Alex Keaveny started skateboarding 23 years ago. “Right
around the time of Expo 86,” he says. “My first skateboard magazine,
that was on the cover.” The magazine was Transworld
Skateboarding. Keaveny thinks it was a picture of the Expo vert
ramp.
Today Keaveny is 36, with two kids, and he works as a lawyer at
prominent Halifax firm Stewart McKelvey. He says he’ll easily skate for
another couple decades.
One blip in that amateur skateboarding career happened in 2003, when
Keaveny was at the Charlottetown skatepark and hit his head.
“I tried to ollie down one of the banks over a garbage can and I
just sort of jumped off my board because I wasn’t going to make it. But
one foot landed back on the board so I went right down. I hit my head,
and there was a bit of blood,” he says. “It wasn’t a big deal. I got a
couple of stitches.”
He started wearing a helmet after that, occasionally, “and
eventually it became regular.
“I would prefer not to,” he says. “It feels good to be just sort of
all stripped down with just your clothes and your sneakers and your
skateboard.”
But, “I figure if I hit my head, it will do damage and I will feel
like an idiot afterward,” he says. “I know it makes sense.”
Still, Keaveny is a strong and eloquent defender of the right of
skateboarders to not be required to wear helmets while skateboarding.
It’s as much a function of his profession, perhaps, as his passion.
“Most skaters, if you ask them about it, they might not say it’s a
civil liberties issue. But the way they describe it makes that crystal
clear,” says the lawyer.
“If they set up traffic cameras all around HRM and any time someone
went 51 in a 50 they got a ticket? Well, I think the citizens would
revolt against that unnecessary state intrusion into their lives. And I
don’t think this is any different.”
Keaveny says “there are lots of laws out there that are meant to
protect us that are not enforced with any vigor.”
Keaveny’s personal safety gear picks aren’t mere habits or
obstinacy. This is thought-out personal risk assessment.
“The helmet?” he says. “I’m skating on concrete. I’m getting older.
I’m falling more.”
But Keaveny doesn’t wear kneepads. “I don’t think the way that I
skate it makes a difference. Is it foreseeable that I would fall a
certain way and that one time fall on my knees and that the kneepads
would be helpful? Of course. But I choose not to wear them because I
accept that risk. And I feel that wearing them hinders my enjoyment of
the activity. The only reason I do it is because I love it.”
Simply, Keaveny says, “it should be a choice.”
The Nova Scotia Legislature passed Bill 86 in November 2006.
The amendment to the Motor Vehicle Act meant helmets became mandatory
for operating all non-motorized wheeled devices—skateboards are
mentioned specifically, as well as scooters, in-line skates and roller
skates.
In 2007, there was little strict enforcement of the new law in
Halifax. By 2008, the amendment was making a big difference in daily
life at the Commons Skatepark.
“June was when we started,” says constable Shawn Currie of the
Halifax Regional Police. “For about two or three weeks we went out and
gave warnings.”
The sign for the Commons Skatepark has always recommended helmet
use; education campaigns have taken place in 2004, 2006 and 2007. But
there’s a difference between encouragement and legislation. A $135.75
difference.
There were 120 tickets for skateboard-related offences given last
year between June and December.
Constable Currie has been community relations officer for the
downtown Spring Garden area since December 2007. He is a bike cop who
visits the Common in nice weather “two or three times a day.” Currie
doesn’t know how many of the 120 tickets were helmet violations “but,”
he says, “most were.”
This year, there have been 11 violations. “I just wrote a couple
today,” he says on his phone from a perch on the main branch library
wall.
There have also been skateboard confiscations—lasting 30 days and
legal against anyone in violation—and skatepark bans—the verb is
“to PPA” someone; it’s a reference to the Protection of Property Act
and it’s a written warning to stay clear for six months.
These actions, many skateboarders say, are making skateboarders
choose to leave the Common. “Being a long-time skateboarder and knowing
the joy it brings to people,” says Alex Keaveny, “I don’t think there’s
much that can stop people who love skateboarding from
skateboarding.”
Those skateboarders, Keaveny and others say, are instead choosing
street skating—not literally in the street, but riding sets of stairs
and other outdoor structures—using architecture and the urban
environment as a skatepark.
Keaveny street skates sometimes, but he calls migration away from
the skatepark “a real shame.
“This facility should be used.”
Keaveny was vice president of the Halifax Skatepark Coalition when
the organization was working to get the $600,000 park built.
“The city has been very helpful,” he says, “councillors and
Recreation. But the amount of people using the park? That’s the whole
point, to have it full of people.”
Thick in the thorns of this rosebush of clashing safety concerns,
activity promotion and civil liberties is Halifax’s Recreation
department.
Claudette Levy is an area coordinator for Recreation. She declined
an interview on the topic of the skatepark ticket crackdown and its
ramifications for sport.
In her stead, city spokesperson Shaune MacKinlay says HRM supports
“safe activity and adherence to the law” when it comes to enforcement
possibly deterring skatepark use.
The Nova Scotia Department of Health Promotion and Protection is
another group theoretically caught in the wheels here, at the junction
of whether helmet enforcement trumps encouraging active lifestyles or
vice versa.
Julian Young, coordinator of injury prevention and control, wants to
wade right in.
