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How to Beat Speed Cameras

If a product lacks legitimate function, if its only function is to facilitate a crime then should possessing it be illegal? Perhaps. Do skateboards fit this category? Again, the answer is a definite maybe.

Very few children who ride skateboards do so in ways which inconvenience nobody. Very few skateboards are only used on private land.

Is it legal to ride a skateboard on a footpath? This is a grey area. It is quite clear that a skateboard is a potentially dangerous device. Don't be fooled by the kick turns, flips, rail riding and other flash stunts, actually steering and particularly stopping a skateboard is difficult. Coming to a safe compete stop in a reasonable distance is a trick that many skateboarders never practice or master. A riderless skateboard is quite capable of breaking your ankle (I have plenty of experience in school of the injuries inflicted by the weaponized skateboard) and a board complete with its own rapidly moving sk8ter d00d is quite capable of skittling over three or four pedestrians in one go leading to broken bones and in extreme cases putting some elderly people off walking for the rest of their life.

Can I declare an interest here? I learned to use a skateboard at the age of 13 when the craze was at its height but I didn't own a board. My school bought several boards for use at break times. I bought a new board when I was 26, at that age I was wise enough to also invest in some safety gear and I became painfully aware of the truth of the phrase the bigger they come the harder they fall. I restricted my skating activities to places that were safe, at least to places where I was a danger only to myself. Skateboarding can be fun, I especially enjoyed going downhill at high speed. I stopped skateboarding after a rather high speed crash which knocked my confidence and I decided to stop before I got myself involved in an accident with somebody else or got seriously hurt. The potential for real injury became clear to me. I was too old to be missing from work because of a skateboard injury.

What life skills and attitudes does skateboarding teach? It seems the main skills learned can be filed under the headings of:

Sticking it to the Man

Posing

or

Idling, loafing and disguising unemployment as a positive life choice.

Skateboarders who portray themselves as some kind of modern urban heroes are pathetic. They have a very screwed up attitude to property:

This is my board, absolutely.

This street is public property so I can use it, I am part of the public.

Don't blame me for the war, I didn't vote.

Don't blame me for pollution, I spend all my money on drugs I can't afford a car, I mean I choose not to be part of killing the planet. Skateboards don't pollute.

Private land? Rich bastard/corporate oppressor!

You folks can't drive us away. Power to the people, err, not you people, obviously. Power to the cool people. I mean power to people no more or less cool than us. Yo.

What are you doing on our territory? We were here first.

Older people are always oppressing us.

Push off kid, this place is for the big boys.

Until our band releases its multi-million dollar album we'll continue to download and copy the people's music and stick ito the Man.

Old people are just selfish hypocrites.

Mini Motorbikes, what are they all about?

Have you seen them? Knee high scale models of racing motorbikes that cannot be used on the road, cannot be used legally on footpaths. Too small to be comfortable. Too noisy to be tolerable. Too fast to be safe.

Such products should not be sold to people who cannot demonstrate a legitimate use for them. They are not toys they are not a legitimate means of transport either. No facilities exist for them to be used safely in parks or suchlike. The only way they can be used legitimately is by people who have access to private roads (they cannot be used safely off road) or very large flat clear open spaces. Despite this most mini-motorbikes are owned by yobs on council estates who have precisely zero opportunities to use them without trespassing or breaking several road traffic laws.

This is not the first product of this type, the toy vehicle which is neither a toy nor a vehicle. The motorized skateboard and the motorized skate-scooter have preceded them.

I suggest the time has come to draft some legislation which would outlaw these hybrid toy vehicles without a demonstrable legal way of operating them and which could pre-empt the invention of new ways to jeopardize public safety and encourage reckless behaviour and trespassing along similar lines.

One fairly obvious safety measure that could be adopted is a blanket speed limit for footpaths for all forms of vehicle: bicycles, scooters, skateboards, roller skates and powered wheelchairs alike. It is not safe for pedestrians to be sharing space with wheeled vehicles traveling at speed, and on a footpath 20 Km/h or 10 MPH is dangerously fast. If you have to go at that sort of speed or more you should be doing it on the road or on private land you have a right to be on.

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