Nowadays Skateboarding is very popular in children and teenagers. It’s a very joyful sport and a very good way of doing exercise too. But obviously almost every sport includes a risk of danger and Skateboarding is a bit dangerous when it comes to avoiding safety precautions.
Is Skateboarding Dangerous?
Yes, Skateboarding is dangerous when you’re not following the safety precautions, you’re not attentive while riding the skateboard or when you’re riding it on the wrong path.
Conditions that can increase the risk of danger are mentioned below:
- Riding it on uneven or wet surface
- Not wearing the protective gear
- Riding in a crowded place
- Riding in a traffic
- Skateboarding on homemade ramps
- Being too fast
- Drinking or eating while riding
- Trying to do stunts that are risky
In a survey it has been proven that skateboarding is less dangerous than the other famous sports such as basketball, football, horseback riding and hiking.
Injuries
The most common injuries include
- Facial injuries such as broken nose or fractured jaw
- Concussion and other serious injuries
- Dislocation
- Swollen Elbows
- Laceration or Deep cuts
Age Limitations
It’s strongly recommended that children under the age of 5 must not skateboard at all. Their senses regarding the balance are not developed completely at this age so the chances of losing balance are more. So, it’s downright wide of the mark to allow them to ride a skateboard.
Safety Precautions While Skating
Skateboarding is dangerous but not as much as the other sports are. The chances of injuries can be minimized by following the safety precautions. According to the National Safety Council over 200,000 are injured by skateboarding in a year in the United States, but most of them were minor and the rest were serious.
So, it doesn’t matter if you are a beginner, or a professional safety is first. Because random events happen, sometimes roads are uneven and sometimes the pebbles are scattered so it’s not possible to maintain the balance and losing control costs an injury or maybe a little scratch
Skateboard Safety Gears
It often happens that riders don’t wear safety gear while riding a skateboard just to look cool or maybe to show people how capable and good they are with their tool but some of the incidents took place while they were illustrating their stunts. So, to avoid injuries due to skateboarding you must adopt these Safety Gears that will reduce the chances of injuries and will make you feel confident and secure while riding
Helmet
As mentioned above concussion and head injuries are very common kind of injuries. So, while riding, wearing a skateboard helmet that fits you properly will be strong recommendation.
Wrist Guards
Wrist guards turn out to be very helpful when it comes to the prevention of laceration or dislocation. After falling when you’re unable to roll, almost all the impact is taken by them.
Knee Pads/Elbow Pads
Knee Pads are mandatory to reduce the chances of swollen elbows/knees or dislocation, that can be a very serious injury. So, this will be strongly recommended to never do skateboarding without wearing Knee Pads or Elbow Pads.
Proper Shoes
To prevent yourself from heel injury wearing thin soles is a bad idea, because it cannot absorb the impact and will lead you to the heel injury. Heal injury is very painful and time taking so it’s better to opt a shoe that doesn’t contains a thin sole.
See also: Are Skate Shoes Good for Walking?
High Quality Skateboard
Above all using the Skateboard that is in good shape or great in quality will be prescribed. Like all the components of Skateboard are up to date, For instance; it’s deck should consist of 7 layers of maple wood, wheels are of quality, Trucks must be solid, no compromise on the quality of bearings and to prevent yourself from slipping proper grip tapes are required.
Also read our article on Skateboard Costs to learn more about quality and pricing of a skateboard.
