Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed legislation that would have required skiers and snowboarders under 18 to wear protective helmets.
State Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat and child psychologist, authored SB 105, which had received bi-partisan support in the state legislature.
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“Unfortunately, the governor ignored the pleas of parents who were
asking for this law and for a simple tool to help get their kids to wear
helmets on the slopes,” Yee says in a statement released today. “California's ski slopes are
perhaps the last area of recreation where we do not have basic safety
standards in place for children.”
That statement came not from
Yee's office but that of the California Psychological Association, which
offered this quote from its director:
“We're astonished that Governor Brown vetoed common sense legislation to protect kids and mirror bike helmet laws,” said Dr. Jo Linder Crow.
“The evidence is clear that the use of helmets can greatly reduce the
severity of head injuries resulting in a better recovery process. We
are very disappointed that the governor chose to ignore the scientific
evidence, the ski industry's support, and the general widespread support
that SB 105 received. “
Crow's lobbying group sponsored identical legislation in 2010 that then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
signed. However, because it was joined to another bill regulating ski
industry safety that Schwarzenegger vetoed, SB 105 did not become
operative. Thus, the run at Brown.
The Weekly wrote about the bills that were before the Governator here:
And before that . . .
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.