Not to kick the dead horse for the 100000th time.. but anyone that does not think this is inevitable for some of our primary beaches is smoking something fierce.
The one thing in our favor is that *most* of our best beach days are those that are too windy for the huge crowds. obviously there are those days where its a wall to wall people and that perfect seabreeze is just enough for us, but not enough to swirl the sand in all the beach-goers faces.
I've seen behavior exactly like Tom describes.. agressive and intentional ..
Look how much press the sport got locally when that kid got lofted into the power lines. That was just a solo rider injury. Imagine how it would be if a non-rider got hurt.
But I agree that the argument could be (if it was a result of someone showboating and getting another hurt) that it was the fault of that solo rider not being safe and not a problem of the sport as a whole.. while that may sit fine in our minds.. it will not sit fine in the publics minds. People are f**king crazy. They read one headline and freak out. It would be a mess. Ban or regulations or whatever.. it would be a massive headache for all..
and.. thats my soapbox speil for the month.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Stock
I think PAG and T.I. are likely to face bans.
A few months ago I watched a well known long time rider on a down winder from PAG. He rode directly through obviously marked swim zones, actually jumping kids. He (appeared to have) intentionally sprayed a young kid in the face, and then botched a jump and kicked the board off, missing another kid's head by a few feet with the board.
Parents were pissed, and a lot of people were jumping up and down yelling and cursing, and a few people were talking about calling the cops... and the rider...saw them, ignored them, and continued down wind through the swim zone jumping.
If he had come to shore there would have been a fight with some of the beach goers I am fairly sure of it.
So much for our self regulation, East Beach is just one place and it lacks swim zones and swimmers.
Self regulation ultimately means people regulating themselves and not everyone is willing to do it.
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