A PETITION is about to start doing the rounds calling for skaters to be banned from certain areas of Fremantle.
Skaters (of boards, scooters, rollerskates and inlines) are officially deemed to be pedestrians and not riders nor drivers because their “toy vehicles” are propelled by human power.
But Bicton doctor Elena Monaco, who plans to start the petition, says skaters should wear helmets or be banned from using busy roads and footpaths in the Fremantle CBD.
In South Australia, skateboarders must wear a bicycle helmet and in parts of Melbourne there are time restrictions.
Asked whether Fremantle council should clamp down on street skating, east ward councillor Dave Coggin, a vigorous supporter of the $1.2 million Esplanade skate park project, says, “no, I don’t support the nanny state approach”.
“Besides, traffic rules are the responsibility of the police, not council.”
Under the WA road traffic code, skateboarders are banned on carriageways with a dividing line or median strip and on roads with speed limits exceeding 50kph.
Australian road rules defines a person in or on a wheeled recreational device or wheeled toy as a pedestrian, not a rider and not a vehicle. Skaters must stay left if using footpaths and give way to any pedestrian on the footpath or shared path.
Dr Monaco says the Esplanade is no place for a skate park, “which according to most research I have read is frequented mainly by males aged under 25”.
She quotes a 2010 Griffiths University report, Skate parks as a context for adolescent development, which found skate parks were associated with drug taking, property damage and physical aggression.
“The data do not paint an entirely rosy picture of skate parks and those who inhabit them,” the report states.
Interviewees noted anti-social behavior occurs in the parks, mostly late at night and probably not committed by dedicated skaters.
“Many non-users, and even some users, reported feeling intimidated by aspects of the parks and the people they attract,” the report states.
Dr Monaco says the report does outline some positive aspects of skateparks, but the “negative impact to our green area certainly outweighs these positive which will extend to a small male portion of our population. The spending of ratepayers’ money on a facility which has so much potential for negative outcomes is irresponsible government.”
by CARMELO AMALFI
Well I am heartily fed up with hearing the rumble of a skateboard behind me on the pavement and have taken to moving to the side of the pavement and letting them go rather than guessing whether they are proficient or not. The next worse offenders are little kids on scooters with their parents behind. All of them seem totally disinterested in how they make you feel as a simple pedestrian.
Dr Monaco has clearly never spent any time at a skate park, instead relying on highly selective quoting of reports, to justify her ‘don’t like young people’ attitude. Maybe she should try actually visiting one, and actually talking to the people who use it. Or quoting the numerous positive findings, including those in the Griffith report.
I’ve being regularly going to skate parks for the past 35 years, where you find people of all ages and genders. My kids, girl and boys, virtually grew up in them, and they are the better for it. It’s healthy, creative and it’s social. It teaches you about yourself and others, including how to interact with a diverse range of people, something increasingly lost to the online generation. In that time I’ve seen very few instances of the so-called anti-social behaviour described, far less than I do on an average night at the pub. Public space is exactly that, public: you get all sorts. It applies as much to a playground, or a big piece of grass, as it does to a skate park, especially at night. Ever hung around any park in a city centre at 1am?
In 35 years of skateboarding I’ve also heard this same tiresome pseudo-argument dozens of times. You don’t want it on the street, but you also don’t want a skatepark. The fact is, skateboarding is here to stay, like it or not, and people need spaces to skate. Of course such types never have any positive suggestion, content simply to bag skateboarding and those who love it, and by implication young people in general. What a miserable negative attitude from some one in the medical profession:.
As for the roads, as the good councillor says, that’s a matter for the police, not petition-wielding grumps.