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January 29, 2007
Slip-sliding away
On the subject of a law mandating helmets for tobogganers, I've been asked "why not?" a few times since last week. "Why?" is the far more pertinent question — for any legislation, really, and especially considering the far more dangerous activities for which head protection is currently unregulated. You'll note in all the silly media coverage that even the neurosurgeons and safety advocates are really only going on record for helmets as a good idea, not as a law. And that's fine. There's no data to support toboggan helmets, but what the hell — they're your kids; they're your kids' heads. Protect them, or not, as you see fit.
But it only occurred to me recently, upon reading the umpteenth admonishment that parents more closely supervise their children while they slide down snow-covered hills, what's really at stake here. You could easily argue that supervision is more insidious a suggestion that the helmets. After all, the idea that children's playtime has become far too structured is no longer new — it's approaching the level of cliché.
To the extent cycling is a form of transportation, it falls under the eponymous ministry's purview. (Helmet use among mountain bikers is already around 102%.) Skiing and snowboarding are structured recreational pastimes. Tobogganing isn't either, or shouldn't be anyway. It should be a bunch of kids grabbing crazy carpets, cafeteria trays and other conveyances and sliding down a hill.
I'm 30. Isn't the idea of society going hell for leather against something me and my friends did on school trips, let alone outlawing it, just a wee bit nutso? Especially, not that I'm one to preach on body fat percentage, since the breeders in my generation appear to be raising very fat children? Maybe the real harm in this thing isn't the idea that people might do well to wear helmets whilst tobogganing, but that kids might be convinced that plummeting down a hill and then walking up it again in a sweat-drenched snowsuit, over and over again until they can barely drag their GT snowracers home and fall into bed, is a fundamentally dangerous activity.
Posted by Chris Selley at January 29, 2007 09:54 PM
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Comments
When I first came across the idea of some folks trying to put into law mandatory helmet use for tobagganing, I thought it was a joke. A bit of a satire on that silly Ontario politician that keeps trying to get bike helmet use legislated.
Has anyone actually defined "head injury" anyhow? I mean... could a "head injury" be a little bump on the head that some mommy decides to take her child to the emergency room for?
What about knee injuries? Using the same logic, let's mandate knee protection. Groin protection. Damn, let's just make sure EVERYONE wears bullet proof vests.
I'm 43. Later this week, I'll be taking my four year old toboganning - neither of us will be wearing helmets.
Posted by: Ian Scott at January 30, 2007 10:36 AM