{"id":10280,"date":"2015-01-06T17:13:27","date_gmt":"2015-01-06T22:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=10280"},"modified":"2015-01-06T17:13:27","modified_gmt":"2015-01-06T22:13:27","slug":"an-outright-ban-on-toboganning-is-that-where-we-are-headed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2015\/01\/06\/an-outright-ban-on-toboganning-is-that-where-we-are-headed\/","title":{"rendered":"An outright ban on toboganning – is that where we are headed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

R<\/span>emember waaaaay back in 2007 when we had a great conversation about a proposed helmet law for toboggans<\/a>? Here’s the next iteration of the bubble-wrap-your-kids movement: apparently some cities are banning tobogganing altogether. <\/p>\n

\"Front<\/a><\/p>\n

According to this article<\/a> in the National Post, a ban on everyone’s favourite winter pastime is going viral across US cities. “Dubuque, Iowa, is set to ban toboggans in nearly all its 50 parks. Other cities, including Des Moines, Iowa; Montville, New Jersey; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Columbia City, Indiana, are following suit by restricting certain runs or posting signs warning people away.”<\/p>\n

This is, of course, a liability issue, so it’s no surprise that our more litigious southern neighbours are more trigger-happy to ban tobogganing than we might be (although apparently some Canadian cities like Hamilton have implemented similar bans.) I would not argue that tobogganing can be a dangerous activity – I ended up in the ER and on crutches for a week or so myself in Grade 9 after trying to surf down a hill standing up on a sled and severely spraining my ankle when I jumped off to avoid a tree, and I was probably six when the sharp edge of a toboggan split open the skin on my nose when I collided with a kid pulling his sled up the hill I was sliding down. <\/p>\n

But I would still in no way support a blanket ban like this. I very much agree with the expert doctor cited in the article. Dr Charles Tator, a brain surgeon who works with an injury-prevention charity, acknowledges that tobogganing can be as risky as diving, snowmobiling or parachuting. However, the article says Dr. Tator does thinks rather than banning sledding, cities could take steps to make sledding safer by removing obstacles like trees from designated sledding hills. He also encourages kids to wear helmets. <\/p>\n

Winter activities seem more fraught with peril than summer ones. While biking and skateboarding and tree climbing have their own risks, injuries seem both more likely and more severe from activities like skiing (ask me how many times I wiped out on my first runs down the green run last year), skating and tobogganing. Anything that involves hurling yourself across a slick surface is just a little bit crazy, right? But so is living in a climate where we live with ice and snow for so much of the year. On days like this, even going for a walk down an icy sidewalk in -40C windchill is fraught with peril, but we’re not going to ban that, are we? (Ahem, except in the schools, where apparently outdoor recess gets cancelled if the temperature falls to -20C with the windchill. But I digress … that is a post for another day.)<\/p>\n

What do you think? Is banning tobogganing the answer? Is the onus on the sledder or the owner of the hill to take precautions and minimize risk? Or should we just hop on a sled and get over ourselves?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember waaaaay back in 2007 when we had a great conversation about a proposed helmet law for toboggans? Here’s the next iteration of the bubble-wrap-your-kids movement: apparently some cities are banning tobogganing altogether. According to this article in the National Post, a ban on everyone’s favourite winter pastime is going viral across US cities. “Dubuque, … Continue reading “An outright ban on toboganning – is that where we are headed?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mothering-without-a-licence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10280"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10283,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10280\/revisions\/10283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}