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A Winter Wonderland Of Fear: US Cities To Ban Unregulated Sledding
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Shutting down sledding hills is inspired by the same sort of simpering caution that keeps Americans shoeless in airport security lines and, closer to home, keeps parents from letting their kids walk a few blocks to school alone, despite the fact that America today is as safe as the longed-for “Leave It to Beaver” golden age.
– From The Economist article: Home of the Unbrave
It’s winter in the northern hemisphere, which means that countless hordes of children and their parents are excited to engage in that timeless pursuit of youthful seasonal pleasure: sledding. Many of us who grew up in colder climates have gone sledding at least once or twice. Yes it can be dangerous at times, but so are many of the other activities young rambunctious kids partake in. That’s part of being a child. Indeed, it’s part of life in general unless you want to stay cooped up in your cubicle or home 24/7.
As crazy as it may sound, many cities across the U.S. are actually moving to ban sledding within their municipalities. The Associated Press reported the following earlier this week:
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — As anyone who has grown up around snow knows, part of the fun of sledding is the risk of soaring off a jump or careening around a tree.
But faced with the potential bill from sledding injuries, some cities have opted to close hills rather than risk large liability claims.
No one tracks how many cities have banned or limited sledding, but the list grows every year. One of the latest is in Dubuque, Iowa, where the City Council is moving ahead with a plan to ban sledding in all but two of its 50 parks.
“We have all kinds of parks that have hills on them,” said Marie Ware, Dubuque’s leisure services manager. “We can’t manage the risk at all of those places.”
In Omaha, the city banned sledding at a popular hill as a test one winter after losing a lawsuit, but decided to allow it again after most people ignored the restriction.
“It wasn’t practical,” assistant city attorney Tom Mumgaard said. “People wouldn’t abide by the ban.”
Instead, the city has posted signs warning of sledding risks and workers at the site of the failed ban put pads around posts and hay bales around trees. Mumgaard said courts in Nebraska have decided cities must protect people, even if they make poor choices.
The above seems like a far more reasonable response than an outright ban.
Most people realize that cities must restrict potentially dangerous activities to protect people and guard against costly lawsuits, said Kenneth Bond, a New York lawyer who represents local governments. In the past, people might have embraced a Wild West philosophy of individuals being solely responsible for their actions, but now they expect government to prevent dangers whenever possible.
“It’s a great idea on the frontier, but we don’t live on the frontier anymore,” Bond said.
I’ll tell you what. If we’ve lost our national spirit to such a degree that we truly agree with Mr. Bond’s sentiments, then we are in much bigger trouble than I imagined. That said, I’m not convinced his conclusions are representative. True, his words may reflect the sentiment of a New York lawyer, but I believe the frontier spirit still remains alive and well in many parts of the nation, albeit admittedly a bit suppressed and latent at the moment.
While the AP story largely blames the sled banning trend on litigation fears, a writer at The Economist takes a slightly different tack. One that I happen to agree with. For example:
This crackdown on unregulated sledding seems of a piece with the recent American tendency to curb marginally perilous childhood pleasures, such as tricycling without body armour or venturing alone into the back garden without a Mossad-trained security detail. Restrictions on sledding, which often takes place on municipal lands, at least have an apparently clear public basis: fear of city-budget sapping lawsuits.
Several years ago my colleague, striking a similar note, lamented that liability concerns are taking the fun out of American public swimming holes and playgrounds, and endorsed the somewhat saner balance of risk and regulations he enjoys as a resident of the Netherlands. In response, Kevin Drum of Mother Jones drew up a broad-brush list of differences between American and European legal systems, which would seemingly account for why Americans are suing themselves into a society of guardrail-happy worry-warts.
All this seems to help explain the putative difference between America and its European peers. But does this difference really exist? According to a study by Mark Ramseyer of Harvard Law School and Eric B. Rasmusen at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, “Americans do not file an unusually high number of law suits. They do not employ large numbers of judges or lawyers. They do not pay more than people in comparable countries to enforce contracts.
