No safety vacuum is too small for the Nanny State crusaders to take up as a cause;
Until this month, or certainly until about the last decade, it would not have occurred to anyone that tobogganing was such a peril-strewn venture as to require special protective equipment, let alone that every one of the 6 million or so Canadians who might want to take the sled out for a spin should be compelled by law to buckle up. A search for “tobogganing and helmets” on Infomart’s vast database of Canadian publications turns up just one hit prior to 1990; 59 hits from 1990 to 1999, and 98 since then.
But if the life of just one child is saved!
Related – “Say you’re a single doctor; you get to know your patient; and through the patient, you get to know the patient’s sister, whom you find yourself romantically interested in. Can you ask her out (either while you’re seeing the patient, or for two years afterwards)?”
A classmate of my daughter was killed last week while crossing the street in Calgary. She died from head injuries, so maybe we should mandate that all children wear helmets all the time…I am kidding of course, but where will the nanny state mentality stop?
Given that there have been just under 100 pedestrians killed in Toronto alone during the past three years, I hereby suggest a law be passed that all people traveling on foot, within city limits, be required to wear the appropriate safety helmet.
There, that should help the nanny state along.
Finally after long last we have come up with one good thing that will come from global warming, no snow..no injuries from tobaganing
Is it OK for white Christian males to tobaggan without a helmet? In fact, is that required?
welcome to Manitoba … where every freak accident results in new government legislation and/or the spending of taxpayer dollars. A few years ago a drug dealer was found face down in the river after a night at the bar, and now shooter girls have been outlawed and we have minimum drink prices. Go figure…
Does anyone remember merry-go-rounds? Now that I’ve got kids I can’t find one anywhere. They were one of my favourites when I was growing up but I’ll be damned if I can’t find one on a playground anywhere.
And we used to pull the hood from a 63 International behind the Elan. It’s amazing we all lived long enough to pay a considerable sum of taxes that are so wisely spent.
Syncro
According to the stats, this is much safer than flying – even without the helmet.
Now if I can only find a hill that goes all the way to the Dominican before our next vacation …
How many kids and adults slip in the tub? How many old folks fall on ice and break their hip? How many people get papercuts from handling tax forms? How many people die of heart attacks after shovelling their driveway?
So many causes, so few brain cells for the “nanny do-gooders” in society.
Speaking of safety equipment and the by-product the introduction creates: changed behaviour.
Nanny Staters cried for blanket installation in cars of seat belts, then ABS brakes, then air bags. What happened: Idiot drivers started to go faster thinking they were safer should they crash.
So let me leap a bit here: Giving kids who are natural risk takers because of lack of experience and some hard wiring issues are going to do what with that greater feeling of safety? Head injuries will be down, but I am sure there will be more broken limbs etc.
I am still waiting for the Nanny Staters to wake up to the fact that they are driving their living room couches and will thus start advocating that we have race car bucket seats, four point harnesses and oh yes, helmets. Can we say 401 NASCAR.
After that due to road rage incidents, random drive bry shootings bullet proof cars will be mandatory.
What Nanny Staters can’t admit is that stupid human behaviour can’t be outlawed and there isn’t enough money on the planet to protect us from it.
No wonder kids are getting fatter….to do any activity requires loads of safety equipment and the money to buy it….might as well just play the X-Box.
Joseph:
I seem to remember some 35-40 years ago that even the slightest bit of protective equipment turned a pre-adolescent boy into a virtual Superman.
Case in point – the BB gun. You’d never shoot anyone with it, that was just dangerous, unless of course you were wearing your new winter coat (which Mom had bought during the spring sales and had hidden until the fall). So in the middle of July we all had our new coats on to crawl through the mud during the BB gun wars, and shot at each other with impunity.
The only injuries I remember occurred next autumn when Mom went to the closet to get your ‘new’ coat.
The worst case was the practical abolition of kids going out solo on Haloween back in the mid 80s. A story had circulated about someone putting razor blades in candy. It turns out that it was effectively an urban myth, something like that did happen but it wasn’t trick or treating but a sick uncle giving something nasty to his nephew.
Kids pick up on their parents paranoia and are less confident as a result. I wonder if this is why the popularity of backpacking in the Rockies has plumetted as the fear and lack of confidence in taking physical risks spills over into adulthood (not that I’m complaining much I like having camp sites to myself).
As Canadians, we can look to the NHL as a micrccosm of our society in general. If you look at film of NHL games from 20 years ago, you seldomly ever see a stick raised above the waist. When the do-gooders suggested mandatory helmets, Don Cherry warned that it would lead to less respect but, of course, no one listens to Don. Now, the sticks are up constantly.
A year or two ago, some kids drowned while swimming in a lake NW of the center of the universe. There was a lot of talk of the libs bringing in legislation to “prevent” that. Does anyone know whatever happened with that?
but the trouble is:
Everyone mocks these laws, then dutifully follows them. Sticking helmets on their cycling kids because the Other Moms give them dirty looks if they don’t.
