There was a buzz of disgust when Toronto recently banned tobogganing at 45 hills deemed to be unsafe.
Apparently, what it takes for a hill to be put on the banned list is an obstacle – a tree, ditch, fence or trail – somewhere on the slope.
Those of us whose childhood included careening down a snowy hill on a toboggan, or reasonable facsimile thereof (cafeteria trays were popular at a certain university that shall go unnamed) wonder about Toronto’s decision.
While we understand the concept of liability, and are aware of rising municipal insurance costs, and – grudgingly – applaud the effort to protect both taxpayers and their children, we have to wonder if banning tobogganing is the way to do it. Perhaps the answer lies more with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s (AMO) ongoing efforts at reforming Ontario’s joint and several liability rules.
Joint and several liability means someone named in a lawsuit might be deemed only marginally responsible for an injury, but end up paying the lion’s share of the settlement, thanks to the so-called “deep pocket” concept – the principle that innocent victims have a right to seek a financial settlement from wrongdoers that would restore their lives to what they would have been had harm not occurred.
Municipalities, with their ability to levy taxes, are considered to have extremely deep pockets.
Those pockets may be deep, but they are not bottomless, hence the effort at reform through AMO – and at preventing a catastrophic injury that could result in a multi million-dollar settlement.
You can get injured tobogganing. All it takes is a bunch of kids heading downhill at warp 10, colliding with someone coming back up the hill – or that one small tree on the whole hill, or a garbage can, or a fence. Toboggans are designed for speed, not steerability. Once you start picking up speed and go off-course, your choices are limited to flinging yourself off the thing or holding on for dear life and hoping you miss the tree. Sometimes you do, and sometimes you get up close and personal with broken branches.
More than one tobogganing expedition has ended in the local emergency room.
As any former kid will tell you, a nice, safe little hill may reduce the chance of injury, but it is not fun for anyone older than a toddler. Kids will deliberately build a bump onto the main slope, to ensure a stomach-churning moment in mid-air. They will also pour water on the slope to make it faster.
Keeping in mind that any time you jump on something with the goal of sliding downhill as fast as possible, injuries can happen, and some hills are safer than others. Toronto has posted a list of the ones it deems safe for tobogganing. Safer still are resorts (with their own liability insurance) that offer skiing and various other winter sports.
However, the neighbourhood toboggan hill has its own attractions. Kids can walk to it, and spend an hour or an afternoon at it, free of charge. They can slide on a toboggan, a plastic sled, a piece of cardboard or a garbage can lid with the handle bashed flat. They can wear a fancy snow mobile suit or whatever winter gear is available – heavy wool socks can cover hands as well as feet, and two or three thin tuques work as well as one thick one. The thawing-out process does not need to involve anything more than hot chocolate and dry pants.
When assessing the danger of the neighbourhood toboggan hill, one needs to look at several factors, including the risk of not letting kids on it. Packing kids in bubble wrap and limiting their thrill-seeking to video games has its own hazards.
If we want our children to grow into adults who are willing to take a risk and try new things, who enjoy outdoor recreation and whose idea of fun is not based on the amount of money it costs, maybe what we need are more toboggan hills, even if they come complete with an occasional toboggan-eating tree.
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Pauline Kerr is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with Midwestern Newspapers. She can be reached at pkerr@midwesternnewspapers.com.