Perhaps this is not as surprising as it may seem. Americans are not so much unusually litigious as unusually fearful, and this fearfulness extends to the prospect of lawsuits. The occasional jaw-dropping award in a personal injury or class-action lawsuit creates, like the occasional terrorist attack, a salient sense of pervasive danger. It’s not that Dubuque or Des Moines suddenly faces a new and extraordinary risk of getting sued into oblivion. It’s just that the risk, as small as it is, now looms larger in the imagination, becoming too great for the no-longer-bold American spirit to bear. Shutting down sledding hills is inspired by the same sort of simpering caution that keeps Americans shoeless in airport security lines and, closer to home, keeps parents from letting their kids walk a few blocks to school alone, despite the fact that America today is as safe as the longed-for “Leave It to Beaver” golden age.
As an American (and Iowan!) I find this sort of flinching risk-aversion profoundly embarrassing. We might like to locate the blame for things like sledding bans somewhere out there in the unruly tort system (and indeed Messrs Ramseyer and Rasmusen do), but we must face the possibility that the blame also lies within. Perhaps it’s better to be safe than sorry, but one wonders whether we won’t become sorry to have made such a fetish of staying safe.
Well said.
For more articles on America’s progression toward a cowering, addled nanny-state, read:
The “Nanny States of America” – Mother Arrested for Allowing 7-Year-Old Son Walk to Park Alone
Connecticut Man Arrested for “Passive Aggressive” Behavior to a Watermelon
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Glad that I was able to enjoy sledding in my youth (even though I busted my mouth a couple of times), before the US became a Fascist police state.
Fascism? We need "White Man's Fascism" in this country to deal with the liberal "progressive" scum bags. I fully support killing millions of leftists here in the US andy ou're not going to get that done under anything but a little bit of gold ol' Fascism.
So do you have to take a test or what.
Yes, but it's a simple test.
Question 1) Are you capable of pressing a gun barrel to the head of a liberal/progressive/communist/globalist/nanny-stater scum bag and then pull the trigger? Y N
If you answered Y you're in.
Best ZH trolling comment eva! Oh wait, this ZHer was fo real (and likely represents the majority opinion of this once fine financial blog). I might as well get my financial news at FreeRepublic or Stormfront.
Come on now Red Neck Repugnicant you can do better than that.
I think you are taking that comment a little too serious...This is a comedy gold thread. I am still laughing about the guy who said he likes to naked sled, but that if you do, you better tie your nuts and dong to your neck...LOL!
The simple solution is to criminalize the lawsuits and punish those who have filed them, along with the lawyers, judges, and and other court staff, with extreme brutality. A nation with LEADERSHIP as opposed to idiotic and discredited democracy would would have these scum bag lawyers and other worthless pencil pushing self-important retards exterminated with no regard to their so called "human rights". It's time to get rid of the parasites.
One thing about socilist just like the puritans, that is a fact. They live in fear that someone somewhere may be enjoying themselves!
We will have none of that, we want everyone equally miserable!
Naked Sledging is my tipple but remember to tie up your cock and balls around your neck 'cause if they get trapped under the sledge it can be very painful and if your with your partner and she has big tits best wear some head gear.
"In the past, people might have embraced a Wild West philosophy of individuals being solely responsible for their actions, but now they expect government to prevent dangers whenever possible."
Oh, save me, Nanny Gubmint!
I long for the days of the wild west. Somebody tried to rustle your cattle, you shot them dead and left them laying there for the buzzards. You didn't have da gubmint coming after you for discharging your firearm within town limits. You didn't have civil rights groups raising a stink because the buzzard-food cattle rustler was a "person of color" who was really a gentle giant and was turning his life around. You didn't have to sell the entire herd that you were trying to protect so you could pay a stinkin' lawyer's fee. What did we have then that we don't have now? Oh yeah, freedom.
