Skateboarders ride into battle over by-laws

Cape Town 140212 Jim Sher who works for an IT company , uses his skateboard to travel to work everyday . picture : neil baynes

Cape Town 140212 Jim Sher who works for an IT company , uses his skateboard to travel to work everyday . picture : neil baynes

Published Feb 16, 2012

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A battle against skateboarding by-laws has been joined by a diverse group of Capetonians for whom the activity is not a subculture but a practical choice.

Jim Sher, a 33-year-old Claremont man who skateboards to and from work every day, contacted the Cape Times after reading about the longboarding schoolboys who call themselves The Noordhoek Group and who have lodged a formal application with the City of Cape Town to revise by-laws that make it illegal to skateboard on public roads.

The issue, which is under discussion by the city, was debated at length on two radio shows after the story appeared.

Sher says he endorses the group’s plea but for different reasons. “They want to practise for international sports and to ride to friends, but in my case I am a serious skateboarder and I use it as a form of transport to get to and from the place where I earn my living.”

He says that the route he takes to work is on back roads and is a short cut. He discovered the benefit of doing it when his girlfriend wrote off her car in an accident and he decided to lend his to her.

Also, it’s “much cheaper to skate and is also a form of physical exercise”.

He says that if skaters are considerate and don’t put danger in anyone’s way, drivers do not get upset. Other options he says should be considered are a licensing system – “though that will also have its limitations” – and the Noordhoek Group’s lobby for certain roads to be made “skateboard-friendly” at certain times of the day.

Gerhard Nel, who also contacted the Cape Times after seeing the story, says skateboarding saved him from a “black depression” when a back injury brought his time as an athlete to an abrupt end.

He says skateboarding is not the subversive cultural form it may once have been.

“We are not the skateboarders of the ’90s, grinding handrails and breaking bottles. We are educated, well-spoken human beings, deserving as much access to those ethereal values entrenched in our Bill of Rights as any other person in this wonderful country of ours.”

He says the solution to the dilemma is to “penalise reckless skateboarding, but allow reasonable use of skateboards”, and for the general public to gain a better understanding of what skateboarding is, as they sometimes react with “aggression, violence and fear” because it isn’t a mainstream activity.

Caron Joubert, whose son Oliver, 15, is part of the Cape Town Fizzers, says the activity does not get the credit it deserves.

“The great thing about ‘downhill longboarding’ is that the kids are outside in the fresh air getting fit,” she says, “and they are not in front of the television, or sitting for hours playing computer games, or hanging around in shopping malls.”

She says the Cape Town Fizzers don’t drink or smoke, and are not interested in drugs, but that they “love the adrenalin pump they get from longboarding”.

She also points to the responsible way of doing it, as “the kids are equipped with motorbike leathers and special helmets” but says the main problem is finding a safe place to do it. - Cape Times

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