“We always talk about unintended outcomes,” he says.
“There are always questions around: How do we promote physical
activity and maximize the benefits of physical activity but at the same
time encourage people to do it in a way that’s safe and doesn’t
increase their likelihood of getting hurt. Because, then, there is no
health benefit.”
The Department of Health Promotion and Protection, Young says, wants
“to work with skateboarders so they can understand it’s not about
controlling their behaviour; it’s not about being mean or trying to
ruin their activity. It’s about saying, as a society, we can’t afford
to bear the cost of that person’s [potential] brain injury.”
And here’s where we really get into it.
The legislature’s debates on Bill 86, the mandatory helmet
revisions to the Motor Vehicle Act, are recorded as 13 pages of
procedural glad-handing. Little of the discussion specifically
addresses moving about the world on self-powered wheels; even less
relates to skateboarding.
“I read the Hansard,” says Alex Keaveny. “I don’t think, sadly, one
can expect any kind of meaningful debate in a setting where no one sees
any political gain in opposing this kind of an issue.”
NDP member for Dartmouth East, Joan Massey, supported the bill. But
she also put forward a lone, if lukewarm, poke at the numbers her
fellow members were tossing around in support of the bill, in
particular that injuries cost Nova Scotia $570 million per year.
“I’m not sure if [minister Barry Barnet] was saying those were all
caused by skateboarding [or] in-line skating,” Massey said. “He didn’t
actually mention how those injuries had happened…I’m not sure on
those numbers.”
Neither is the QEII Health Sciences Centre.
Patients who visit the emergency department aren’t entered into a
database that allows tracking based on sports.
Emergency physician Kirk Magee takes a breath in. “I can’t even give
you a ballpark,” he says. “You could put in ‘head injury’ but you would
get every single head injury that came in.”
In Magee’s experience with skateboarders, “the biggest category by
far would be musculo-skeletal injuries—both fractures and sprains. We
also see a fair number of lacerations from falling or crashes.”
Last comes head injuries.
“But although they are the least common, they are the most serious
to a person in terms of impact and recovery.”
Magee has only seen one serious head injury from skateboarding. It
was last summer. “He had serious lacerations and other injuries that
took him some time to recover from,” Magee says.
The man was wearing a helmet. “The striking thing was seeing the
damage done to it. We were certain if he hadn’t been wearing it he
would have moved very quickly from seeing me to seeing the trauma
team.”
Magee’s emergency department only allows him to offer anecdote;
Brett Taylor, emergency pediatrician at the IWK Health Centre, has
numbers.
But first he has an opinion.
“Skateboarding,” Taylor says, “is cheap, relatively. It’s
accessible. And it’s received a really inappropriate rap in the past.
And if I was a city designer I would be putting more skateboard parks
in. It’s a cool sport. People are attracted to it. The people who do it
are fit and they are not burning carbon when they are getting to
school—they are using their boards. There is so much about this sport
that is positive.”
Not only that.
“It has a very low risk of hospitalizable injury,” Taylor says. Most
injuries he treats—just as Magee sees with adults—are broken and
sprained ankles and wrists. “Facial smash,” he says, “is really, really
common.”
“Skateboarding is .28 admissions per year, per thousand. So when you
start to look at numbers that small—we see 30,000 visits a year at
the IWK—any one practitioner will live a very long time before they
see a devastating skateboard injury.”
There’s more.
Taylor cites an American study from the October 2002 Journal of
Trauma (did I mention the doctor is a Masters candidate in Health
Informatics?) indicating about one out of every five hospital
admissions from skateboarding includes either a head injury or a
concussion. “It’s about 18 percent.”
Taylor likes the study because instead of looking at straight injury
numbers, it rates injuries per participant, which, he says, is
fairer.
“It actually shows skateboarding is about two-thirds of the risk of
snowboarding, about half the risk of bicycling and about one and a half
times the risk of basketball,” he says.
“It shows that compared to sports that really we don’t hate
that much, and cycling, which we don’t hate at all, [skateboarding] is
a pretty reasonable sport.” (Child Safety Link’s Heather McKay has a
different interpretation: “A basketball player might come in with a
sprained finger,” she says, “get treatment and get sent home. Whereas
it’s more likely a skateboarder’s injury will be so serious, he will
have to be admitted. It’s not that more are coming in, it’s that the
ones that are coming in are more serious.”)
Taylor—who is evenhanded in the utmost despite being the survivor
of a snowboarding head injury from which it took him six months to
recover—says it’s worth considering there are a lot more head
injuries that don’t get into the data. “Kids are walking around who
didn’t go into hospital who still have some degree of disability that
can last anywhere from weeks to months to permanent.” In Vancouver, he
says, citing a 2006 study, there are roughly 14 admissions a year where
skateboarders stay at least three days in hospital or die.
“So what I would say is this: If you choose not to wear a helmet,
what are you saying? You are saying to the people who will grieve you
or who will have to take care of you that your fashionable coif is more
valuable than their peace of mind.”
Remember Saturday before last? Sunny with a brisk spring
wind? One of the first bright pockets of weather this season?
Liam Cook was at the Commons Skatepark, with scores of other
smiling, frolicking Haligonians—some riding scooters, others on BMX
bikes, and others on in-line skates; there were four-year-olds and
40-year-olds.