When I was a kid, we had an above ground backyard swimming pool with a deck that had a bench on it. I used to dive from the top of that bench (which was a good eight feet above the pool) into water that was only four feet deep. I never once got hurt. Nowadays, they are removing diving boards from all public pools because the insurance cost is too prohibitive for most municipal gubmints to pay. You know why that insurance costs so much? Because of lawyers. Lawyers who haunt ERs and encourage injury victims to sue the municipality because the diving board was too high, there weren't signs posted in twelve languages describing the myriad dangers of diving, there weren't any safety rails around the top of the diving platform, etc. So we have lawyers on one side suing the crap out of anything that moves, and lawyers on the other side writing ever-more restrictive laws governing what Nanny Gubmint says we are allowed to do. Shakespeare said it best. Let's kill all the lawyers. Or at least, let's start by closing all the for-profit law school diploma mills churning out another half-million useless parasitical lawyers per year.
Some places the penalty for going down in a sled is worse than going down in a public restroom.
This is not a question of government stupidity. This is about personal responsibility and America's twisted legal system. Small towns and communities can be bankrupted by lawsuits whether or not they lose.
Americans moan about the Government taking over, yet they bitch twice as hard about every other thing in life that isn't perfect or free and demand government action!
I am not against using lawsuits to obtain justice, especially since most corporations and executives are above the law. The only recourse in many cases is to sue, but the pervasive idea that no matter what you do or what happens to you, someone owes you money is a sick concept. Of course, it's the American Way these days.
Mossad trained security detail? Thought those guys only job was to stage false flags and blow up towers.
ANTI-SEMETIC!!!!!
In 1996 I received a traffic citation from a Constable On Patrol for letting my kid ride in the back of my F-250 Powerstroke on the way home from a Safeway grocery store, all the while in a 30 mph. zone. He had no qualms about issuing it to me either. We've been going down this 'road' a while already. Gawd what some good, old-fashioned economic/societal 'hardship' would do to clean out this overbearing government bullshit. Then again, perhaps I ought not to wish for things too much, right...?
As an adult, I make it a point to be out there and one of the first down the hill when it snows. I hope today's kids can maintain at least a little caution to the wind attitude that is the spice of life.
Sledding is arctic terrorism! Either yer with us or yer with the terrists!!
"They call me Frosty the Terrist. I just laughed when they tried to put me on ice."
The thesis here is misguided.
This trend points more towards fears of breaking the bank - not of kids' breaking their heads.
Symptom of a law-suit happy culture.
Plan: Limit sledding except for a few places. Charge for using the few places. Make the few places "gun-free" and Constitutional-free zones and implement random searches and seizures.
Those that have the brass to sled in other than the authorized areas will have the thugs in blue sent over to rob, torture , cage, and/or kill them.
The banksters need to repay us.
"My guillotine will take the bankster with the pol and crat and a side of func."
You guys talk a brave game when it comes to sledding but you turn into frightened babies when the topic is stock market investing. "It's too dangerous and scary, the big bad Joos will steal our money, we won't be able to get out in time, we need to hoard gold and ammo for Armageddon insurance!!!"
I'd rather gamble with Mother Nature than gamble on the stock market. Mother Nature doesn't change the rules in the middle of the game, you see.
Oh, I forgot to mention this: Go fuck yourself with a splintered 2 x 4.
"Sledding will be in an UPHILL manner ONLY" --- per Boca City Council Ordinance.
Simper, simper, simper.
(Maniacal laughter.)
What kind of douche supports lies, stealing and cheating? What kind of moron "invests" in anything that derides freedom, free markets and common sense? You either have no clue about that of which you speak (let's hope) or you are for centralization, interventions and oppressing the human spirit.
Go ahead and gamble your fake money, to buy crap you don't need, so you can impress friends you don't really have. YOU'RE THE MAN!
.
Fag!
What you say is an eminently sensible approach for ZHers to take.
Or are you suggesting that people should wade blindly into stock markets when it's obvious they're in a giant manufactured bubble and getting ready to tank?
Doubtless you'd be back bellying about the stupidity of ZHers for doing so. {sigh}
Welcome to Nanny State socialism.
