Safety Controversy in Spring 2011
In April 2011, the government of New York state proclaimed that wiffle ball (as well as kickball, freeze tag, and dodgeball) was unsafe and a "significant risk of injury" for children and declared that any summer camp program that included two or more of such activities would be subject to government regulation. The story often became a source of ridicule and amusement, with Parenting.com sarcastically commented "According to new legislation introduced in New York State, to survive classic schoolyard games like Capture the Flag is to cheat death." Wiffle ball executives originally thought the order was a "joke". The company has never been sued over safety issues in its 50+ year history. The disapproval of people from across the nation pressured the NY legislature to remove wiffle ball and many other entries from the list of high risk activities, such as archery and scuba diving, that require state government oversight.
Read more about this topic: Wiffleball
Famous quotes containing the words safety, controversy and/or spring:
“Perhaps having built a barricade when you’re sixteen provides you with a sort of safety rail. If you’ve once taken part in building one, even inadvertently, doesn’t its usually latent image reappear like a warning signal whenever you’re tempted to join the police, or support any manifestation of Law and Order?”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“So Spring comes merry towards me here, but earns
No answering smile from me, whose life is twin’d
With the dead boughs that winter still must bind,”
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882)