Cook, a 21-year-old Dalhousie Bachelor of Community Design student
who’s been skating for almost a decade, was not wearing a helmet as he
ran across the park, one hand on a skateboard, the other extended to
greet me. Other times, though, you might see him there with it on.
“I judge it on financial risk, pretty much,” he says.
If Cook is riding past the police station on Gottingen Street on his
way to work, he wears his helmet. That’s where in 2007 he got the first
of his two tickets. On a Monday morning at 7am.
The weather can also affect whether he wears it.
“Today, it’s packed with kids. The cops can’t single out people, and
if they are going to ticket, they have to ticket everybody.”
Safety is part of the decision, too.
Cook always wore a helmet for his first three years of skateboarding
and he still wears a helmet and kneepads if he’s skating larger ramps
(it’s rare to see skateboarders who don’t). “Stairs, I’ve been doing
for half my lifetime. I know my limits,” he says. “There is a very,
very small chance some freak accident is going to happen, but over my
nine years of skateboarding, I have never broken a bone or needed
stitches.”
Saturday was only Cook’s third time out this season. Some of his
friends, he says, have already been ticketed.
“I’ve seen unfair behaviour,” he says. “I’ve seen police come when
kids are doing different drugs”—marijuana, he says, and
ecstasy—“sitting in the deep end of the bowl over there. Or underage
smokers. Or people drinking in public. And the cops will just come and
ticket the skateboarders.”
The elephant in this skatepark is the perception that cops dislike
skateboarders. That sense of persecution is pervasive in skateboard
culture. And in the case of helmet tickets at the Commons Skatepark,
skateboarders I talked to are unified in their argument: They are being
targeted and ticketed while police turn a blind eye to everything
else.
Constable Jeff Carr of the Halifax Regional Police says it’s
simple—when the Motor Vehicle Act was broadened to include
skateboarders, officers started ticketing. “It’s not because we like to
pick on skateboarders.”
Constable Currie agrees. “We’re there for everything—criminal
activity, drug activity.” Skateboarders riding without helmets is just
“one of the things we see on a regular basis.
“If I see alcohol or drugs, that is the first place I will stop
before I even reach the bowl.”
Trying to compare skateboard tickets with banned substance
violations wouldn’t make much sense, Currie says, because drug and
alcohol infractions during concerts would be included in the numbers
for the Common.
Criminal enforcement is just one perceived double standard. Cook is
calm and diplomatic: “There are a lot of other sports that would
benefit from the use of a helmet,” he says. “[Like] figure
skaters.”
“I think that’s a really good comparison to make,” says Jacquie
Thillaye, a 46-year-old mother of 16- and 18-year-old skateboarders.
“No one is ever going to force a figure skater to wear a helmet. And
that’s because it’s different people attached to that.”
Thillaye is in a unique position.
She doesn’t skateboard, yet she’s a fervent advocate for Halifax
skateboarding who served four years as president of the Halifax
Skatepark Coalition. As for helmets? “I think that people are kind of
foolish not to wear them,” she says. “But I don’t know that legislating
it and a heavy hand is the way to go with it.”
Thillaye has heard that skateboarders are ditching the park for the
street, where they are less likely to catch a ticket. “Or they are not
riding as much. Which means that they are getting less physical
activity, probably. It defeats the purpose.”
To Thillaye, “there is probably more benefit in developing stronger
positive relationships with youth than in ticketing, or worse, for
helmet violations…and I’m sure the police would rather be somewhere
else than down at the skatepark creating bad vibes with a bunch of
youth. There’s no buy-in for them.”
But there is buy-in for constable Currie.
Last year in June he estimates only about 25 percent of
skateboarders were wearing helmets.
“Early this morning there were about four or five there and all of
them had helmets on. The second time I drove by there were probably
about 20 people there and only two didn’t have helmets.”
Now, he says, “maybe 20 percent of them are not wearing helmets on a
given day.”
Constable Currie rejects the notion that a compliance boost could be
because attendance is down and the skateboarders left are mostly ones
who were always wearing helmets. “The park,” he says, “is full.”
The Halifax Recreation department doesn’t keep records on skatepark
use.
Does that strike you as odd? A two-year-old, $600,000 facility on a
central—perhaps the central—public space on the peninsula
and no one’s keeping track of who’s using it, how often and when.
And what about how often and when police are there?
Thillaye, remember, is pro-helmet. But, she says, “that seems like a
lower [priority] to me, given that we have crime issues and assault
issues and all of these things. I would rather know [police] are
attending to that.”
Skateboarder Keaveny must have a reasonable understanding of
effective use of police resources; he’s a former crown attorney. “It
seems like a waste,” he says.
So how do cops end up on the Common?
Constable Jeff Carr says for the skatepark, “it’s a balance between
us responding to calls for service and enforcement.” Public affairs
supervisor Theresa Rath says statistics for those complaints aren’t
readily available—they get coded as a general youth complaint.
“Last year,” says constable Currie, “we had received complaints from
a concerned father that people were not wearing skateboard
helmets.”
Enough to merit visits for 120 tickets? “No. Since then we’ve just
continued it on.”
Keaveny characterizes skateboarders at the Common as “low-hanging
fruit.”