Until the average Canadian wimp learns to give the finger to the Other Moms and other meddlers, we are doomed. Why do you care so much about what other people think of you?? Especially people who are probably idiots anyway.
This story illustrates Canadian wimpiness in more ways than one.
And it is true: Don Cherry usually is right about everything and nobody listens. More proof that he’s a conservative.
PS: best Onion healine ever–
‘Stupid Dead Kid Ruins Cool Toy For Everyone Else’
That should be our new national motto. It’s almost as stupid as the real one.
I’m still trying to figure out how this one works. First of all, I’m trying to imagine cops patrolling toboggan hills. Or maybe they’ll create a special branch of enforcement, like meter maids.
The next problem is, who do they penalize? Kids can’t be charged with a crime…so any fines for not wearing a helmet have to go to the parents. But all rights and responsibilities that make parents liable for what their kids do (or don’t do) have been usurped by the ever-loving, benevolent state. Well, maybe the exception is in cases where they can get more money from those parents.
Boggles the mind. And these are the people in charge of controlling our lives.
I wear a helmet when sitting on the couch. Makes me feel safe. ‘course, after a few bubblies, well, let’s just say it’s come in handy once or twice. I think anyone who imbibes a bit should wear a helmet, too. And if you don’t, we’ll have a registry for you.
I don’t think you people are taking this serously enough. Toboganing can be dangerous. To this extent I’m going to relate something that happened to my wife and I personally. This is not second hand, third hand, or urban legend. So pay close attention, questions may be asked later.
Some years ago my wife and I were visiting my sister and her young family in northern Alberta, in January. One bright sunny day we borrowed the kids tobogan and headed out to the park. As it was only a few blocks away we walked towing the tobogan behind us. Today we probably would drive. The park had a number of hills suitable for novice toboganers, we picked one that was about ten feet high and climbed to the top. The down hill part ended up on the road but visability was good enough that there was no chance of having an interface with a car. There was however one very dangerous and volitile hidden danger. As we came to the bottom of the slope and entered the road way we went over a sharp (about a foot and a half) drop that had been left behind by the nafarious snow plow operator. As I was in the drivers seat I managed to navigate this dangerous passage with little or no difficulty, however my wife who was in the back seat drivers position did not fare so well. Needless to say when the back end of the tobogan came off the snow bank it slapped down on the hard unforgiving road with such force that it left a considerable bruse on my wife’s back side.
This is a dangerous sport. Support safety helmets and belts.
On second thought I don’t see how this would have saved my wife’s behind. Maybe all tobogans should be equiped with large soft heated cushions.
followup studies on brain injury find that bike helmets have unfortunately on average insufficient effect on minimizing the degree of the injury in a given accident compared to no helmet.
newtons laws or sumptin.
I wear my helmet all the time from banging my head against the table when I see the inanity and absurdity of the social engineering knee-jerk ‘there oughta be a law’ response to each and every headline grabbing accident.
Well, Nanny-Staters aside, wearing protective headgear (and other protective gear)for some activities just makes common sense. For example competitive mountain biking, roller blading, in-line skating, etc, etc. So if child fatalities are on the rise from head injuries arising from tobogganing, what is wrong with raising some alarm bells so that parents and kids can be made aware of the situation? Nothing, IMO.
But should the use of headgear while tobogganing be legislated? I hardly think so. We are just kidding ourselves if we think that the answer to every tragedy is to legislate all manner of human activities, to say nothing of the bottomless pit of money that will be needed to enforce such regulations.
B-Man
I’m thinking that enforcement of this law will fall under the mandate of the Ontario CAS. So, a CAS caseworker returns from a February fact-finding mission in the Bahamas and jumps in her spiffy new SUV to head out to the slopes to look for criminals. A 12 year-old is spotted on a Sno-Racer with nothing but a toque on his head. BAM! The parents are fined and the child, along with his younger siblings, are removed from the home for their own protection. Perhaps they can be placed in a foster home in Welland where they can be kept safe from uncaring parents…. The caseworker, now having saved the children from certain harm, is temporarily replaced by her assistant while she jets off to Italy to attend a symposium called “Carp Apartheid: Why We Have No Right to Enslave Goldfish”.
At least, that’s how I envision it….
Jaybird, I hear that California may be legislating the use of seat belts while sitting on your sofa, in response to all the mudslides they have there. You should move there. 😉
Tony,
Anyone who goes tobogganing on a hill where the trail ends up on a public road should be forced to wear a helmet ALL the time.
