Like so many fellow skateboarders and cyclists, many mornings on my way to work I have daydreams that the roads were completely vehicle-free. That I could go full-tilt down the hill and not worry that a vehicle would become an obstacle. What a dream!
Victoria, apparently, is a city on the forefront of alternative, green transportation in Canada. Yet little has been done to protect one of the most convenient forms of transportation: the skateboard. Police still hold the right to seize skateboards from people skating in the confines of downtown. Skateboarding, whether with a traditional board or what is often called a longboard, is popular as an alternative method of movement, because it is small enough to carry under your arm, while also providing the extra speed when needed.
So, what is happening? Skateboarding is stigmatized. People associate skateboarding with crime and chaos. Is such a prejudice reason to enforce an unfair bylaw? If boarders are not an ostracized segment of the population, how come it is they who must forfeit their property to the police on such a whim? If there were any proof that skateboarding inherently makes you a malicious person, I would love to see it.
With this stigma comes the argument in which people believe skateboarders are selfish and aggressive. Appealing to emotion, many people will point to one incident they heard from a police officer or some other anecdotal source in which a senior was nearly hit by a skateboarder.
I would like to counter this argument with my own experience. When I leave the house on foot, it is not uncommon for me to be nearly hit by a vehicle.
Moving away from my personal experience, in Victoria in 2012, according to the Insurance Corp. of B.C., there were 7,620 car accidents; within that number 1,790 of the victims were injured. There were 80 pedestrian accidents in Victoria, and 300 on southern Vancouver Island.
Moving back to my own bias: Within the red zone where skateboarding is considered bylaw-breaking, there is no shortage of accidents and near-accidents. Although it would be difficult to find any hard statistics, it should be common sense that skateboard accidents are not nearly as widespread, nor as dangerous as car accidents, even per capita.
Furthermore, car driving has other direct health impacts. A recent study in France showed that automobile emissions are killing up to 10,000 people per year in that country. The same study indicated that six to 11 per cent of lung-cancer cases in France are due to these emissions. In that statistic, it is easy to see some similarities between drivers and smokers, in the sense of the damage caused by second-hand smoke.
In addition, cars running on fossil fuels are promoting an ecologically devastating practice of extraction.
Skateboarding is a form of exercise, whereas there is no correlation between sitting in your car and improving your fitness. Is it a skater or a driver who is later a drain on the health-care system?
Why are skateboarders stigmatized over car drivers? When we narrow it down to the facts, car driving in downtown Victoria’s red zone — full of lights, one-way streets, stop signs and crosswalks — is incredibly more selfish and arrogant than skateboarding. It is less healthy; it is more damaging to the environment; and, most notably, it is more dangerous for drivers and non-drivers alike.
The demand from skateboarders is clear: eliminate the discriminatory right of officers to take people’s boards and open up the conversation about skateboarding safely on the roadside. Skateboarding is illegal only because of some outdated bylaws based on some non-factual predisposition that a city council held more than 20 years ago and has little rational, nor moral grounds to stand on.
Skateboarding is not a crime.
Born and raised in Victoria, Tyson Kelsall is a student at the University of Northern B.C. in Prince George.
