Friday - May 24, 2013
Yay For NY Legislature
Here I go again, being a contrarian.
While other VRWC blogs see this story as some overweening abuse and waste of time by the nanny-state, I see it as a rare example of government doing what it ought to be doing.
ALBANY, N.Y.—With all the corruption in Albany, one of your representatives is instead focusing efforts on something many of you like to do, bowl.
New York State Senator Patrick Gallivan (R-59th District) New York State Assemblyman Robin Schimminger (D-140th District) are sponsoring a bill that would cover bowling shoes. The bill in the assembly is co-sponsored by Assembly members Brian Kolb, Crystal Peoples-Stokes and Jane Corwin.
It would require alley owners to post signs, warning keglers not to wear bowling shoes outside, lest they become wet and increase the likelihood that a bowler could slip and fall when they come inside
Bowling shoes, designed to slip on the lanes, can become extremely slippery when wet.
“Some things that might seem small to others, might be of significance to another group,” Gallivan told WGRZ-TV, while acknowledging that on the surface, such a law might seem silly.
In this case, the group most concerned bowling alley owners, who Gallivan says approached him seeking help to stem the tide of rising insurance costs.
Alley owners saw lawsuits by patrons who have increased, in the decade since the state made smoking in a bowling alleys illegal, tempting many of bowlers who smoke, to sneak out or a few puffs between frames, perhaps when it’s raining or snowing....who then come in, slip, and then sue.
Hey, protectionist laws are what it’s all about. Bowling alleys pay their taxes just like every other business, so they have the right to have bills considered that cover their specific needs. Remember a few years ago when all the Nanny-State mayors were suing all the gun manufacturers because people were being shot with guns that they had built? And then some federal law got passed, called the Protection of Lawful Commerce Act that said such lawsuits were wrong, and are now illegal? And we all said “Woo hoo, this is a great thing!!”? This bill isn’t that much different.
But the article does have one central fact wrong, albeit an understandable error. It isn’t that the slippery soles become too slippery when wet, it’s that they become unslippery when they shouldn’t be. And that CAN get you injured.
Bowling shoes are designed to be slippery. Well, one of them is at any rate. The other is designed to give maximum traction on bare wood which is what the approach area is made of. The footwork of bowling is such that as you throw the ball, you step forward into a slight lunge with your opposite foot, and it slides along the floor for a short distance. The underside of the sliding foot shoe has special surfaces designed to slide. Top end shoes even allow you to change those surfaces depending on conditions. Slide soles are made from leather, suede, felt, or smooth plastic. As you finish your lunge and your heel turns inward, the heel of the sliding foot begins to carry your weight, and at that point the special braking surface under the heel stops your slide. There are many different kinds of brake heels too, from sawtooth hard rubber down to rough suede, depending on how fast or slow you want to come to a stop.
If the leather or felt sole of your sliding shoe gets wet it will stick like sandpaper to the raw wood floor that is the approach area to the lanes. So when you go to slide, your foot jams up just as hard and fast as Captain Ahab finding an open knothole on the deck of the Pequod. And you go flying. In the worst cases, you’ll put your back or your hip out and do a header right onto the lanes, getting yourself all covered up with yucky bowling lane oil. Worse, you’ll pull the shot and foul, getting no score for that throw at all.
But bowlers already know this. That’s why we all have at least one pair of “shoe-phylactics” in our bags. Dry Dogs, No Wets, all different brands; slip on covers for the bowling shoes, just in case. And we use them, all the time.
Because there’s more than just moisture to worry about, either from stepping outside or from using the bathroom. Gum in the carpet will screw you up too. So will the grease from some kid’s spilled fries. Dust and dirt because the alley staff didn’t have time to vacuum before your league started. It’s a risk we all know about, and we all know how to deal with it. Because we’ve all gone flying from this, at least once. Damp approaches are the scourge of the sport, and the worst is when you’ve been super careful but you jam up from some other fool’s damp spot.
These days bowling alleys have more customers than just league bowlers. To survive in the modern world they have had to reinvent themselves into Family Fun Centers. It’s Mommy And Me time every day at 1:30pm; bring the little tykes! Birthday Bowling parties! Singles Date Night through match.com! My point is, they get a lot of people in who aren’t really bowlers, so they just don’t grok how things work. Their sticky little sprogs run all over the place, dropping food and spilling drinks. Mommy runs out to the minivan five times to get junior a toy, or his special stuffed animal, or his behavioral meds. And they never stop to put on their street shoes.
Smokers are a big part of it too. For some reason, probably because it doesn’t take much ability to breathe, smokers are a huge part of the bowling fraternity. Or they were. Bowling alleys were the very last places to go smoke free, and when they did, many alleys lost half their customers forever. Period. The smokers who stayed learned to go outside for a puff. But outside is where the weather is, and I haven’t heard of a single alley building a covered outdoor smoking area. They could. Double doors, vent fans, screened upper casement windows, a covered ramada to the outside door, doormats, a strip of indoor outdoor carpet on the walkway, etc. So what if it costs $25,000? A dozen regular league bowlers who smoke bring in that much revenue per year. And the smoking ban cost the alleys hundreds of customers. It would be worth it. It would be worth it to build such areas even with seats, A/C, heat, and lights.
The alleys all put up signs. They’re everywhere. “Don’t go outside in your bowling shoes! We have shoe covers, just ask!” “No street shoes beyond this point!” But expecting people to read things right in front of them is too much. And expecting them to have a basic understanding of physics, or at least the variable friction effects of wet surface interactions, is also too much. So the alleys get sued because people hurt themselves a little. It’s not like they die. It’s not like they become paralyzed. But I’m sure an unexpected fall could break bones, and I know it can injure your back ... the nebulous kind of injury certain types of lawyers just love. For the most part it’s just embarrassing; I bet I’ve seen 100 people take a dive and not one of them ever needed an ambulance.
So these businesses seek some protection from government. Good for them. Sorry folks, life is a risk. Out on the lanes it’s caveat iaculātor sphearae
And it doesn’t really matter if the government has bigger, better things to do, or if they are generally corrupt and/or incompetent. Passing laws to protect their people is what they are for. Maybe the alleys are going to have to have everyone sign a release form, and the shoes will all have permanently affixed warning tags, like the one on the cord of your hair dryer that tells you not to use their product underwater. Duh.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/24/2013 at 02:41 PM
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging • Government •
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