One day last summer, says Cook, handing me an envelope of photos,
“there was actually an undercover cop car stationed right there.” Cook
points to Trollope Street, in front of Citadel High School.
He points to a shot of the skatepark with a line of seated
skateboarders facing a row of standing officers. “That day there were
four or five bike cops, one undercover cruiser, two normal police
cruisers and one of the SUVs. And two beat cops. They all showed up at
the same time.”
Currie was one of the officers there. He recalls he asked the other
officers to attend the skatepark with him that day.
“We were there to do helmet enforcement,” he says, “and that day I
think we had around seven or eight people. So we just came in with
enough officers to write the tickets and we were gone.”
Cook describes another scene at the skatepark.
“We were here, probably 10 to 15 kids, early to mid-afternoon.
Beautiful day. Nice and sunny. We noticed cops coming toward the park
on bikes. They usually come from that way.” Cook gestures to the
Pavilion footpath.
“One gentleman had received a ticket before and was, I wouldn’t say
aggressive, but he had been vocal with the police about the helmet law.
They definitely knew him. And basically there’s a three-strike policy
with the helmet tickets. The third time they take your skateboard.
“The cop asked for his skateboard. And he threw it down on the
ground in an attempt to snap it in half. The police threw him down on
the ground and put him in handcuffs.”
That skateboarder was Kevin MacDonald.
“I was just going to break it and let him take it, because if they
are going to take it for a month I’m obviously going to go get another
one,” says MacDonald. The 22-year-old has been skating for 10 years and
never wears a helmet. (“Outside in a public area, I just feel it’s
wrong to force something like that on people, to not give them a
choice.”)
“I could understand why he did it,” MacDonald admits. “Because maybe
he thought I was trying to be rude, or that I was disregarding that he
was a police officer. But I felt that the way he went about it was a
little excessive.”
MacDonald is fighting his charges—including a ban—in court. But
he never lodged an official complaint about the incident.
Constable Carr checked if there were any complaints about skatepark
incidents: “Nothing logged with the Professional Standards Office in
recent memory.”
“We have 25—or something—unsolved murders in the city, MacDonald
says. “I would think that would be a little more important—finding
murderers and drug dealers instead of yelling and screaming at kids and
giving them tickets and ruining their days.”
“There’s been a lot of talk over the last decade or so about
community policing,” says Keaveny. “And improved relations between the
police and the citizens they are there to serve and protect.”
Situations like the one at the skatepark, Keaveny says, mean youth
“are less likely to call the police; if they see the police coming,
they are less likely to see the police as someone who is there for
them. And it’s going to be counterproductive in terms of the police’s
ability to actually police in the way they should.”
Constable Currie isn’t blind to this. “Most of the skateboarders are
young—under 20. Meeting me this way is negative. It’s a negative
image and that’s not something I want to portray.”
He says he’d rather arrive at the skatepark, find everyone helmeted,
and stay for a bit to watch. “I would enjoy that,” he says.
“But, there’s not much we can do. We have to enforce it.”
“That, to me, is the whole problem with this approach,” says
Keaveny. “It seems to focus on one activity, but without realizing that
the negative effects far outweigh any positive benefits.”
Though he couldn’t give stats on skateboard injuries at the QEII
Emergency department, physician Magee calls those benefits “huge.”
“I certainly don’t think we should stop doing risky activities.
That’s what makes being a human so much fun. But we should be
mitigating those risks,” he says.
“I struggle with the personal freedom aspect. But this is one of
those things that is an easy problem to solve.”
Emergency pediatrician Taylor emphasizes that he doesn’t “want to
come across as somebody who thinks skateboarding is terribly dangerous.
Because it’s not. Or,” he says, “that it’s got a high, high risk of
head injury. Because compared to others, it doesn’t.”
But, he says plainly, skateboarders’ heads are at risk. “There is no
argument for not wearing a helmet.”
“Is the goal to keep people safe at all costs?” wonders Keaveny.
“That doesn’t seem like sensible public planning to me.” Instead, he
calls it “missing the larger picture.”
Life is about choosing what’s acceptable, says Keaveny. “I could
drive 40 kilometres [an hour] slower and I could only drive in the
daytime. I could do things to make my life very, very safe. But I
don’t, because it strikes me as ludicrous to be that safe.”
But the 36-year-old does wear his helmet at the Commons
Skatepark.
“I guess,” he says, “it depends what the goal is.”
This article appears in May 7-13, 2009.
The Protection of Property Act is the most ridiculous law in the books. I’d like to see a careful look at this one.
Look at all those cops do they really need that many cops to give out helmet tickets? No wonder our city’s so screwed up. So many lazy cops who just give speeding tickets, arrest drunk kids and give out parking tickets. What we need is some real cops who actually give a damn about the violence and raping and shootings and stuff. Of course what can you expect of a city with a winter parking ban, Wal Mart quality sewer system, horrible roads ect
It’s no secret that helmet use is a good thing but I don’t think these kids will take it seriously or respect it until society stops discriminating against them. This is a great article that illustrates the inconsistencies in our society. There are many other quasi dangerous activities that are left free of helmet laws as pointed out by this article. I can only imagine the headlines if the province were to introduce a blanket law against ice skating or basketball without a helmet.
imagine if they tried to enforce this type of law on golfers.. they would loose their shit.
