Legalize Longboarding

Nolan Bishop

Longboarding is a viable form of transportation and should be embraced as an on-campus travel option. Southwestern has stated that they cannot allow skateboarding for insurance reasons, but what the University, or insurance, may not realize is that skateboards and longboards are far different than they may at first appear.

I would compare a longboard to a bicycle before I would compare it to a skateboard.  Skateboards have little plastic wheels that are great for tricks, but are dangerous because of their inability to roll over even the smallest obstacles. Longboards, on the other hand, sport large urethane wheels that are great for commuting because of their ability to roll over obstacles up to half their size.

Tricks that can be performed on a skateboard are dangerous, but they’re primarily impossible to do on a longboard. The amount of longboarders that aspire to do tricks and dangerous feats are less than the amount of bicyclists that would attempt such things. I would argue that longboards are safer than bicycles for the reason that with a bicycle, bailing options are limited by the fact you straddle the vehicle you are riding. With a longboard, if needed you can easily jump out of the way or even maneuver out of the way because of its superior cornering ability.

Longboards, and the riders thereof, have a subculture and camaraderie that our campus is deprived of because of the ignorance of such a wonderful form of transportation. Many of the other Adventist institutions allow and even encourage longboarding on campus.  In that way, we wouldn’t be making waves by allowing it.

We as a university are a community of intellectuals. I know that such a community could see that longboarding would not hurt but help our school. If longboarding were legalized we could have clubs, regulations and even new friendships made. It is one of my dreams to have a Bible study group that longboards to a location as a group and then studies the Bible, but alas I have only been able to find a few longboarders and I haven’t even felt enough community to propose such an idea. If longboarding was legalized on campus, then maybe I could find that community I long for.

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