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Skateboarders have been among the most misunderstood athletes
in American culture. They are generally treated more like
an ethnic or cultural group than athletes.
Local
skater rides the rail outside of Bell Engineering.
(Photo:
Adam
Wallworth)
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Few, if any, popular sports have the legal ramifications of
street skating.
On the University of Arkansas campus, it is illegal to use
a skateboard for anything other than transportation. Additionally,
Fayetteville will only allow sidewalk skateboarding. But like
the university, skaters may only use their skills for transportation,
not tricks.
According to Lt. Gary Crane of the UA Police Department, skateboards
can only be used to get from one point to another. Stunts
are not allowed, he said, due to the possibility of property
damage.
"They're not out to damage property," Crane said, "they're
just out to practice their sport."
To practice their sport, however, skateboarders need obstacles.
And if skaters want to perform tricks, they have to go to
a skate park. The parks, however, are a different form of
skating than which is undergone in the streets.
"If you don't grow up skating the streets, you don't have
the same roots," said Coburn Huff, a skateboarder who works
at the Skate Station. "If you come (to the Skate Station)
and skate every time, it just gets boring. But if you go out
and street skate, you get to learn new tricks on different
obstacles every time. You know, pull the same trick on a different
obstacle. It's is just a completely different thing."
Just as all sports have a beginning, skateboarding starts
on the street. Street skating is the traditional, often favored
form of skating, as it allows more spontaneity and variety.
"If you can't go out and skate your street as a kid, you just
can't learn anything," Huff said. "I know that every single
kid in here has gone out and skated a street, just to learn
a kick flip or an ollie. They always gotta go skate in their
drive way and then they just take it somewhere else."
Personal injury and property damage is another aspect of skateboarding
that causes problems with authorities. States such as Michigan,
Virginia and Washington have passed measures to make skateboarding
a "hazardous" or "at your own risk" activity, in order to
limit liability.
But the warnings are stemmed mostly from public fear of injury
liability, not the skaters, who are generally aware of the
risk and traditionally hold themselves accountable.
"I hear countless owners of businesses coming out and saying
(to the skaters), 'What happens if you break a leg?'" said
Huff.
But Huff, like many skaters, knows if there is injury, it
is self-inflicted.
"It's our fault were the ones that did it," Huff said. "Even
if it was their fault, I still wouldn't sue."
The city of Fayetteville is planning to build a public skate
park in hopes of providing an alternative to street and campus
skating. Skaters and police are optimistic about the proposed
skate park, though there is some concern for skaters about
how this will affect the police's treatment of street skating.
Lt. Crane thinks the skate park is a good idea.
"There just looking for fun, to do what they do." Crane said.
"They should have a place to go."
Though grateful for an alternate place to skate, Huff expressed
concern of how the skate park would affect their already limited
street skating capabilities.
"The thing that I don't want to see is policemen saying, 'You
shouldn't be out here skating. Because you have a new skate
park to go to, you can't skate street any more,'" Huff said.
Perhaps with the new skate park, the public will be able to
respect skaters and the two masses of people can more toward
a peaceful co-existance.
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