I see the police in New Zealand are shocked at the behaviour of young people again. Apparently, a bunch of youths who like something slightly unusual and a bit risky have filmed themselves doing something entirely legal.

Shown the video, amazed police officers in Auckland described their actions as “incredibly stupid” and “idiotic”.

Superintendent John Kelly said: “What concerns me is the speed they get up to and the lack of control they have got.

“They’ve got no brakes. If something goes wrong in front of them, they’re terribly exposed to risk.”

Another experienced traffic officer, Sergeant Stu Kearns, said: “Anyone using a skateboard on a road like that has a death wish.”

At the top of the Bombay Hills heading south from Auckland, State Highway 1 ceases to be classified as a motorway and becomes an expressway, meaning pedestrians and cyclists are permitted to use it.

Although skateboarders are defined as pedestrians, police say they could be charged with careless driving or failing to keep left.

Kids? Having fun? Taking risks? How dare they! We’ll find some reason to penalise them, don’t worry! And if there isn’t, well, we’ll make something up.

Ian R Thorpe July
24, 2010 at 16:38

Personally I don’t care if these tossers kill themselves, the world needs
less arseholes. What about when one of them loses control however and somebody
in a car or van, a vehicle with brakes and a steering wheel or other means onf
controlling it, swerves to avoid them (a normal reflex) and causes a multiple
pile up resulting in deaths and serious injuries to people who were not doing
anything stupid.

And think of the outcry there would be if one of them was mown down by a
car. The chavs who made Raoul Moat a “legend” would look restrained by
comparison.

So if you want to argue thay “hey, the guys are just having fun and it
isn’t illegal,” (though it would actually break several laws in Britain and
several dozen in the USA, stateboarders are regarded as pedestrians in law)
then you must also argue that any drivers who kill them will not be charged
with any crime more serious than littering.

Libertarianism imposes a burden of responsibility on people. That idiots
like these skateboarders exist shows why we have a long way to go if we want
to win back our personal liberties.

I’d love to heard what cyclist – hater Jeremy Clarkson had to say on this.
At least bikes have brakes and handlebars.

English Viking
July 24, 2010 at 19:12

You are correct, Sir.

JohnRS July 24, 2010 at 12:32

Pre-May 6th
Ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban
it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it,
ban it

Post-May 6th
Ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban
it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it, ban it,
ban it

Do you really think Dem Tories “Big Society” centralised gummint will react
any differently to the way Bully McNutter’s regime of the shaved chimps would
have done?

bil July 24, 2010 at 11:31

Brilliant. People taking control over their own lives and associated risks.
We need more of it.

misplacedperson July 23, 2010 at 20:27

People do that round here all the time, though admittedly not on major dual
carriageways. Mainly because we don’t have any.

Ancient and Tattered
Airman July 23, 2010 at 18:47

Perhaps we should bewail the abrupt departure of the previous ‘guvmint’ as
they would undoubtedly have made ‘rapid descents on stairs and elevators’ a
punishable crime with suitably severe fines.

Bill
Sticker July 23, 2010 at 15:18

Tsk! Where’s a speed safety camera when you want to know
what speed you can get up to?

Fascist Hippy
July 23, 2010 at 15:14

Couldn’t happen here in UK, the appalling road surfaces would have you off
the skateboard within twenty feet (about 6 metres if you want it in
foreign).

woodsy42 July 23, 2010 at 12:00

I tend to agree with Lenko, it’s a bloody stupid thing to do on so many
levels, although I normally agree with the argument that it’s their skin* so
they can do what they like with it, they are forcing other people into their
games.
More significantly for me it points to the futility of all the
safety and control regulations in society. Some people want risk and exitement
but if society takes all the opportunities away by banning them and making
life bland and boring then some people will be pushed into more extreme ways
to have their fun.

* I suspect it won’t be theirs indefinitely, some will be donating it to
the landscape before long!

lenko July 23, 2010 at 10:40

Not with you on this one, Thaddeus… although it DOES look like a lot of
fun. And who cares if you kill yourself? Just one less mouth to feed on a
hungry planet.

Yep — terrific fun — right up to the minute something goes wrong and you
kill some poor innocent bastard who was having a nice day until you happened
along. Maybe you can kill the whole family, who knows?

Or until you DON’T kill yourself — just end up a veggie whose Mum has to
spend her last few years being a full time carer and wiping your bottom every
day.

Great fun.