“So many lazy cops who just give speeding tickets, arrest drunk kids and give out parking tickets. … What we need is some real cops who actually give a damn about the violence and raping and shootings and stuff.”
In the past four months, I have met more than a dozen police officers over the course of two domestic disturbance situations next door to me. Every one was professional, respectful, courteous and helpful. They arrested three people across both visits and pulled two sawed-off shotguns out of the place. Just because a beat cop is doing her job on the Common doesn’t mean the rest of the force isn’t out there taking care of things too. Stop being an immature reactionary and think before you generalize.
Excellently balanced story, Lowe. It’s interesting that nobody really says why they don’t want to wear a helmet other than “Because I said so.” Somebody refresh my memory — didn’t we go through this whole deal with cyclists back in the early aughts?
What?! Wait… how many people died skateboarding last year…. none that’s how many.
How many people died in car accidents in Canada last year? Thousands of people. This comparison of injury to risk is totally insane.
I ride my bicycle everyday to work. I don’t need a helmet because driving my bike is SAFER than being in a car!!!
The LAWs are insane and taking policing away from _real_ criminals, like those fire lighting idiots in Spryland.
BikeX, the reason you should wear a helmet while you’re riding a bike is because you’re riding in traffic, surrounded by 2 tonne machines that could kill you in an instant. Unless you’re one of those idiots that ride on the sidewalk, and then not only are you endangering yourself, you’re endangering the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Also, your comparison of car accident deaths vs. skateboarding deaths is extremely unfair. Again, they’re two different things. Also, as Tara has already mentioned, there are dedicated cops for that sort of thing, they’re not taking away from more major crimes. Sadly, we need to legislate common sense, simply because we’re too stupid to take initiative.
This article is great, it clearly illustrates both sides of the story. I am not pro-helmet, but I do agree that there are risks by not wearing a helemet! I have been skateing half my life (Now 18, skating since I was 9) and I know the risks, but I believe that considering how many broken legs, or broken arms have went through the hospital, head injuries are the least of our worries. I do on the hand like to see that the community is “looking out for us” by enforcing the helmet law. No, I do not agree with the law, or like it. It just shows they are thinking about us, but trying to make a difference in all the wrong ways.
Dr. Fever,
Let me understand your argument. A helmet, made of styrofoam, is going to help me when 2000 lbs of steel and glass hit me? How?
Lets talk about physics…
Helmets for bicycle riders can only help you in one circumstance, if you fall off the bike and strike the ground with your head. A little bit of Styrofoam and plastic will do NOTHING in a car accident. Which BTW, I would be better off having on a bike rather than a car…
I didn’t mention how many people were injured in car accidents in Canada last year. You might be shocked at the numbers. Again, cars are the biggest threat on the road to everyone who travels, including those in cars.
Again, the comparison of risk to skateboarders (and cyclists) to the number of actual fatalities and and serious injuries in cars cannot be compared. Cars continue to be one of the biggest threats to citizens.
Actually, in most vehicle vs. bike/pedestrian accidents the killer is a head injury. Think of how a car hits a person; it’s usually head on, and the body bends, and the head hits the hood, or the windshield. Yes, that plastic (which is inconsequential in most cases) and styrofoam will give you a much better chance than no helmet at all. All this resistance is similar to the seatbelt argument that happened during the 50’s. I’m not arguing that cars aren’t dangerous, but they have a number legislated safety features that save lives on a regular basis. A helmet just makes sense when you’re doing anything like riding a bike or on a skateboard, and even Tony Hawk wears one for fuck sakes.
skating in halifax is like walking a tight roop 50 ft in the air… yes you can do it but people might say ohhh my god he could fall and get seriousally hurt even die…throw in a balancing pole/helmet and suddenly its a safe sport…not exactly…when you grow to love something(as much as i love skateboarding)you take the risks accociated with the sport before you step foot on that board and know that the possibility is there of getting hurt…5 words come to mind that seems to work in everyother part of the world where skateboarding takes part…SKATE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! there is said in 5 words you skate here your doing it at your own descresion…so now that theres a $600,000 park designed for skateboarding the goal should be fill that park to promote the sport further and help the sport grow… so now back to the tightroop …yes a balancing pole could belp you get across the line “safer” but if you feel cofortable with your abilities you should be allowed to walk that rope at your own risk cause like tightroop walking, skateboarding is a one man sport you take your abitlities to new heights everyday…laws are made when the publics liberties have been evaluated and implimented when governing bodies recognize these liberties as a risk…seems like the governing bodies have tightened haligonians liberties like a rope and instead of giving out poles for a fair balance they slap a summons totalling $135.75(of which i have 4) saying your a potential risk to your ownself when you ride that thing not wearing a helmeted…Skate at your own risk solves this dispute plain and simple but until the liberties are re-evaluated skateboarders, scooters,rollerladers and roller walk the tightroop but watch out for cops cause we would hate to see you lose your balance and fall cause you COULD GET HURT!!!
just have to add that i like the thrasher font and the fact the cover is jon skating with no helmet makes it even better ..keep up the awareness of this Bi-laws affect on the skateculture in halifax…its not about fasion, saftey, or deliquient youth(DR.Fever) its about self expression and fun and boths are are both are being taken away from the young and old who partake in skateboarding…
Supercop Currie at it again. Out to save the world on his white stallion.
