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Inline Skaters and Aggressive Drivers
An Inline Skate Instructors Point of View: Street skating is considered by most non-skaters as dangerous, immature and completely pointless. Obscene gestures, rude remarks and aggressive confrontations are a daily part of street skating here in London. Most of us learn to ignore it, just let it wash over us like an insignificant breeze. But when that breeze turns into a life threatening tornado, then we have to stop pretending it doesn't exist. Drivers are effectively playing russian roulette with our lives when they choose to drive dangerously close and show signs of aggressive behaviour (because to be fair, simply driving close to someone isn't always intentional). When a driver does this, they are technically committing an offence, assault with a deadly weapon and possibly attempted man slaughter. When I've tried to reason with these irresponsible drivers I'm often met with the argument that "Skating on the road is illegal" , followed by "You're going to get yourself killed". Skating on the roads is NOT illegal and of course , with drivers like them on the roads there is a high probability that someone will eventually be killed. Skaters are seriously injured on the roads of London every week. This type of incident doesn't happen as often in Cities like Paris, because the police take these offences very seriously. In fact Paris have Roller-Cops, that's how seriously they take their inline skating. I also believe that Paris drivers are required by law to have inline skaters covered on their insurance policies. London Police on the other hand don't seem to take inline skating seriously at all. The law and inline skating in this City (and Country for that matter) are a gray area. You may be told by one police officer to get off the pavement and onto the road, while further down the road another police officer might tell you to get off the road and onto the pavement. It's a confusing and sometimes frustrating scenario that is all to familiar with regular street skaters, like yourself maybe?
This article was posted on November 16, 2005 |
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