Back when my family vacationed in Miami Beach, it wasn’t uncommon for
the hotels abutting the shoreline to have high diving boards. I mean
sometimes really high — maybe even the kind you see on Olympics
telecasts. It was a scary jump for me as a child, but I think I mustered
the courage once or twice. But I couldn’t as an adolescent. You see,
the boards were closed down by then (circa 1980), an obvious victim of
our society’s increasing litigiousness. Insurance regulations, you know.
And it’s far worse today, as we’re being lawyered and insured into an antiseptic, killjoy state. As an example, it’s just been announced
that elementary schools in Cabell County, West Virginia, are removing
all swing sets for fear of litigation. A school official cited a recent
lawsuit in which the district had to pay out $20,000 after a boy broke
his arm jumping off a swing à la Superman.
Read the rest here.



Leave a reply to john bailey Cancel reply