Stop. Just f-----g stop.

[KansDem]

32. Unless your city has banned sledding...

The city council in Boone, Iowa, had to shell out $12 million in 2011 to a sledder who collided with a concrete cube at the bottom of a hill. Omaha, Nebraska, had to pay a family $2.4 million. Other cities quite literally don’t want to follow suit, and understandably so. It’s reminiscent of the controversial safety overhaul many U.S. playgrounds have gotten over the past 25 years to prevent lawsuits. Yet the irony is that by instituting park sledding bans, cities might actually be putting their local children more at risk.

There’s no question that sledding can be dangerous. Kids—not known for their stellar judgment—are given carte blanche to fly down steep icy hills on flimsy contraptions they can’t steer or stop. They careen at more than 20 miles per hour—as fast as cars—yet they don’t have the protection of thick metal frames, or air bags, or seat belts. The Consumer Product Safety Commission reported that approximately 10,000 sledding-related injuries in children under the age of 14 were treated in hospital emergency departments in 2012.

That’s a lot. But by comparison, consider that trampolines caused nearly 79,000 ER-worthy injuries in kids under 14 in 2012, and television sets caused 26,000. (That doesn’t include the permanent hearing loss kids got from watching Dora the Explorer.) Sledding becomes much less dangerous when it’s done a certain way, too—and that’s precisely why these park sledding bans are a problem: Open spaces such as parks are among the safest places for kids to sled. One study found that the odds of going to the ER for sledding injuries were five times higher in children who had been sledding on the street compared with in the park.* Injuries sustained while street sledding are often much worse, too, and are more likely to involve traumatic brain injuries. But where are kids without big backyards going to sled if they can’t do it in the park? The street, of course.

--more--
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/the_kids/2015/01/sledding_bans_from_iowa_to_new_jersey_cities_are_outlawing_sledding_in_city.html