Im sick of overweight cops and inactive people telling me to throw on a helmet when I ride my skateboard. They say the helmet law is in place to protect me from becoming a vegetable and to protect them from throwing all there tax dollars my way if I do hit my head.
Funny that only 20% of Nova Scotias population is considered active, (Health Canada). Why isnt there a law fining people $135.75 when they go sit in front of a TV or computer on a beautiful day? God knows we are already paying more for heart attack and stroke patients this year than for a kid put on life support because they hit there head while skating, biking, or rollerblading.
—I’m going skating
This article appears in May 7-13, 2009.
Sounds like you’re already brain dead buddy….go for it!!
Lots of money grabs get disguised as legit legislation during hard economic times. If things get any tighter they’ll no doubt have the joggers in Point Pleasant in helmets.
Alright, if you choose to not wear a helmet, you should sign a waiver that when you get a concussion, or worse, you are totally responsible for all costs associated medical procedures. Seems fair, given that you’re going to end up injured eventually.
Sure Op I agree with you. It is a ridiculos law. but what do you gain by not wearing a helmet? By wearing one you have the confidance in knowing if you do take a spill your head wil be protected. And that allows you to go for it a bit more, with out holding back. in the park, or just getting speed on the street. You look alot cooler with the helmet on, than you would with your brains smeared on a side walk.
…same OP?
http://www.thecoast.ca/LovetheWayWeBitch/a…
Anyway, Dr. Fever’s suggestion is not bad, but I say you would have to extend such waivers to driving cars too. Car crashes cause a lot of hospital visits, and the stats on their effects on health are on tap.
Of course, fining people for sitting around is not a terrible idea in theory, but it is totally unenforceable. Maybe we should do the reverse, though…require a certain amount of exercise per month, say, to be included in the health care system.
Discuss… lol
Take those sneakers off too,
get a real feel for the board.
Actually Dogma, there are a number of already legislated safety features that would omit those accidents. A skateboard or a bike aren’t like a car; a car has crash zones. You’re just as likely to get a concussion from skateboarding, etc. as you are while playing hockey. A hockey player wears a helmet and from what I recall, most if not all competitive skateboarders wear helmets… But of course, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Did you mean to channel Dennis Miller, Dr. Fever? If so…fantastic.
Anyway, yes, there are enforced safety standards for cars, skateboarding, and (maybe?) hockey, but driving, skateboarding, and playing hockey in accordance with all of the rules is still dangerous compared to many other activities.
Basically, I’m saying we should all have to wear these to leave our homes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3CzYw5-qdA…
I don’t know anybody, child nor adult, who likes to be told what to do ESPECIALLY when told to get off their ass. Do you? hehe
I feel the OP’s frustration here. We should nix the bylaw and look at a health-specific tax on sporting equipment. I think the waiver idea is a bad idea. What do we do when we suspect the injured cannot pay and has signed a waiver? Do you know how many American’s financial lives are ruined forever and ever given a fee-for-use health care system? No need to cause ruin in people’s lives just like there’s no need for people to do dangerous things but we value freedom more than we value health care dollars. Tough issue.
…from a mom who’s paid THROUGH THE NOSE for fines just like this one – skateboarding with no helmet, skateboarding on public concrete, skateboarding on public roadways (in a bum-fuck nowhere town on a bum-fuck nowhere road).
a ‘skateboarding on public concrete’ fine?!
It’s public. It’s concrete. …sounds like a great fit for skateboarding if you are not getting in anyone’s way.
…and why would they mention the material…especially one that is not fragile or easily worn or marked? That’s asinine.
What’s the matter Kay your kids not listening to you. And then from the sounds of it you paid their fines. Good parenting. Kids are laughing all the way to the bank.
Absolutely, Dogma. If they’re more dangerous than most activities, wouldn’t one want to protect yourself as much as you can? I’m just saying, it’s good sense to protect your noggin when you are flying around, all over concrete, and in the society we live in, we need to legislate common sense. Just because we all rode bikes and skateboards without helmets 20 years ago, doesn’t mean it was safe. Besides, for the most part, the resistance to the helmet issue is that it’ll mess up the hair, or it doesn’t look cool. I wonder if looking cool would be relevant when you have no brain function after your head hits the pavement…
Nice dig, Bro Tim (please get over me… today) but no, it’s always been a calculated risk. I weighed out healthy-active-kid against play-Nintendo-and-eat-kid and find myself quite happy to encourage him even he’s fined on his way to or from the skate park. Considering how many times he’s been caught versus how many times he actually broke skateboarding laws (what a stupid thing to have)… we’re pretty lucky. For the record, he paid off his own fines (when it was time to get a drivers license). The unfortunate thing is resenting the bylaw and showing my child how to make a calculation to determine the risks of breaking it.
