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Sledging bans – coming to a town near you?

January 10, 2015

Sledging bans – coming to a town near you?

Children take note. As winter sets in, a growing number of US cities are banning sledging – or sledding, as Americans say – on public property.

The Associated Press reports that municipal officials in places like Iowa, New Jersey, Nebraska and Indiana are worried about lawsuits when children are injured in sledging accidents. They often cite a 2000 incident in which the family of a girl in Omaha, Nebraska, won a $2m (£1.32m) judgement against the city after she was paralysed while sledding in a local park.

According to research by Nationwide Children’s Hospital at Ohio State University, each year from 1997 to 2007 more than 20,000 children under the age of 17 required emergency room trips after sledging accidents, and 4.1% of the cases required hospitalisation.

The article quotes Kenneth Bond, a New York lawyer who works with municipal governments, as saying the “Wild West philosophy” of individual responsibility is a thing of the past, and governments are now expected to take measures to prevent dangerous activities where possible.

Conservative and libertarian writers have latched onto the story as evidence of the growing threat of big government and the rise of the “nanny state”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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