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Protect your precious snowflake from the snowflakes
By Kaz on Mon, 02/02/2009 - 11:32am
A bill, sponsored by state Senator Steven Panagiotakos of Lowell, is pushing for mandatory helmets for children, 12 and under, while sledding. This is being spurred on primarily by press coverage of two teenaged girls who have died in upstate New York in the past couple of weeks. In both cases, the sledders were sledding in locations that were marked for no sledding and one of the two trespassed in order to go sledding where she struck a tree on the hill of a golf course. But won't we all think of the children? I mean, it's not like their parents were when they let them go out and play without any rules or restrictions.
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Comments
Ridonculous
Should it be a surprise that if you run into a tree headfirst you might die? Why punish all kids because some people can't be sensible?
Oh, and snow tubes suck. Get a real sled. It's safer.
AIRBAGS IN ALL FLEXIBLE
AIRBAGS IN ALL FLEXIBLE FLYERS BY 2010
ALSO TREES ARE TO BE MADE WITH A NEW CUSHY MATERIAL BY 2011 OR ELSE WE'LL SUE NATURE
CAPITAL LETTERS ARE AWESOME TODAY
Any sled sales or rentals to require helmets
They keep using bicycles as an example for why sleds need helmets. Well, the new bike law requires bike renters make helmets available. You might not be too far off on the mandatory safety equipment inclusion in sled sales. Heh.
You forgot Time Cube
EARTH HAS 4 CORNER
SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY
TIME CUBE
IN ONLY 24 HOUR ROTATION.
I mean, duh!
MA vs Ethan Frome (1911)
I think sledding is an "at risk" excersise and towns should come up with their own laws regarding specific spots. Leave the state out of it.
or maybe, just maybe...
...we could rely on signs, existing trespassing laws, and parents to supervise their children.
That is the point of having parents, right? Supervision? To keep them from doing dumb shit?
don't forget traction control - ESP
Electronic Sled Parenting?
PS:Caps lock, cruise control for cool?
L.H. PUTTGRASS SIGNING OFF
L.H. PUTTGRASS SIGNING OFF AND HEADING FOR THE TUB
sounds like a nightmare to
Sounds like a nightmare to enforce, after all those girls were sleding in areas prohibiting the practice. If they couldnt stop them from using the hill how are they going to force them to wear helmets?
I do agree with someone elses comment though, anyone who rents sleds to people should be ordered to give out helmets with the rentals, just like the bikes.
What's the Big Deal?
You use your kid's bike helmet. Simple.
Oh ... your kid doesn't wear a helmet to bike ... well ... um ... okay. Don't worry though, MA is the "FORCE ME" state when it comes to complying with or funding actual enforcement of the laws.
To be honest, my kids actually thought about helmets for sledding before I did, and grabbed their helmets off the bikes when we grabbed the sleds. My younger son damaged one helmet when he slammed into hay bales at high speed, but wasn't much worse for the wear because his helmet took one for the team. (Yes, I replaced the helmet). Now they use their snowboarding helmets when they sled. All peaks require that kids use these for skiing and snowboarding, so it isn't like they are difficult to come by or expensive. You can find them at TJ Maxx.
Snotubes are evile.
no
You use your kid's bike helmet. Simple.
No- as you pointed out, there are helmets made for this stuff. Everyone should check out www.snell.org (aka the people who SHOULD have been left in charge of bike helmets in MA, but instead we now have the gutless US Product Safety Commission. Thanks Massbikes! Fucking idiots.)
Snotubes are evile.
They're not ridden properly by most people. You can't lie back on them river-raft style, because then you'll spin around and not see where you're going. You need to ride on them belly-first, and drag your feet. That keeps you aimed in the right direction so you can see where you're going.
If things start to go south, you can always bail out.
Wrong on Snell Brett
Um Brett, no. Where did you hear that?
Snell does not have a recent standard for bike helmets because they have been developing standards for other sports. As a foundation, they don't have the resources, given the renewed interest in wearing helmets.
Snell certified helmets can be more expensive, and there is debate over whether they are more protective given recent advances in materials and manufacturing processes. I have had difficulty finding a snell-rated bike helmet in a brand that fits my head - on the web even, not in MA!!! This multiplies when you figure that more people wearing helmets that are protective may be better than fewer people or no people wearing perfect helmets because they simply are not available.
BTW, your link is wrong, too - snell aint there. Here is the correct link: http://www.smf.org/
wrong yourself
So I got the URL wrong from memory- sue me. Believe it or not, I have a background in motorsport and I know more about helmets than you'd guess.
Bike helmets sold in the US must meet B-90, ASTM F-1447 or ANSI Z90.4. Or so it used to be - I don't know how up-to-date that is. If it's still true, this part of legislation was redundant.
Snell doesn't release standards based on "recentness", and they are not "developing" standards for other sports- they already have and maintain them. The standards are dated with the year they are released, and unlike our current fixation with model years in software and cars, standards aren't updated for vanity.
There are no shortage of Snell certified helmets.
http://www.bhsi.org/helmet08.htm
Control-F, "Snell", "enter". Repeat. How about that? All of Specialized's helmets, for example.
Note also that these folks claim the current Snell standard for bike helmets is more stringent that the Consumer Product Safety Commission's. One does wonder why Massbikes would be lobbying for loosening standards. Maybe it has to do with where their money comes from and who runs the organization (bike shops.)
Note also that for the 2008 season there were no "material advances."
It's unenforceable, and
It's unenforceable, and there's already laws on the books for child neglect.
Let the DA be the judge if gross neglect happened in each case. We have better things to legislate and de-legislate.
Good God - When will it ever end??
It's like wrapping the furniture in your house with bumpers when your kids learn to walk. Of course it hurts when they whack their heads but pain is part of life. You can only tell a child so many times that the stove is hot - they only get it when they burn themselves. It's a wonder any of us came through childhood without being irreparably damaged by all the so-called hazardous things in our houses and backyards.
While helmets do make sense for a lot of activities such as snowboarding or skiing, your kid's gonna be the biggest goober at school for using a helmet during recess. Yeah, a helmet would really have helped me when I jumped out of the hayloft and got a rusty nail stuck in my bare foot.