View Full Version : Sledging bans - coming to a town near you?
Sledging bans - coming to a town near you?
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-30720801
"The Associated Press reports that municipal officials in places like Iowa, New Jersey, Nebraska and Indiana are worried about lawsuits when children are injured in sledging accidents. They often cite a 2000 incident in which the family of a girl in Omaha, Nebraska, won a $2m (£1.32m) judgement against the city after she was paralysed while sledding in a local park...."
Interesting story - but you have to read way down in the story to get...
"...The state supreme court that upheld the judgement, for instance, found that the city had planted the tree that caused the girl's injury at the base of the popular sledging hill despite warnings from neighbours and the city forester.
"The city, as the owner of a public park historically used for sledding, knew that the crab apple trees posed a risk to those who used the park for sledding, yet took no action to decrease or eliminate the risk," the court ruled...."
At least for the Omaha case, this is a case of the press twisting the headlines to make a story (imagine that).
The City of Omaha was sued because they planted trees across the bottom of a very long sledding hill. The hill was in a city park where the city knew it was a sledding hill, it has been publicized by the city for years as a sledding hill, and even before the city publicized it, it had been used for decades for sledding. What genius in the parks and rec dept thought planting trees at the bottom of a sledding run was a good idea??
IIRC (and like you mentioned about the end of the article), the court found the city negligent specifically for stupidly planting the trees in a known sledding run, not because some kid happened to randomly get hurt while out sledding.
Even with the suit, Omaha didn't ban sledding. They put signs up that said "sled at your own risk." I always kinda thought it was that way already.
I grew up sledding in Iowa, if we went somewhere in the winter we hauled our sleds with us. That has been more than 50 years ago. Us three boys would drag those sleds miles to get to a decent hill on which to sled down.
Personally I cannot blame these towns for banning sledding on city property, we have lived for quite sometime in a society that is largely unwilling to take any personal responsibility for the outcome of our actions. Ultimately it is the taxpayer who is on the hook when little Johnny gets hurt on city property.
Wotdafu... Danged Brits need to learn to spell. I thought they were running around with sledgehammers!:p They were talking about outlawing knives not long ago...
Wotdafu... Danged Brits need to learn to spell. I thought they were running around with sledgehammers!:p They were talking about outlawing knives not long ago...
Whew !!!!! .... Glad I wasn't the only one wondering if it was a spelling error. :p :D
TOMAHAWK9521
01-09-2015, 20:28
I thought the author was writing in a Cockney accent.
Gallagher was into sledging!
Gallagher was into sledging!
:D Still is, I reckon. Born at Ft. Bragg, BTW.
Pat
x SF med
01-09-2015, 22:40
We had a hill in my hometown nicknamed "suicide" where we sledded.... it had gullies, went through the woods and had a tree in the middle of a hairpin turn in the middle of the run through the trees, oh it ended up on a road and if you could cross the road you went through cattails and ended up in a tidal creek - water or mud depending on moon phase if you turned right, you went in a pond, or on the ice on the pond, depending. We had more than our share of injuries - broken bones, knocked out teeth, stitches... nobody sued... because our parents told us....
You sled on Suicide Hill, you walk yourself down to Drs . Stopford & Ward (husband and wife, we grew up with their kids), it's only a mile and a half, so if it's your leg, your friends and brothers can put you on a sled and drag you.
Sledding builds character.
Sledding builds character.
Sledging breaks characters. :D
Sledding builds character.
Sledging breaks characters. :D
Ugh ....
RomanCandle
01-10-2015, 15:47
Wotdafu... Danged Brits need to learn to spell. I thought they were running around with sledgehammers!:p They were talking about outlawing knives not long ago...
Whew, I thought the game of Cricket was finally taking PC too far.. :D
http://top20cricketsledges.blogspot.com
Golf1echo
01-10-2015, 16:36
They haven't banned sledding here... Happy Winterskol everyone! :D
My favorite 'sled' was an inverted car hood altho I did have a 'Flexible Flyer'...you'd get 4 or 5 kids and hook your feet in the steering mechanism of the guy behind you and create a train.....then you always had fun monumental wreck at the end.