Another perspective… If 9 out of 10 toddlers bumped their heads while learning to walk do you think such a bylaw should be proposed to have them wear helmets? Why don’t we? Because the dangerous activity (walking) takes place in the home. We have to admit, if we packed our toddlers in packing and helmets they couldn’t hurt themselves and therefore reduce the number of health care dollars being spent for these sorts of injuries. But we don’t tell parents how to raise their children… or do we? This is not like seat belts where riding in a car is riding in a lethal weapon, same goes for motorcycles. This is more like tobogganing. How many people, adults and children alike, wear helmets while tobogganing or skiing. Many do but the point is, after all the awareness our government has created over head/brain injuries and helmet law, these are calculated risks taken by an adult.
We did not create Canada so we can be dictated to. I resent this bylaw no matter how many cracked heads have been avoided. In fact, it makes me want to crack some heads.
Afterthought: How many of us would have even been born if rollerskaters of the 70/80’s were forced to wear helmets at the rollercade?
Even better, teach your kids it’s ok to break the law if they can get away with it. like the courts aren’t busy enough. parent of the year award for you. What a douche.
People chose to break municipal law and traffic law all the time. Doesn’t make them criminals. Doesn’t make them irresponsible parents either. It’s a calculated risk to speed, to park where prohibited or, hey here’s a good’n, to ride your bike or skateboard on the sidewalk.
My son is healthy, happy and a successful free thinking Canadian. What exactly did I do wrong? Come on. Bless me with your wisdom since the turkey’s all ready well done, out of the oven and paying taxes of his own. Actually, just go fuck yourself, Bro Tim. Maybe it will help you get over me.
Kay you really think alot about yourself (no one else here does). A perfect specimen of a paranoid schitzo, who thinks the world should bend to them. When your kid is killed, don’t come whining or blame the cops. What a maroon.
One thing I hate about having a publicly funded heath-care system is that fact that b/c everyone contributes, everyone feels they have the right to pass judgment on the financial implications of others behavior. It seems to me that we live in an increasingly interventionist society were cost accounts are the initiators of public policy. People seem to be more than willing to go along with any bylaw as long as they can be convinced that they will financially benefit in some sort of indirect way. But where does this stop!
Is it plausible that in the future we will see the government decide to license smokers and enforce annual chest x-rays on anyone smoking ten years. Or what about requiring mandatory mammography’s for women over forty with the intention of being able to earlier detect breast cancer and thus save money!! What this helmet bylaw essentially implies is that Nova Scotia legislators distrust their own citizen’s ability to decide for THEMSELVES whether their cycling, skateboard or rollerblading warrants the use of a helmet. It’s no wonder why people in our society seem to be incapable of appropriately recognizing and managing risk.
I love maroon… such a bold colour!
WHO’S THE MORON HERE? Go back to bed, Bro. I just described something perfectly reasonable and listen to you… Stop taking Stupid Pills and GET OVER MY HANDLE.
machrist.. AWESOME!!!
Fever writes, “the resistance to the helmet issue is that it’ll mess up the hair, or it doesn’t look cool”
I don’t agree. I think the resistance comes from free thinking adults being told what to do. It hardly matters how good it is for them. To provide contrast, there’s a reason tobacco is not illegal and this is it. We live in “the land of the free” and we instinctively want to keep it that way.
Machrist I very much agree with you. I do not think that the issue of cost to the healthcare system should enter into the helmet debate. It is contrary to the spirit of UNIVERSAL health care. That said, the health and safety of the public is an issue that the government should be involved in. Life-saving and injury preventing devices, like seatbelts, should be promoted and in some cases legislated. I don’t think it is necessary for skateboarders. The numbers don’t really make sense. If there are very few head injuries related to skateboarding per year, then it doesn’t seem necessary to enact a helmet law. That’s not to say that wearing a helmet isn’t a great idea, because it is. I just don’t think the gov’t needs to legislate it. I like to be free to make dumb decisions once in a while, especially decisions that really only affect me and my health.
Thumbs up to helmets; thumbs down to skateboard helmet laws.
Also, since it is a law and everyone knows it’s a law, don’t bitch about getting busted. At least not to me. Go lobby the Government to repeal the by-law…I’ll even sign your petition.