English Viking
July 23, 2010 at 12:34

Well said Sir. And what of the psychological effects on a totally
innocent driver who mows over one of these guys who has fallen?

BTW Thaddeus, undertaking is not legal, nor is failing to indicate before
changing lanes or exiting the carriageway.

Thaddeus J.
Wilson July 23, 2010 at 13:15

Well, lenko and English Viking, I trust neither of you will ever be
venturing out behind the wheel of a car, because that is one of the
easiest ways for you to kill an innocent or an innocent family or winding
up as a vegetable. And I’m sure you’d want to avoid the psychological
effects of accidentally driving over a passing pedestrian?

What’s that you say? Driving a car is OK? But driving a car is one of
the easiest ways of getting hurt!

Perhaps your risk tolerances are lower than those of these children
(and, I must confess, so are mine.) But the unsaid implication of your
words is that your risk assessment is correct, whereas theirs is wrong and
therefore they should be stopped from doing any such thing.

The fear of harming an innocent is something that could be a
consequence of any action. Due to large hedges, I, while exiting my
driveway, could run over a toddler who has momentarily escaped from his
parents control. Every single day I see people not having absolute control
over their children in my street. Does that mean I should never venture
out of my driveway? Does that mean that parents should never walk in the
street with their children?

I’m of the opinion that you need to look within yourselves and think
again about how you have reacted to this story. No-one has been harmed.
People could have been harmed, but I’m willing to bet more people
hurt themselves brushing their teeth every day than were hurt by the
people in the video.

The aversion to risk is a natural consequence of harming yourself and
others, but that does not mean risks should not be taken. Indeed, I would
argue that the risk-averse nature of modern society is largely to blame
for the feral nature of the “underclasses”, who are entirely denied ways
of burning off their natural desire for exposure to risk.

lenko
July 23, 2010 at 14:38

Well… I just this minute looked deep into myself — and it’s messy in
there. All sorts of things… rubber rocking horses and stuff like
that.

But granted, driving a car is a really, really easy-peasy way to
write yourself off and other people too. But zooming along the highways
AMONGST faster moving cars, mostly populated by idiots like me, is even
more dangerous.

Cars are risky, motor-bikes very risky, push-bikes very very risky…
and skate boards — off the scale, along with motorised zimmer-frames and
pedestrians on motorways.

I am all in favour of not banning things, but you don’t give babies
razor-blades to play with, and you consign skate-boards to a
skate-boarding place which don’t have motorists trying to share the
space.

English
Viking July 23, 2010 at 16:49

I’ll grant you that driving is a dangerous thing. I have driven for a
living in the past and as a consequence I have seen many stupid things
done by drivers, occasionally by myself, but I have never had a bad
accident. I’ll lay good money that these boys will not go 20 years
without killing someone/themselves if they carry on with this
insanity.

Jabba the Cat July 23, 2010 at 13:39

Hey, shit happens and there is nothing you can do about it so chill
out.

Hysteria
July 24, 2010 at 03:41

wrong..wromg, wrong, wrong – shit doesn’t “happen”. People put
themselves in harms way and are often ignorant of the potential
consequences.

I am with the earlier poster – you want to race down a hill – fine –
just don’t expose ME to the risks YOU are taking…………

Clarissa July 23,
2010 at 10:20

Reminds me of the fuss that TfL made after someone had the audacity to ski
down the escalator at Angel.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6501897.stm

Can’t have people enjoying themselves or trying something new can we? The
horrors! Don’t they know they could have been injured?

Bloody killjoys.

ucko July 23, 2010
at 10:01

How can you charge a pedestrian with dangerous driving? Muppets

Pat July 23, 2010 at 09:40

As soon as you have an organisation charged with keeping people safe, that
organisation will inevitably decide just how safe you need to be- after all
there would be no point in there existence if they recognised that some people
are happy to take risks that others won’t. Thus the HSE and the police take
our money telling us to do things we don’t see the point of, or abstain from
things we do want to do.

formertory July 23, 2010 at 09:34

On the plus side, good to see the guy filming was at least wearing biker’s
leathers; on the minus side, the idiot doing it barefoot and wearing
hacked-off pants and a shirt is probably looking for early entry to the Darwin
Awards. But there always was something admirably bonkers about NZ youth.

Nick2 July 23, 2010 at 08:35

Excellent! That looks like a LOT of fun! However the road the boarders are
using looks very smooth and even – I once managed to break the local limit on
an urban motorway on a bike & (keeping it upright on) the patched, worn
road was even more memorable than the speed…