nowadays. And with good reason. Concussions are not very well understood, and can have severe impact on your life.
If you've ever hit your head hard enough to see stars, or be concussed/knocked out, you would understand why its an important piece of equipment.
I hate safety culture as well, I find it is a drag down to the lowest common denominator, but sometimes it truly has good uses. No different than plant sites and electricians not being allowed to use aluminum ladders; its a huge safety hazard and the solution is a simple one.
And at the end of the day, the city is quite clear on WHY the rule is in place. They have no desire to enforce it, but it absolves them of legal liability. Seems fair to me.
NOHOME wrote:
Years ago it was explained to me that Reasonable people are capable of observing their environment and learning how to fit in so as to live in harmony with the environment. Unreasonable people, on the other hand, observe the existing environment and demand that it change to meet their needs and expectations at any cost.
What follows is the realization that ALL human change is driven by unreasonable people. Ever since I became aware of this, I have not wasted a second wondering why, or if, the human race is going to hell in a hand-basket.
This. You shoulda seen the waiver the Forest Service made our enduro participants sign. It made me despair of humanity. And yes all it takes is one lawyer to screw it up for everyone.
I have seen exactly one toboggan in my lifetime, rode the thing about 2/3 down the pile of people on it and we crashed. Of course. The most fun thing I have ever had in the snow was a VW hood; we removed the trim, waxed the hell out of it and slid down the biggest hill in my neighborhood. Of course it was unsteerable. Of course it spun and threw its occupants. Of course a couple of them got hurt. No, nobody got sued even though we were on a public street (it rarely snows that heavy down here).
One other snow story: a few years after the VW hood it snowed again pretty good. I had a Honda SL125, a buddy had a stop sign. A light bulb went off; we tied a rope to the rear of the Honda, bent the top of the sign up and tied the other end to that. I get on the bike, my bud gets on the sign, it worked GREAT! We went down the street until we got to a 90 degree left. I turn left but my bud keeps going straight, the rope goes taut and yanks the bike out from under me. The bike acts as an anchor, the slack in the rope comes up taut, my bud now turns 90 degrees left like me but probably 15 feet further out and runs smack into a huge pile of limbs in someone's yard. 
I thought it was freakin' hilarious, since he got all cut and scratched up he didn't see it quite the same way. Nobody got sued.
In reply to HiTempguy:
I was just poking fun.
Honestly, I'm a big fan of helmets/safety gear and have had a concussion on more than one occasion.
I understand why the city is doing it, in our litigious society, they have to.
It makes me sad that there is a need to make it illegal in the first place.
I'm not anti-safety, I'm pro-personal-responsibility.
My dad used to tell stories of the $50 Renault Dauphine that he bought in high school and tipping it upside down at the top of the hill, piling as many girls in it as he could, riding down the hill, flipping it over, and driving it back to the top.
Heck, my grandfather, who was chief of police at the time, had a car rim with a pipe going through it that he would strap to a tree at the bottom of the sledding hill. From that rim a rope would be run to the police cruiser at the top of the hill, over a rim placed on instead of one rear tire, and back. Cruiser was started, placed in drive, and would idle all day. When someone wanted to get back to the top of the hill all they had to do was grab the rope and sled on up the hill.
HiTempguy wrote:
Trans_Maro wrote:
Sledding must have been safer when I was a kid.
I never needed a helmet and we were allowed to do it nearly anywhere.
We need to ban this modern, unsafe world. That's the root of the problem.
Honest question;
What is the difference between sledding and snowboarding?
You won't see a single person on a ski hill not wearing a helmet nowadays. And with good reason. Concussions are not very well understood, and can have severe impact on your life.
If you've ever hit your head hard enough to see stars, or be concussed/knocked out, you would understand why its an important piece of equipment.
I hate safety culture as well, I find it is a drag down to the lowest common denominator, but sometimes it truly has good uses. No different than plant sites and electricians not being allowed to use aluminum ladders; its a huge safety hazard and the solution is a simple one.
And at the end of the day, the city is quite clear on WHY the rule is in place. They have no desire to enforce it, but it absolves them of legal liability. Seems fair to me.
a "good" lawyer will eat that E36 M3 up … if they're not going to enforce then they're better off not making the law …
Trans_Maro wrote:
I'm not anti-safety, I'm pro-personal-responsibility.
That we can completely agree upon! :)
This world desperately needs a plaintiff-killing service.
We had a killer toboggan while growing up. Know what was even more fun? Those orange flying saucers--a metal concave disk that offered zero control.
HiTempguy wrote:
Trans_Maro wrote:
Sledding must have been safer when I was a kid.
I never needed a helmet and we were allowed to do it nearly anywhere.
We need to ban this modern, unsafe world. That's the root of the problem.
Honest question;
What is the difference between sledding and snowboarding?
You won't see a single person on a ski hill not wearing a helmet nowadays. And with good reason. Concussions are not very well understood, and can have severe impact on your life.
There's a massive difference: control. Snowboards can be steered and stopped. You can also absorb impacts with your knees. Sleds, your only option is the bailout and impacts are absorbed by your spine. I'm probably shorter than I would have been had it not been for toboggans.
Helmets are certainly very common on the ski slopes these days, but they're far from universal in Colorado. I'd guesstimate it at being closer to 50% around here. Next time I'm in the mountains, I'll try to quantify that somewhat.
Flying saucers are wicked. In both the cool and evil way.
In reply to Keith Tanner:
There was an article in the Minneapolis paper about this today. Fortunately they said a similar ban won't happen here. 
The article mentioned a city in Iowa recently put a ban on sled hills, and it was because of how they have their liability laws set up - for instance, the city isn't liable if someone has an accident when roller skating, but sleds weren't covered in the law. If they were to amend the law to include sleds and toboggans they would be okay.