Re: “Say you’re a single doctor” — don’t scoff at this one. This has become a huge headache as it comes to recruiting doctors to rural communities and I personally know several for whom this has been a “deal breaker” causing them to leave rural practice. I’m speaking from experience. It is virtually impossible for a single doctor to date in a small community without risking the avenging anger of the licensing body du jour. The presumption is that the small town doc exudes such an aura of whatever that single females (or males as the case may be) are immediately transformed into mesmerized, unthinking zombies devoid of free will and utterly incapable of resisting the charms of said doctor simply by having seen said doctor regarding a sprained ankle in the ER six months previously. It’s all part of the nanny state mentality alluded to in the toboganning story. The state presumes that no one, but no one, is capable of making their own rational choices, and deciding for themselves where their risk tolerance level is, be it with respect to physical or emotional risk — pathetic really.
We we where kids we had a neighbor growing up that lost his eye in his younger years tobogganing with those old sleds with the steel runners. He’d be sitting out on his porch as we walked up-town,and he’d always joke with us kids all the time as we passed. One kid he must have been around five at the time, started play fighting with the neighbor. Somehow the neighbor popped out his glass eye purposely when the unknowing kid landed a punch. I think the kid ran home horrified to his mom.
Its still a story repeated for a hearty laugh around here.
You’d have to know this neighbor, but he’s quite a character, and I’ve no doubt if I asked him his opinion on full faced helmets and tobogganing he’d say whats the world coming to.
So on the one hand we have reports that say young Johnny and Sally are getting fat from lack of any physical activity and on the other we have the few kids who do know what outdoors looks like having restrictions threatened. WTF?
FYI, when I was a kid (and dinosaurs roamed), we had a forested hill behind our house. A small road was cut across the face of it which kind of ruined that side for tobogganing unless of course you were trying to jump over the road by making a ramp. That stunt was curtailed by a safety device known as “dad” or rather “dad and his belt”.
By avoiding the over road route we still had several other runs to chose from. From the bunny hill that you took your little sister (or brother) on to the nearly vertical mogeled drop of “dragon’s hill”, we had enough entertainment and exercise to keep us happy all winter. And while toboggans were fun, the best thing was the cardboard box from somebodies new fridge. Ah, the good old days. sigh…
What’s next? Its getting to the point where 8 year olds can’t play outside after a rainstorm because they might drown in a two inch deep puddle. I used to play on my dad’s lumber piles, and I never got seriously hurt. I think that the best way to reverse the trend is to eliminate the nanny state and make liability lawsuits much more difficult to file.
1. motorcycle helmuts
2. seatbelts
3. fencing bylaws
4. no smoking laws
5. life jacket laws
6. lawn watering bylaws
these are the ways the nanny state has influence over every day of my life….as a libertarian, I live my life staying clear of others….why do these idiots insist on trying to run/ruin my life?
Here’s a funny false news story, but where I got the idea for the 8-year old kid drowning in a puddle:
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/UnNews:Stupid_kid_drowns_in_pond
I find it ironic that just over 35 years after Pierre Trudeau (we all remember him – right?) stated the government had no place in the bedrooms of the nation, we now find the government just about everywhere else.
One of the problems may be that Canadians have pretty well stopped having kids. Lose one – you’ve lost your whole family, so the natural instinct is to be overly protective, and the kid grows up without developing any sense of independence or instinct of self-preservation. The social outcome of a generation raised under glass? Damned if I know, but from personal observation of a few early victims, I’d guess that it won’t be good.
”
I find it ironic that just over 35 years after Pierre Trudeau (we all remember him – right?) stated the government had no place in the bedrooms of the nation, we now find the government just about everywhere else.
Posted by: John B at January 24, 2007 05:23 PM ”
John B, just give them time. They’ll be baaa–aaack.
A few years ago, Anti smoking ban people said this: ‘ they came for the Jews and I was not a Jew so I said nothing, they came for the Catholics and I was not a Catholic so I said nothing, they came for the cripples and I was not a cripple so I said nothing…finally they came for me and nothing was said because there was no one left to speak’.
Seat belts – MANDATORY (fines were the reason, safety was the given reason) smoking bans (health was the reason, drug Cos promoting their drugs to replace tobacco was the real reason), bike helmets (just stoopid paper pushers trying to find a reason to exist), etc, etc,
The citizens of this country should go to a funeral – living is risky – in fact birth ALWAYS produces death in the same organism. We will all die, it is how we live before we die that counts! I recently went to the funeral of a 97 year old friend. She rode fast hoses – raced fast horses, yikes!, rode in the back of the truck over dirt roads, went sleigh riding down hills and behind a horse (no helmets), jumped off barn roofs (20 feet down), walked the top post of her dad’s eight foot corral, smoked cigarettes since she was 16 (she never did quit), never wore a seat belt IN a vehicle because she said she would not be able to get out if we were in an accident, drank gallons of strong coffee, never owned a helmet of any kind, she had 5 children – two were not born in a hospital…she had wonderful memories and she died in her sleep.
One of her son’s said he knew that coffee and cigarettes would kill her someday. heh.
Only if she has had all her shots.
Bwahahahaha!
“Could you imagine what a utopian paradise we’d be living in ,, if
the government actually resolved every priority they had ,, and
were legitimately at “toboggan safety” on their “to-do” list,,, ”