Well hell let’s take seat belts out, gone are the helmets, and those pesky life jackets just get in the goddamn way.
Actually Miles, you should talk to someone who works in the trauma department of the IWK. The numbers of kids who come in every year with head injuries due to bicycling, skateboarding, rollerblading, etc. without a helmet is ASTOUNDING. They have an emergency pediatrician on staff there who fell and hit his head while snowboarding in Alberta and firmly believes he would be dead if not for his helmet. He still has the shattered pieces of it.
I know skateboarding and snowboarding are two different activities, but the risk would be very comparable.
To me it doesn’t seem like helmet laws are interfering with my ability to be a free-thinking person. It makes sense to me to protect myself as best I can when engaging in behaviour that carries a certain amount of risk.
Obviously, Jenny, the helmet bylaw is ASTOUNDINGLY ineffective. For that reason alone it should be scrapped. Awareness and education is the key here, not Big Brother living life or raising your kids for you.
mmmm Stupid Pills are yummy, eh Bro?
the war on drugs is ASTOUNDINGLY ineffective… for that reason alone it should be scrapped. Awareness and education is the key here, not Big Brother living life or raising your kids for you.
zZz, you’re sleeping with Bro Tim, right? Stay out of his pills!
excellent defense.
both are ineffective, both damage/ruin lives, both have heavy consequences to the taxpayer.
way I see it, either your argument is false or we’re both right.
To be clear: I think seatbelts and helmet laws for bikes are a good idea. I think it is smart to wear a helmet when skateboarding, especially if you are young and inexperienced or if you are very experienced and performing more dangerous tricks. HELMETS ARE GOOD.
What I am taking exception to is only the by-law that says skateboarders need to wear helmets. The only reason I am taking exception to it is that I have not seen the numbers that say it is worth it. If you tell me that 80% of all sports related head injuries are due to skateboarding, then we have a problem and a law may be necessary if education and safety promotion fail. If you tell me that of all the head injuries that pass through the IWK each year, only 0.5% are due to skateboarding…I’m not so sure that needs a by-law. I can easily be convinced to change my mind on this issue if I see the data.
Ahhhh helmet laws, what a slippery slope. I won’t bore you with tales of friends past, who are now vegtables, or dead (some of both) because, “helmet laws suck” just like the bumper stickers on their bikes said. Maybe asking a trauma surgeon what his experience is? All I know, is that a very expensive helmet saved my life…says who? certainly not me, I have to take the ambulance attendant and doctors word for it. I was only doing 50kmph. A distracted person cut me off…over the bars I went..headfirst..no options…happened in less than a second. Do I like wearing a helmet? not really. If they changed the laws so I did not have to wear one would I? Of course. I cherish and respect my loved ones too much. It is not all about me. Of course I could be biased and dead wrong. For information, stats, and information, just Google; “head trauma due to skateboarding accidents” days and days of good stuff there.
There are good laws, bad laws, and just plain stupid laws, but helmet laws are there to protect us from our own stupidity. How many remember the bitching and howling about seat belts? People still think wearing a seatbelt is pointless in 2009. Smoking laws? same same. We are just not that bright as a species, and have a propensity for self destruction. Sometimes, we need laws to protect us from ourselves.
hehe okay, let’s see… fried brains, lying, prostitution, the need to carry arms in Canada, gun fights and B&E’s in your neighborhood resulting from the use of crack cocaine versus the tight abs and excellent bodies resulting from skateboarding. Sure, these are comparable calculated risks to take. Yup. Let’s all take some Stupid Pills and try.
Not everybody who tries crack becomes addicted (although most do) whereas not everybody who rides suffers head injury. Since that example is favored only by the stupid pills should we carry on and bring life jackets and seat belts into the discussion or should we simply soften it to compare only marijane (legal) and alcohol (also legal) to skateboarding without a helmet (not legal)?
Out of curiosity Kay, what evidence do you have to say it’s astoundingly ineffective?
If we are goig to be truely safe ! We need seatbelts on Motorcycles & helmits for anyone in a motor vehicle
Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to make us wear steel toed footwear constantly either.
I just want you all to be safe….”honey where’s the bubble wrap ? I wanna get ready to go for a walk ! ! !
Morre & Kay –
Perhpas you should go visit the Brain Repair Centre at Capital Health. Spend a few minutes talking with someone who’s suffered a head injury from one of these activities.
You’ll see it’s not about “bubble wrapping”. It’s about taking reasonable precautions during activities that carry a certain amount of risk.
Jennie, my evidence (and language) was pulled from YOUR post. The law is in place yet look what you wrote!