In the UK, several years ago some Lefty local councils banned kiddies from sitting on Santa's knee in local malls just in case Santa was a kiddie-fiddler.
You couldn't make this crap up.
IRS and DHS snipers will ensure that kids abusing these new rules will be switfly executed.
As additional incentive, the price of the bullets will be sent to the parents.
The parents will also be stuck with the cleaning bill for mopping up the blood. 'Murica, fuck yeah!
First, one needs snow, and since Willamette Valley HAS NO SNOW, this post is a NON-ISSUE.
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=97401
kchrisc
Please add lawyers to your guillotines list.............
Thank you.
And yet the biggest risk to the country is allowed and encouraged even though it has failed dreadfully already only to be brought back to life through printing and rewarding risky behaviour
"some cities have opted to close hills rather than risk large liability claims"
Right there's the key to it.
It's not about Liberty from govenrment encroachment so much as it is about the ambulance-chasing weasels and their clients who'd rather victimize the public coffers than accept responsibility for themselves.
The irony is that many libertarians suggest dramatic reductions of laws on the books (agree), and relying on a tort system for justice instead.
Thumb sucking fearmongering statists are killing the soul of this country. Is it too much to put up a sign stating, "sledding is at your own risk"? Is walking down the street not at your own risk? The new soft, cushy, lawyered up America, I tripped on a crack that broke my mothers back and now I am going to sue you! And, yet I will get tazed if I look at a cop crossed eyed!
love it.
the rambo nation is banning sledding.
but you all can shoot each other at random
tic-toc fools
Right - and we can rain death on men women and children in little no account countries overseas.
Your jealousy of the US gives you a big mouth.
Those kids who defy the "prohibition" will get a banned choke hold.
(shooting the kids is too messy on snow)
(got to invest in jackboots)
I can believe this is true. As kids we lived on the local sledding hill. It actually stood at the back of our local High School. We thus called it "the highschool hill". Everyone knew what that meant, it meant kids on card board racing down that hill. Mostly we used cardboard, because you got hurt badly when that heavy sled crashed with you at the bottom which ended up in a creek. Cardboard couldn't break you jaw like a slef runner, or slice you open. In my days all adults and the school loved the idea of the kids and the "High School Hill".
When the scholl war torn down a few years ago, we asked that a part of the vacant land be made a park, and the hill landscaped for an official town sledding hill. Winter snows last 6 months here. So you see the sense this made. The school, who still owns the lot, said NO. NEVER. Why? Legal Liability! Lawyers would bankrupt the school district the first time a kid got hurt. End of story. Oddly enough, I was with my friend on that hill when he broke his arm and collar bone on the bottom, we were 12 years old, the parents said and did nothing, just got his bones set. A different world and different time. Self Responsibility. Fuck the lawyers, geedy cunts.
Kill all the lawyers comes to mind.
best shakespear line ever
"the first thing we do; lets kill all the lawyers"
Nebraska, Iowa, Omaha... As the ZHers here know these cities are well-known bastions of liberal thought and action that are contributing to the further pussification of 'murca.
Kudos to ZH and its army of parents basement researchers who braved emtpy Cheetoes bags and zero porn for days to uncover the truth about these traitorous liberal scum and their nanny-state gestapo tactics.
Rosebud ........
NANNY STATE ALIVE AND THRIVING IN USA !
breathe for now, till they say " breathe no more "
if you cant tax it, BAN IT!! That is so phucked up.
Back in the old days, they were thankful when idjits up and got themselves killed doing stupid shit. Now, helicopter harpies that are married to fembot betas and wither to dust in childless marriages are trying to be our collective "mothers" and legislate all pain from the world.
We must excorcise them back into their cat-urine scented, precious moments adorned apartments. Men of the West, I bid you stand and face this foe!
Ike Turner dem bitchez.
Marie Ware, Dubuque’s leisure services manager. “We can’t manage the risk at all of those places.”
