Skateboarding is a popular sport. The idea is simple, yet it has been complicated to unimaginable extents. People are even making money doing it. How crazy is that! Tony Hawk, Andy Macdonald, Eric Koston, etc. are all guys who have taken the sport to extreme levels. Not only have those, people considered it a lifestyle and an art form. For example, professional skateboarder Tony Hawk has said “I consider skateboarding an art form, a lifestyle and a sport. Action sport would be the least offensive categorization.”
Today, there are a lot of skateboarders around the world. Cities have built public skate parks for skateboarders and the population just keeps on growing. With this new generation of skaters rising up, new issues have been happening and there have been tensions between police officers and skaters. For example, in Baltimore, a police officer with the last name of Rivieri assaulted a skateboarder. According to cops, skateboards destroy property and are hazardous for pedestrians. What are the solutions? There should be more designated skate areas built for skaters, because it would decrease confrontations between cops and skaters, it would help increase a positive image on the sport, and it would give people more things to do in cities.
One of the ways to make skateboarding more accessible in cities is bike lanes could also be skate lanes. One could get a permit to be able to ride one on the road and it could also be a law to wear a helmet. Just like bicycles, people would be riding at their own risk and the permit could say that if a skater gets injured, he/she couldn’t sue the city. How cool would that be!
Another occurrence that could happen is skaters could skate public areas like schools and parks if there is an appropriate limit of people depending on the size of the area. There would be a sign posted somewhere that states that to skate at that place would be at your own risk and the limit of people the place wants to have. It would also indicate safety attire if let’s say the place wants the skater to wear a helmet and/ or pads, etc. This would prevent the city from getting sued if a skater injures himself/herself and create a safe atmosphere for citizens.
One last positive thing that’s worth mentioning is skateboarding’s image. If these ideas were to take place, it would help increase a positive image. Some people have a tendency to think very low of skateboarders. This isn’t surprising, considering the fact that some skateboarders do drugs and “sag” their pants.
If we skaters want these changes to come into play, we have to fight for it. We have to join together as one big force for common skater good. If it doesn’t succeed, we can at least say we tried.