Sledging bans - coming to a town near you?

[Pete]

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...."

[I am Al]

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.

[cbtengr]

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.

[Joker]

Wotdafu... Danged Brits need to learn to spell. I thought they were running around with sledgehammers! They were talking about outlawing knives not long ago...

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by Joker

Wotdafu... Danged Brits need to learn to spell. I thought they were running around with sledgehammers! They were talking about outlawing knives not long ago...

Whew !!!!! .... Glad I wasn't the only one wondering if it was a spelling error.

[TOMAHAWK9521]

I thought the author was writing in a Cockney accent.

[RomanCandle]

Originally Posted by Joker

Wotdafu... Danged Brits need to learn to spell. I thought they were running around with sledgehammers! They were talking about outlawing knives not long ago...

Whew, I thought the game of Cricket was finally taking PC too far..

http://top20cricketsledges.blogspot.com

[Golf1echo]

They haven't banned sledding here... Happy Winterskol everyone!