Flyingbrick touches on what an important issue this is and I encourage all to rent iRobot and see if laws should really be created to protect human beings from themselves. I realize it’s a fictional scenario but the principal is the same. We value freedom MORE than we value safety and, if we’re smart, we’ll keep it that way.
That said… I made my kid wear a goddam helmet but he wouldn’t put it on until he got to the public skate park which listed helmets as required to use the facility, which is just fine with me. If we’re going to create a public place just for this purpose we should take the extra steps required to ensure their safety while they’re there. This, however, should be park policy and NOT law to govern over every “free thinking” individuals everywhere and anywhere.
A great article for anyone who is interested! It outlines a lot of the discussion here in relation to personal choices, unintended consequences, the ambiguity of statistics, draw your own conclusions. Props to the coast;
http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/skate-free-…
Yeah, it is a good article. It’s the ambiguity of statistics in there that made me change my mind a bit about the issue.
2x = no helmet/wipeout(concussion)
2X No helmet
—- = ————–
2X No frigging brain
X = No brain
my argument wasn’t against the effects, it was against the way it’s combated… same as your argument. They create and enforce a law to prevent people from doing stupid things that should be obvious.
Neither law works, so why have them?
Education should be key…
basically, I’m agreeing with your argument and using it to support mine.
I think that’s the thing that keeps getting missed here. I don’t see anyone saying helmets are not a good idea. People are discussing the most effective way to get people to wear them.
I’m sorry zZz, I just don’t have enough stupid pills to put skateboarding helmet law under the same protective principals behind the war on drugs (keeping in mind I’m a huge supporter of legalized MJ). And I think the population of our federal prisons will give you some major stats on what kind of difference the “war on drugs” is making (a global issue). If you can find as many or even 50% as many head injuries resulting from an unobserved or a missing skateboard helmet law, you just let us know, okay?
kay, first: you don’t have the fucking pills because you ingest them like Andy Dick at a cock sucking competition.
second, if you think the war on drugs is coming to an end any time soon, you’re more delusional than I thought. Governments globally are not winning. hell, what was that stat? half of canadians have tried illegal drugs… geez, even if it was 1/3 or 1/4…. then wow, winning that war there aren’t they?
Andy Dick? Excuse me? What exactly does cock sucking have to do with helmet law? Quite a leap there zZz, even for you, bitch! Did you say that because there is NO reasonable relationship between helmet law and dope?
Yeah, we’ll never win the war on drugs until weed (AKA grass, Rafiki) is put in it’s rightful place. I’ll bet 90% of the 50% who said they tried, tried pot… and who really cares? That stat doesn’t mean anything. I care about the war on drugs only when we’re talkin’ substances harmful to human beings. Put that in your helmet and have a very nice day.
It was a simile Kay. We learned those in grade school when we weren’t being bullied.
so they tried pot… an illegal substance yet so readily available half the people in the country have come in contact with it. why have it against the law if it’s so readily available?
it’s a law that should be scrapped.
helmet law… how many people get away with not wearing one? plenty, I see people every decent day skateboarding and biking without one on. why have it against the law if it’s not working?
TELL people: you do this, you’ll get hurt or at least impacted….
don’t create laws to enforce common sense.
show pics of people who’ve cracked their head open.
show pics of strung out addicts OD-ing for the 12th time.
they’ll think twice about the impact rather than think about avoiding the cops at all costs.
Cops are there to enforce laws… but the laws should be there for the people… not to keep darwin candidates from hurting themselves.
Consider this:
The first testicular guard “Cup” was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974.
It took 100 years for men to realize that the brain is also important.
make everyone wear helmets, kids playing street hockey, men playing football in the park, the beer league baseball teams. they all have to wear helmets when they’re on TV so what makes it ok to not wear one when they play the sport outside of the stadium?
tell you what, make them all wear helmets and then maybe this law could be looked at as fair. until then people who are being marginalized and ignored are entitled to their opinions.
not everyone enjoys leading a boring life like the insanely vocal minority do. This is their fun, I mean seriously look at the time you people have spent arguing over this online, get outside and do something active. Just don’t forget your bubble wrap body suit, it’s dangerous out there.
Cigarettes and booze are going to cost OUR health care system way more then a few people who crack their skulls doing something that keeps them fit and healthy.
Weigh out the pros and cons of a generation of active people’s toll on YOU PRECIOUS health care system versus a generation of scared, inactive fat asses who are need quadruple bypasses and smoke cigarettes and drink coffee all day.