mom punches skateboarder in face

[rickyfan3.0...]

I don't know who drew the snowboarding comparison, but I drilled a kid hugging a trail merge once. I felt so bad about it and the dad flipped out on me. I basically sat there and took it. You have to.

Even though it wasn't 100% that kids fault, he can't do anything back.

[Eja117]

This is all reminding me of the time Barry Bond's kid was the bat boy and was almost run over by a baserunner coming home.  People have got to stop letting kids be around large fast moving objects.  Bad idea. 

[D.o.s.]

It's a difficult situation--I teach snowboarding full time when it's brisk, and so I'm on the mountains about 100 days a year in the winter. In the off-season, I split my time between skating and hoops... You see a lot of these kinds of "landing area" collisions where person A is trying to land something and person B ends up unwittingly getting in the way.

The kid should've probably had better situational awareness, but he's a little kid. So no real blame there.

The skater should've probably checked his landing better and made sure it was clear before he started, but its an understandable mistake when you're trying to stick a landing on your X-number try. So, no real blame there.

The mom shouldn't have hit that kid. She's a creep.

[mgent]

If that is a skatepark, then the mother is the idiot and the dude should have puncher her back. If that was not a skatepark, than the skater is an idiot and deserved the punch.

Pretty simple.

I knew there'd be at least one person that said he deserved the punch.

I don't understand your logic.  Even if this was an outside mall or public side walk where he was subject to a fine, he was just skateboarding.  There's no way he could have seriously hurt a kid by bumping into him.  He wasn't driving a car near those pedestrians or doing anything dangerous/worthy of anger.

There's a lot of blame to go around here but I have no clue why you think it all lands on the skater.  The mother has the responsibility to take the kid to a playground to run around safely.  If not, at least watch/contain the area they are running in.  We all know it was the kid's fault for not looking where he's running and being aware of his surroundings.  He could have been knocked down for being in the way at Six Flags and it wouldn't be any difference.  That's the way kids learn, especially with parents like that who probably won't teach them.

[bdm860]

If that is a skatepark, then the mother is the idiot and the dude should have puncher her back. If that was not a skatepark, than the skater is an idiot and deserved the punch.

Pretty simple.

I knew there'd be at least one person that said he deserved the punch.

I don't understand your logic.  Even if this was an outside mall or public side walk where he was subject to a fine, he was just skateboarding.  There's no way he could have seriously hurt a kid by bumping into him. He wasn't driving a car near those pedestrians or doing anything dangerous/worthy of anger.

There's a lot of blame to go around here but I have no clue why you think it all lands on the skater.  The mother has the responsibility to take the kid to a playground to run around safely.  If not, at least watch/contain the area they are running in.  We all know it was the kid's fault for not looking where he's running and being aware of his surroundings.  He could have been knocked down for being in the way at Six Flags and it wouldn't be any difference.  That's the way kids learn, especially with parents like that who probably won't teach them.

While I don't necessarily agree with guava's opinion, I don't agree with yours either (at least on the bolded part).

A fully grown guy on skateboard going at a decent speed, runs into kid, knee smacks into head, head smacks onto concrete.  That could lead to serious injury. 

Luckily it didn't quite happen here, but it came close.  A serious injury could very easily have happened here.

[Fan from VT]

Yeah, it would be unlikely but such an accident could easily kill a little kid, no doubt. The video appears to be a pedestrian area with sidewalk and planters, not a skate park. So the skateboarder is definitely at fault for the accident. But she shouldnt have hit him either.

[mgent]

If that is a skatepark, then the mother is the idiot and the dude should have puncher her back. If that was not a skatepark, than the skater is an idiot and deserved the punch.

Pretty simple.

I knew there'd be at least one person that said he deserved the punch.

I don't understand your logic.  Even if this was an outside mall or public side walk where he was subject to a fine, he was just skateboarding.  There's no way he could have seriously hurt a kid by bumping into him. He wasn't driving a car near those pedestrians or doing anything dangerous/worthy of anger.

There's a lot of blame to go around here but I have no clue why you think it all lands on the skater.  The mother has the responsibility to take the kid to a playground to run around safely.  If not, at least watch/contain the area they are running in.  We all know it was the kid's fault for not looking where he's running and being aware of his surroundings.  He could have been knocked down for being in the way at Six Flags and it wouldn't be any difference.  That's the way kids learn, especially with parents like that who probably won't teach them.

While I don't necessarily agree with guava's opinion, I don't agree with yours either.

A fully grown guy on skateboard going at a decent speed, runs into kid, knee smacks into head, head smacks onto concrete.  That could lead to serious injury. 

Luckily it didn't quite happen here, but it came close.  A serious injury could very easily have happened here.

I'm not disagreeing with you and Fan from VT, through the perfect storm of events the kid could have been killed.  Obviously nothing close to that has a reasonable likelihood of happening.  The same thing is possible if he hit his head that hard after stepping in a crack.

People ride skateboards all day throughout America and only the tiniest percentage ever collide with children.  Kids are constantly in high-danger low-possibility situations.  That's why it's so important for them to learn to pay attention and not run blatantly into a skateboarder with a well-defined path.  What if it was a car he blindly ran in front of?  What if it was somebody riding their bike on this sidewalk?  Would you guys be freaking out that he's not on a bike path and thus endangering so many untrained children?