This dog’s not wearing a helmet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnUecOavJfk
I fail to see why my tax dollars are spent paying police officers to ride around on bikes ambushing kids who are actually playing outside, then writing them fines, imposing bans & confiscating the source of their enjoyment. Stop ruining fun, you fucking bastards.
Yeah, FUCK DA POLICE. And the TAX MAN. And the PATRIARCHY.
Everyone get a grip. Maybe borrow someone’s grip tape.
It seems like nothing changes back in N.S.
I remember getting my first ticket for skateboarding on a Halifax street 17 years ago but….
Let me give you an example of how the police act to a similar law here in Whistler, B.C.
We don’t have a skateboard helmet law here( there would be mass protests) but we do have a helmet law for bicycles. Everybody owns a bike or two( some spending more on their downhill bikes than people spend on their cars) and everybody rides with a helmet when they feel they need to, at there own discretion. If someone is going downhill biking they ride with their helmet hanging off their handlebars till they get to the mountain and then strap it on. We have lots of cops around and I’ve never heard of them ticketing anyone in this situation.
I ride my cruiser bike(or skateboard) to work every day and have never been given a ticket.Why?
Because of common sense.
I look forward to my next trip back to Halifax when I’ll take my longboard out and skate aimlessly around in circles on a flat piece of the Commons’ pavement waiting eagerly for a ticket.
And the ticket I received 17 years ago. Instead of paying it I went to court with a friend and disputed it out of spite. We took over an hour of our courts valuable time…..a judge,crown attorney,and the ticket wielding cop. The judge let us off after a little prevarication on our part.
Makes you wonder what would happen if everyone who received a ticket chose to stand trial. I hope that judge is still on the bench.
Hey Langer! Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAxF4mJu0ac
Dr. Fever, I’m “one of those idiots that ride on the sidewalk”. Yes, I place others at risk but I take measures to decrease it. But why do it? Here’s a math equation I just worked out. Could be wrong, but I think I make a point:
biker + hater(you) = hater with a scraped leg. At worst a break.
car vs helmeted biker= a crushed biker (and helmet)
When doing complicated tricks on any city skate park, it should be law for skateboarders to wear a helmet. If doing something low risk like skating around a skate park, then no because the risk is low. In my opinion, as low as when I bike on the sidewalk sans helmet…and not get fined. And cops could (should?)have numerous times.
Alright Dandros, not only are you doing something illegal, if you ever hit someone like myself, I hope you get sued for everything you’re worth. “At worst a break”? Come on buddy, you can’t be serious.
I seriously hope I never break your leg Dr. Evil. But I seriously believe if I were to crash into you on the sidewalk, the worst case would be a cracked leg. While the worst case biking on the road, helmeted, is death. Off the top of my helmetless-head there have been at least two deaths resulting from car+biker on our city’s streets. Has anyone died on a Hali sidewalk from biker+walker? I would gladly bike on the road if there were more than two(?) streets with bike lanes in the whole HRM. But there isnt. So I take some exception that you call us idiots when it’s the smartest option.
The RCMP lurk around corners at the new skate park in Chester. This business of hiding in the shadows until someone dares to use the park for its intended purpose, this is unbelievable! Forget about the helmets for a moment- is this not misuse of expensive public services? Personal property is being confiscated on a daily basis and all age/ skill levels are being channeled into criminals. Skateboard cultural must be taken into account; this issue is not black & white. Revise the law! Pick your battles people!
-Jesse Watson
It’s not about the smartest option… it’s the law.
gilhen: But you have no problem with your tax dollars being spent on these kids visits to the ER with broken skulls and other injuries…I see.
I think the issue is that we are turning kids into criminals – and they are treated like criminals by the police. So you spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to develop a needed recreational facility, and then you ticket people who try to use it! Regardless of helmets – we are turning kids into criminals. Yes – there are cops lurking around skate parks in unmarked cars trying to write tickets. But we are talking about a recreational activity.
It may be THE LAW – but I think the point being made here is that THE LAW was written without much forethought or understanding. It may be THE LAW – but perhaps the law should be revisited, reformed, reconsidered.
Skateboarding is not a criminal activity. But skateboarders have been treated like criminals for decades. It’s pretty hard to argue about helmet use – “it saves lives! it prevents inuuries!” – but no one has spoken about skill level, age, etc – the other mitigating aspects of the issue. Think about it – people play street hockey in the road, with moving vehicles – and everyone applauds them as athletes. But you put your foot on a skateboard – you’re a criminal.
Lala, that`s the thing… Skateboarding is not a crime. Not wearing a helmet is. Not wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle is too, so should we consider age, skill level, etc with this law as well? I think I’ve mentioned this before… I think all professional skateboarders wear helmets, correct? That kinda blows that out of the water, eh?
Actually, practically NO professional skateboarders wear helmets. Sure, if it’s Danny Way jumping the Great Wall of China, he’s got a helmet on. If Tony Hawk is skating a vert ramp, he’s got a helmet on. But flip through any skate mag – none of these guys who are getting paid the big bucks, ie. professionals – are wearing helmets.