That was a stomach churner. Who ever asked you to other than the mindless bureaucracy you work for. Manage risk on a hill in a park, there is nothing to manage. What a worthless, disgusting lump of dung. Wish a man sized beetle would roll her to the unemployment line.
http://www.answers.com/Q/What_country_in_the_world_has_most_lawyers_per_capita
What? There are actually kids who still play outside?
In many places you will be arrested for allowing your precious little ones play without supervision.... state knows best.
Edit: In a way I can't blame them with 'lawsuit' happy merikans.
Tell me about it. The NFL has a Play 60 campaign to entice children to have fun. Versus my day, play for an hour only would be punishment.
Thanks crooked lawyers!!!
Better close all the national parks due to excessive liability risks.
My daughter is a very good skier for her age and has a snow skate she likes to take sledding, picture a plastic skateboard deck with some sticky foam on top for grip. The other evening after we finished waxing skis I caught her plugging the iron back in and starting to wax her snow skate. She saw me come down the stairs and was paralyzed with fear figuring she was going to get yelled at. I gave her a sly grin and a wink, told her to be careful, and walked back upstairs. She "wanted it to go faster" was her reason. I cringed a bit when I saw she was using a $60 brick of Swix LF7, but what the hell.
The bad part is her sledding hill is on the grounds of the Dane County Dept. of Human Services here in the People's Republic of Madison. I'm sure someone will have a shit fit when they see her on that. I'll likely be arrested for allowing such behavior.
With all off the public school shootings that have happened and the disease that is constantly spread around I would think that it might be a potential health hazard for a child to go to such a dangerous place. It might be a good idea to just shut them all down.
Many parents are agreeing with you each year. Homeschooling has driven districts to start offering "online high school" where students rarely ever have to go to the school
My nephews are all homeschooled. Now in their 20's, can't hold a job and have serious issues about being out in public. Hate crowds and can't handle being told what to do. Home schooling turns kids into social retards.
I will like your nephews then.
No, socially retarded parents turn kids into social retards.
Next trick: Calvin and Hobbes cartoons and Currier & Ives prints will be removed from bookstores for contributing to the delinquency of minors.
There is no Calvin and Hobbes. Bill Watterson does not exist. Report to Room 101 immediately!
next is banning driving and walking.....
double post?
They don't allow dodge ball and tag during school recess any longer either for the same reasons. Americans are becoming wussified
An interesting look at the bullshit game from a German version of the Daily Show. A must watch for all Americans who wonder if the Goverment is lying to them? Interestingly enough this episode was banned in freedom of speech Germany. Even the Germans could not handle a satire on propoganda.
My old house in NE had a large thickly wooded lot in the back that was fairly steep and perfect for a reasonably thrilling sled ride in the winter. In the fall I would clear saplings and any eye-gouging low branches so my daughters neighborhood chums could spend the weekends sledding in the backyard and the wife or I wouldn't have to haul kids to the town park with all the associated paraphernalia involved. Nothing better than spending a snowy Sat. morning in bed catching up on some quality parental activities.
Later in the kitchen making coffee, I kept hearing this WHUMP and wild shrieking laughter. After the third go round I went to the den to look out the window and the kids decided that it would be much more fun to make a new sled path that was on the brushy, steeper part of the woods that ended with the drop over the 5' tall retaining wall, down the side of the house and front lawn to almost the privet hedges keeping them from the dead end street.
At least they had the sense to take the snow-shovel to add more snow to the drop landing so they wouldn't break their spines. After watching a few more runs to see what happened, which wasn't nearly as horrifying as it first seemed, I decided to let them have their fun.
Word got out and 8" of snow over the day and night and Sunday saw about a dozen kids whumping and screaming out in the yard. Some I had never seen before
Wife was dubious and anxious until she got too busy with hot chocolate and grilled cheese sandwiches to keep checking to see if there was blood on the snow.
I did put the kibosh on the young engineer who wanted to build a jump on the wall to lift them higher.
One well mannered tyro poked his head in before going home and yelled "Thanks for the sandwiches Mrs.S, this is the best place ever." "Your welcome any time. Mr. S makes even better grilled cheese than I do." was the reply that came with 'the look' shot at yours truly.
