Bob Collins
America hates kids.
How else to explain the insistence that kids — or anybody else — not slide down Capitol Hill on those rare occasions when it snows in the District of Columbia?
It’s a familiar story across America where governments are cracking down on sledding because of liability fears, The Hill reports.
“If the forecast holds true, there are many families who will want to enjoy the snow tomorrow,” Capitol Police Board Chairman and Senate Sgt. At Arms and Doorkeeper Frank Larkin said ahead of Thursday’s storm. “Although, for security reasons, the Capitol grounds are not your typical neighborhood hill or playground.”
Larkin said the Traffic Regulations for the U.S. Captiol Grounds prohibit sledding and other recreational activities. He went on to say there are over 20,000 sledding injuries in the U.S each year, a number that comes from an August study by the Center for Injury Research and Policy at the National Children’s Hospital’s in Columbus, Ohio.
The study found that from 1997 to 2007, emergency rooms in the U.S. treated an estimated 229,023 children and adolescents younger than 19 for sledding injuries which included fractures, cuts and bruises.
To protest the do-nothing Capitol policy, sledders are planning to defy officials this afternoon.
“Children and their parents should able to enjoy sledding on one of the best hills in the city,” D.C. representative Eleanor Holmes Norton said. “This is a one-time waiver that will allow Washington kids to sled while we await a more formal review of the ban, which will likely come after the last snow has fallen in our region. Have a heart, Mr. Larkin, a kid’s heart that is.”
Update 4:41 p.m. – The cops across the river had no problem with fun.
There's no sledding controversy here in #ArlingtonVa! Thanks for letting us try out the sled! #ArlWX pic.twitter.com/0PwJ3N9gQj
— ArlingtonCountyPD (@ArlingtonVaPD) March 5, 2015