And again – my issue is with the law. It’s punitive. And please refer to the health care professionals who are saying most skateboarding injuries are knee and wrist injuries, not head injuries.
As for motorcyclists – they are travelling on motorized vehicles going upwards of 100mph on public roadways. They should be wearing helmets. A skateboard is a self-propelled recreation device, so I do believe that age and skill level are relevant.
bike x
Skateboarding – In 1998, more than 27,500 children and adolescents ages five to 14 were treated in north american hospital emergency rooms for skateboarding-related injuries.
and From CBC
Former Yukoner dies in skateboard accident
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 | 10:36 AM CT
CBC News
A 23-year-old man who grew up in the Yukon died in a skateboarding accident in Red Deer, Alta., after a dog wandered into his path.
Bob Samson, who had been living in Alberta for four years, was killed in the weekend incident while skateboarding down a steep hill.
Friends skating with Samson say that after the dog crossed his trail, he fell and hit his head on the pavement.
Samson’s parents say they’ll hold a memorial in Whitehorse, but have not yet set a date.
And reciving a fine does not make you a criminal. its actually a civial law, you do not recive a criminal record, just a fine for endangering the public (IE Your self and any one else who would be lible for causing your death because you are not wwearing a helmet)
just put it on. It’s so ridiculos to be opposed to wearing a helmet while doing dangerous sports. Your like a sky diver with out a parachute, a surfer with out a toe line and you deffinatley won’t realize how foolish you are being untill you crack your head open skateboarding, and end up in a wheel chair for the rest of your life. I’d like to see an ollie then..
Photos are one thing, those are in controlled environments, and done as a one-off. In any competitive event, they’re wearing helmets. Also, by stating that most injuries from skateboarding are wrist or knee injuries, it would seem that we need to legislate elbow and knee pads as well, hm?
ok here’s the deal, there are different types of skateboarding, I’m not going to try and explain it to you because you’re not going to get it, but there are different risks that go with each and THAT is why you see people wearing pads, they’re skating vert, everyone wears pads skating vert, you’re skating a 10-14 foot high obstacle it’s kind of common sense, but when you’re skating a 6 inch high curb it’s unnecessary and that, as Lala rightly pointed out, wasn’t taken into consideration when this bylaw, WHICH DOES EFFECT YOUR DRIVING RECORD, was put into place.
if they went about it the same way for other sports everyone who played hockey in the streets should have to wear the same gear as they do on the ice, hockey’s hockey right? and the game of football in the park on the weekend? better gear up i saw em on TV wearing some right big pads.
and dr. fever you’re totally talkin out of your ass…. pfft controlled environments and one offs, you’re funny.
Hello first and Last, Can I have conversation about helmets?
Skating vert, skating street, down hill long boarding, figure skating, wear a helmet. if you don’t you recive a fine.
Why, because police, fire and paramedics are busy people and we in society have regulations to try to minimize avoidable injuries, so our resources are not tied up, and can be allocated for real issues.
So if you skate with out a helmet, expect to eventually learn through your (or moms) wallet, that Its our public property and If you gonna skate board on it, your going to wear a helmet.
No one is making skate boarding a crime. Skate boarding is a very interesting sport, but a dangerous one. ITs an infraction to not wear a helmet because :
you can seriously injure your self falling from a moving board on to concrete. Physics tells us that a force will only stop when it meets an equal opposing force. That means jumping off a six inch curb at 10 kilometers an hour and missing the landing, you will indeed approach terminal velocity in the two seconds it takes for your head to accelerate into the road. really, it is no differnt then launching of a sixty five foot vert ramp missing and going head first into the ashvalut.
Vt = (Square route of)2MG/pACd
And no, skate boarding cannot affect your diving record. that was laughable, you don’t need a drivers license to skate board, so no, you cannot possibly have a driving record from a skate boarding infraction.
Put the helmet on and go for that sick heel flip, and forget about it. its the smartest move really.
First off, that’s Dale doing the layback air on the cover (not Jon as someone said)
I’ve skated for 25 years…. hit my head about 5 times (all while wearing a helmet because I knew what I was doing was risky … i.e. 11 foot vert ramps etc.) and knocked myself out cold wearing a helmet once that required a trip to the hospital.
My point is, I knew/know enough to wear my helmet when there is a risk… but I’ve street skate lots with out one on… not really needed to ollie up a curb or ledge.
The funny thing about the helmet law is the I got a ticket… while wearing FULL gear; Helmet, elbow and knee pads. I obviously resisted the ticket and was promptly handcuffed and treated like a dangerous criminal. I fought the ticket and won… because the cops didn’t show up at the hearing. I’m sure the reason they didn’t show was they didn’t want to feel stupid in front of the Judge for arresting a 37 year old Professional Engineer at a skatepark!? (I have a picture of me in handcuffs and full gear!)
Wearing a helment should be your decision. Maybe make it manditory for under 16, but still inforce it with common sense. Johnny tick-tacking in his cul-de-sac should be left alone!
I mostly ride the bowls, but once in a while cruise around the street area at the park… I feel like a dork with my helmet on… and I’m very used to wearing it! I totally understand why every skateboarder is opposed to wearing a helmet ALL the time!
