AZ bmxers have it hard @ the parks
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FTW! yey
F**king good on them! It's awesome to see a bunch of people standing up for themselves to fight for what they love doing! I still can't beleive skateparks are so patrolled in some parts of Amerecia, over here in Australia more or less every park can be ridden by anyone!
Pigs. I hate em. I do not understand the argument...
cops are fine, they were doing what they are
payed to do.
its the city that needs to change what the cops
need to enforce.
Agree but I still think the police are a little overzealous in their enforcement. They have wiggle room and a voice. when they show up in large numbers to enforce these types of issues it speaks volumes. Taking video cameras is not part of enforcement, it is just being a bully with a gun and a badge and not wanting their actions on tape to be used against them
In edmond the park started out as no bikes but soon the police got tired of rounding up bmxers. They along with others actually lobbied the city to relax that rule.
When I was in phoenix I went to look at that park and was really dissapointed to see the no bikes sign. there was a biker sessioning the spine in the bowl.
This reminds me of the old Nike commercials where they were arresting tennis players for playing on the public tennis court. BMX is not a crime right.
What they are paid to do is fight crime, arrest criminals and keep peace. To serve and protect. Who in this instance is being served and protected?
The way I understand it is this:
Thanks to the wording of the law, if a skater gets hurt he can't sue the city because skating is an "inherently dangerous activity".
A biker can sue because riding bikes is not "inherently dangerous" (your grandma rides her bike around the duck pond every sunday).
This is why bikes are illegal in california parks. The city is covering its ass. Never underestimate the damage that can be done to the very fabric of society by frivilous litigation.
Here in Oklahoma the state legislature passed laws to protect cities and the state from litigation when playing in the designated manner on public land. The result was that the local MTB club was sued when a guy ran off of a 4' wide bridge and broke his neck. He was not able to sue the city (city property) and the club had purchased an indemnity policy (which apparently opened them up to the lawsuit.
We share the local park with skaters and have ZERO issues. the park is well designed and traffic is separated. The skaters tend to stay on "street" section with just a few that ride the bowls. The bikes are mostly concetrated in the bowl area.
My previous comment was probably out of line. Just a knee jerk reaction to the stormtroopers portrayed on the vid.
I wonder if my buddy from Gilbert who rides urban was there. So lame. I would have been there if I lived there.
The Gestapo were just doing their jobs too. If your job requires you to be a tyrant, then quit, or simply stop doing your job until they fire you. They chose to be cops, and they chose to arrest 12 year old kids for riding bicycles. F#$% em. It's true the problem is rooted at the legislative level, but the cops have the power to exercise discretion as well. Being a tool of tyranny may not be as bad as being a tyrant, but it is certainly not an innocent role.