The next storm saw a firepit and some planks and cinderblock benches added.
Not a single insurance policy was harmed over the next couple of winters.
That's what I'm talkin' about! Love the ramp part. I remember doing that, but at least we wore our imitation Sears football helemts for protection!
I wish these statist ninnies could have seen the crazy things that I did in my downhill mountain biking days and on public land too.
Now that I sea kayak I feel they should better protect me by banning it. We've got some really big sharks out there, and massa guvmint should just ban anything dealing with water be it liquid or ice. What about the children? /sarc
Endogenous social mood drives all of these kinds of issues. It's pretty negative these days so this kind of rationale should be expected.
http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/science-is-revealing-the-mechanism-of...
Sledding is detrimental to the hive. It does not generate tax revenue. It does not better indoctrinate the larvae to the will of the despot. Some of the little terrorists will damage themselves, and others. This affects your health care premium, citizen. None of these worthless sledders are properly registered. Their parents didn't have a license to fuck, or pay the fucking penalty tax. They should all be commited to Dear Lizzie's Reeducation Centers. And you too. I know what you're thinking...
Centrifugal bumblepuppy
Let Darwin take care of them.
What a bunch of babies; sled in the street!
as long as you can say you can't breathe you are not being strangled.
Doesn't anybody remember playing "Smear the Queer"?
In the 70's we used to play "hijack" by jumping on other sledders, getting them to wreck, then taking their sled the rest of the way down the hill.
Fun stuff.
Nowadays we would probably be arrested.
Many wonderful memories of sledding, still have my old Flexible Flyer in the basement. Neighbors across the street had a perfect ravine and we would make steep banking turns out of downed trees and plywood and pour creek water on them to really ice them up. It was very fast and well tended sled run and you could catch a lot of air at the bottom and on occasion over run it and end up going over the creek bank. Knocked out a tooth one time and tore up my lip needing a few stitches.
Then later in the early 80s in high school we get the giant inner tube from a farm tractor tire and pile upwards to 8 or 9 people on it and go down a city park hill. If you were on the bottom of the pile it got dangerous as the bottom of the hill was a decent drop into the street. We had fun and sure a few bruises but everyone loved it. Even went down a hill once on an old coal shovel, that one hurt my ass for weeks. Or even spraying the metal saucer with Pam and making a screaming fast run.
Today neighbor across the street goes into conniptions if his boy isn't wearing a helmet when on his pogo stick.
The more laws on the books the more corrupt the society is
Tacitus
"Litigation Nation"
Fuck Iowa
When I was a kid my brother and I played cowboys and indians with a rubber tommyhawk and cap pistols. We took turns on who was an indian or cowboy. It was fun, as children we had no concept of hate or desire to hurt. I suspect that playing cowboy and indian is politically incorrect now. Shame, politics used to be distant and laws made sense. ....Now...
Guess we'll get government approved sleds with airbags, or coats wilth 360 degree airbags if you hit something. Unbelievable such a thing could happen. Unbelievable.
After a good snow storm, after the snow plows came by and packed the snow on the street down, usually at night, I would put on an old pair of boots I kept with the soles completely worn flat, and go to a corner where some hooligan had broken the street light earlier. They did that alot. When a car slowed to turn I'd run up, crouch down, grab the bumper and hang on. Sometimes for miles. Its called "skitching". Like Marty McFly, only with no skateboard and no control.
One time after a really good storm I skitched a ride on the back of a Plymouth Roadrunner. Some high school guys were out doing donuts in the snow, so my friend and I both skitched on and did donuts, hanging off the bumper. After a while we let them know we were there. They saw us and cranked it up. My friend flew off. I hung on, up to 70mph & rode a 1080 donut. They thought they got rid of me and went back the way the way they came. I let go where my friend fell off and found him.
Laws like this are made just to fuck with us and should be broken just for the hell of it.
A fucking war on sledding?
Give it a few years and you'll probably need a permit to jack off at home.