{"id":1141,"date":"2012-07-11T11:41:58","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T16:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1141"},"modified":"2012-07-11T11:41:58","modified_gmt":"2012-07-11T16:41:58","slug":"jumping-off-perfectly-good-bridges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1141","title":{"rendered":"Jumping Off Perfectly Good Bridges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Chucky Lewis jumped off the Boyer River Bridge when I was a kid.\u00a0 Perhaps more of us kids in town would have jumped as well, but the Boyer River running alongside the town of Vail is only about a foot deep most of the year and the jump is at least thirty feet from the bridge railing to the water\u2019s surface.\u00a0 Chucky didn\u2019t do it just because he was nuts; a few kids in town told him everyone did it.\u00a0 So, being the gullible bully he was, he tried it.\u00a0 Thankfully, he didn\u2019t get hurt.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, on Tuesday, July 3, a boy in Linn County, Iowa wasn\u2019t as lucky.\u00a0 He broke his leg jumping off the Paris Road Bridge near Central City into the Wapsipinicon River<\/a>.\u00a0 This sport, if it\u2019s all right to call it a sport, is dangerous.\u00a0 An official with the Linn County Sheriff\u2019s Office made a point when he said that bridge jumping could lead to a spinal injury, and the jumper would never be able to swim back to shore.\u00a0 That\u2019s possible.\u00a0 But is that a reason to prohibit the activity?\u00a0 Driving a car can be dangerous, but we don\u2019t prohibit driving because someone may get killed or seriously injured.\u00a0 Jogging can lead to injury, but we don\u2019t regulate the sport.<\/p>\n

A year ago, the Linn County sheriff wanted a county ordinance to make bridge jumping illegal.\u00a0 He based his intentions on the potential hazards and several complaints from citizens. Some jurisdictions throughout the United States and the world have ordinances or statutes prohibiting bridge jumping, so his desire for the prohibition was nothing new. The Linn County Board of Supervisors considered the ordinance, but voted it down.<\/p>\n

The proposed ordinance would have fined a juvenile $100, while an adult\u2019s penalty would cost $650 and a possible 30-day jail term.\u00a0 John Harris, a supervisor from Palo, questioned the practicality of the ordinance by noting that it\u2019s \u201cgoing to be very difficult to enforce.\u00a0 By the time the sheriff\u2019s deputy arrives, they\u2019ll be picnicking on the sandbar, and there will be no activity to cite.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s correct.\u00a0 Another supervisor, Brent Oleson from Marion, stated that he didn\u2019t see a concern, \u201cas long as they\u2019re not hurting others.\u201d<\/p>\n

The supervisors took a sensible approach.\u00a0 There is not much that can be accomplished by banning fads, especially when a thrill is involved.\u00a0 I was a kid, and I was thrill seeker. \u00a0I know that to get around this you set up a couple of others to watch for law enforcement.\u00a0 If a sheriff\u2019s deputy comes along you give a signal, and everyone goes to the sandbar for a picnic.\u00a0 Creating a law prohibiting such activity makes the activity more enticing.\u00a0 The activity becomes the forbidden fruit.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just a thrill to jump off the bridge, but because it\u2019s prohibited, the thrill is enhanced.\u00a0 And thrill seeking is what bridge jumping<\/a> is all about. \u00a0As if jumping from a bridge into the water below isn\u2019t enough of a thrill, it can be recorded and broadcast all over the Internet via YouTube.\u00a0 The excitement of having others across the world view the feat of what has been accomplished is an additional pleasure.\u00a0 Make it illegal and it adds a few drops of adrenaline to the blood stream.<\/p>\n

People have probably been jumping off bridges since the first one was built.\u00a0 If an ordinance had been adopted last year in Linn County, would kids who were with the boy who broke his leg run from the scene to avoid a $100 fine?\u00a0 Very likely, remember, they\u2019re kids, not adults.\u00a0 Reactive laws can lead to greater tragedies.<\/p>\n

Kids used to break legs and arms all the time.\u00a0 It was like wearing a plaque, a medal, or a trophy.\u00a0 The alternative is to prohibit any activity that may be hazardous to kids and watch them get fat sitting at home watching the \u201ctube\u201d, or today, \u201cYouTube\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fawkes-Lee & Ryan is committed to preventing reactive statutes from becoming law.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a difficult job trying to prevent law enforcement from protecting everyone from themselves.\u00a0 That\u2019s our challenge.<\/p>\n

Many people who have written about bridge jumping have included the old clich\u00e9:\u00a0 \u201cIf everyone else was jumping off the bridge, would you?\u201d\u00a0 I guess that many mothers have questioned their children in this way.\u00a0 Mine didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Maybe she knew about Chucky Lewis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kids used to break legs and arms all the time. It was like wearing a plaque, a medal, or a trophy. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,17],"tags":[422,431,430,267,424,429,426,427,425,423,428],"class_list":["post-1141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-issues","tag-boyer-river","tag-brent-oleson","tag-bridge-jumping","tag-fawkes-lee-ryan","tag-ia","tag-john-harris","tag-linn-county-sheriff","tag-linn-county-supervisors","tag-paris-road-bridge","tag-vail","tag-wapsipinicon-river"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1142,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141\/revisions\/1142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}