Give Skateboarders a Break

I recently bought a copy of the skateboarding magazine Thrasher after perusing it at the Jacksonville Barnes & Nobles (currently my favorite bookstore). It gives an interesting insight into the culture and mindset surrounding this activity, an insight that is a little disturbing but justified.

Skateboarders tend to be anti-establishment, and for a good reason: they are continually being harassed, even arrested, by local police who use local, state, and even federal laws that severely restrict skateboarding practically everywhere to pick on those whose appearance or lifestyle they don't happen to like. I've said it before: People need to be careful about pushing their own pet legislative agendas through to enactment because this often just increases the power of the police to selectively enforce those laws. According to the article "By the Time I Get to Arizona", appearing in the July 2010 issue of Thrasher, skateboarders entering Arizona for a sanctioned contest were repeatedly intimidated and even arrested by the police there.

In my own state of Florida, it is technically illegal to ride on a skateboard without a license. The federal government has reportedly passed legislation that both absolves property owners of any liability caused by skateboarders injured on their property and prohibits any skateboarding activity on any public property unless specifically authorized for that purpose. Guess what? That pretty much eliminates public streets, sidewalks, and bike paths. So kiss good-bye the idea of anyone legally riding a skateboard as a legitimate means of transportation (I've observed many ride skateboards to get around, and quite skillfully and fast). Unless of course one wants to "flout the law" and ride on anyway, giving our fabled public protectors the right to stop and harass them according to their own whims and prejudices.

I've grown a chip on my shoulder on behalf of skateboarders and I haven't even ridden a skateboard once. But sometimes, late at night I think I can hear that old board of my daughter's softly calling out from the garage, "C'mon, here I am, throw caution to the wind and take me for a spin; you know you want to"!