If someone didn't bleed it was a wasted effort.
No wonder we are raising a generation of pussy's.
x SF med
01-10-2015, 23:47
Blood at the end of the day was a requirement when we went out to play... rock fights, falling out of trees, wrestling, tackle football without pads and other more dangerous stuff....
Rumblyguts
01-11-2015, 09:45
"Mom, glad you weren't there today" was a common phrase after I came back from sledding with a limp. Every good sledding hill needs a tree to avoid, erm to test your steering skills.
Took the kids to the local sledding hill yesterday. Super fast, and it doesn't have a smooth transition from the hill to the run-out area. Many sleds nosed-into the snow resulting in hats one way, sleds the other, and stunned kids cartwheeling with the WTF just happend look, followed shortly thereafter by them charging right back up the hill. :lifter:
IN theory, couldn't the city be open for lawsuit for not choosing a "safe" hill with a propper run-out?
I also wonder about rural vs. urban thought prcesses as well.
"
....
IN theory, couldn't the city be open for lawsuit for not choosing a "safe" hill with a propper run-out?
I also wonder about rural vs. urban thought prcesses as well.
If you go back the original article that was on the BBC website, I think there's a flaw in the article. IMO, it's misquoting a Nebraska case (happened where I live) to make it sound like the city got sued because some kid randomly got hurt sledding.
In Omaha anyway, that wasn't the case. There's a well known sledding hill at a large city park here. The hill is maybe 1/3 to 1/2 mile long. You can really get some speed up on the hill.
The "Reader's Digest" version is someone in the Park and Rec department of the city wanted to plant trees on the run out of this sledding hill. The city had comments from both citizens and professionals that said if they planted trees, someone was going to get hurt. Someone in the city decided "We don't care. Nobody's going to tell us what to do. Plant the trees anyway." They did. A kid hit one of the trees and was paralyzed.
The parents of the paralyzed kid sued for negligence to cover medical expenses and won. They won in the initial trial and at every appeal. All the way to the State Supreme Court. IIRC, NE has a max damage limitation for cities of $2 million. That's what the city got sued for. That's what the city lost.
I'm not an attorney (maybe one of the attorneys here can comment), but I'm pretty sure you could take sledding out of this altogether. The city had information if they did something, there was a probability someone would get badly hurt. The city said they didn't care and did it anyway. Someone was paralyzed because of the city's actions. The paralyzed person sued for negligence and won.
The article said it was about sledding. Sledding was incidental to the whole deal. It was about negligence.
I also wonder about rural vs. urban thought prcesses as well.
Stairs?
Stairs?
Already been done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4KUF4klKrU
:lifter
Rumblyguts
01-11-2015, 17:09
re: the gross negligence/planting trees,
Even though the city planted the tree, at a known sledding hill, I still think it falls in the gray area of "tough luck" for the child. Also, the parent should take some responsibility for letting their kid sled there in the first place. The rec hill here in town that I mentioned was recently created. Perhaps the county is off the hook since this lack of transition was not previously known; perhaps the hill will be changed; perhaps there's a different mentality here?
Stairs?
Nah,
Was stereotyping and going trying o think broader about "rurals" more accepting of bumps and bruises vs. "urban folks" who need padding and contracts for everything.
This is something that's been noticed where I work. Rural kids tend to be more at home and safer in the woods, while "urban" kids tend to be like crazed monsters in the woods - they haven't learned "hard knock" lessons. Also noted when giving the bowsaws ;) Unstructured vs. structured; let them loose vs. helicopter parents; risk taking vs. risk adverse; lack of risk-taking showing up later in life, etc. Eh, I'm rambling. I'll never forget going past a sledding hill in suburbia where they were handing out helmets on a wide open slope.