Something needs to be done to change or relax the law!
arrrgh, HRM has so MANY ASININE BYLAWS!
don’t the cops have *better* things to do with their time (and OUR money)?? like investigating REAL crimes and perhaps do *something* about getting the damn GUNS off our streets?? but oh no – going after ACTUAL criminals (and keeping the public truly SAFE) would mean doing actual police WORK – instead the cops prefer to harass cyclists & boarders simply for enjoying a healthy activity that is totally HARMLESS to the public – whether a helmet is being worn or NOT.
look, we don’t all need coddling & nurse-maiding for f*cksake! if I *choose* to not wear a helmet, that is *MY* friggin choice. i’m tired and fed-up with goddamn authoritarian assholes *dictating* how other people should run their lives. LEAVE US ALONE!!! stop infringing on our civil liberties and MY *personal* freedom.
the FACT is, most people who skateboard and ride bikes are perfectly capable of boarding & riding safely – without any harmful incidents whatsoever – as we’ve been doing for generations *before* all these heavy-handed helmet laws were imposed on us. society cannot and should not mandate what people choose to do with their OWN bodies. and hey, if i end-up cracking my skull, so be it… it’s MY head, not yours!
i only wish MORE people would show some courage and defy HRM’s (many) stupid bylaws.
so yeah, HRM hear this – take your stupid bylaws and shove them up your arse!
btw, there are multitudes of studies showing that while helmets offer limited protection for certain types of head injuries, a lot of fatalities involving cyclists that are struck/killed by cars/trucks, result from massive injuries to the neck & spine and/or the lower body and internal organs. in other words, wearing a helmet would NOT have made a lick of difference, the cyclist would still be DEAD, just from being hit by the car – a very heavy object moving at a high rate of speed – no helmet can protect against that.
enforcing helmet laws has only served to significantly reduce the number of people *partaking in* healthy activities such as cycling and boarding. of course, the bureaucratic idiots who get some kind of twisted pleasure concocting these ridiculous laws will skew the data and say, ‘oh look, we’ve reduced head injuries’. well duh – FEWER people are boarding and riding their bikes b/c of draconian helmet laws!
if HRM were *serious* about providing safer conditions for cyclists and boarders, then the city would *invest* in our communities by constructing MORE recreational facilities, like skate parks for boarders, cycling trails and *dedicated bike lanes* for cyclists. i mean, c’mon – don’t just paint a few lines on busy streets and then expect cyclists to compete with lead-footed & impatient motorists, most of whom clearly resent sharing the road with cyclists anyway.
HRM should to take a good look at what Montreal has done for its cyclists – dedicated bike paths on one-way streets that traverse the city – it actually works! AND Montreal does NOT enforce any stupid helmet laws either.
of course, try telling that to the fools on city council, who’ve got ‘other’ things to worry about… like licensing people’s cats (of all things) and concocting even more stupid bylaws.
ugh, this city frustrates the hell out of me.
oh, and tell me something… how the hell does an inept tard like ‘Wiggum’ Beazley get to be chief of police anyway?!
Rafiki: do you realize how god damned stupid you just sounded? Falling off a curb and hitting your head is as bad as falling 60 feet onto your head? You must have extensive experience with hitting your head to consider that accurate.
But what else could one expect from someone named after a disney character? You are a pussy, period.
so i heard on the news yesterday that the cops were at it AGAIN… issuing MORE tickets to half a dozen or so kids at the skate park – for ‘having fun without a helmet’
what lame-ass fuckers… oh well, i guess there’s not enough gun crime and murders in the city to keep the cops busy these days.
just stupidity they hole helmet law thing one time I had a cop take my board to his personal house instead of evidence I was pissed about the who thing.
Come on folks you know it is easier for the HRM popo to go after defenseless ‘often without disposable money’ youth than to go after the real criminals in this here town…..youth are easy prey for those who have minimalist work ethic….
My son got a ticket for not wearing a helmet and as he argued with the copper he pointed out the elder man driving by on his bike with no helmet and the copper did nussing…..
The sad thing is my son was returning the stolen bike to me so I could take it to the police station..so while we were doing our civic duty I was so mad about the ticket I biffed the bike on the police lawn and walked away…. we got no thanks for returning a stolen bike my son bought not knowing it was stolen..so my son paid twice-the bike and then ticket- because of ‘ageist’ police in the HRM…….
To date my son refuses to pay the ticket and I support him on that decision.
He also pointed out during this hearing that we watched the coppers watch 4 children on bikes cross the Barrrington Street busy road with no helmets..the adjudicator said the police must have been busy…..yes you read that right….the police who were busy gabbing in their car doing nussing…were too busy to stop these children from crossing a busy street where 18 wheelers turn over, and they had no helmets on….
The police enforce the law when it suits their needs and agenda and nothing more…..
PLEASE exercise your right to a hearing…if you feel you were done wrong by….go to court and fight….
If the tax payers do not mind paying the wages of lazy police then they wont mind you tying up the courts either……
Rafiki is a swahili word that means friend, it was here long befour disney you numb skull. to: (f**k the coast)
how cultured of you
http://www.thrashermagazine.com/StokeOfThe…
I love skateboarding and the point is im gonna do it with or without a helmet but of course i prefer without.
http://www.secretstoskateboarding.net