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Show ant Grove Review - Thursday, October 7, 2004 - Page 2 Pleasant Opinion : ',7: : Think safety first When the popularity of motorized motor-ized scooters and minibikes. hit north Utah County nearly a year ago, many police officers cringed there were safety issues. Since common sense isn't always an acquired skill, cities have had to establish the next best thing for residents res-idents a set of new laws desgined for these. On Sept. 21, Pleasant Grove was the first municipality to adopt an ordinance governing the use of small motorized vehicles to curtail potential accidents. Lindon has adopted a city ordinance similar to the state code. Lehi City leaders approved a law more strict than the state ordinance, ordi-nance, and it allows law enforcement enforce-ment officers to cite the parent or guardian if the law is not observed. Those cited can be jailed up to 90 days or fined up to as much as $950. The new laws take the motorized scooter, minibike and other street-type street-type vehicles out of the toy vehicle ordinance and place them in an ordinance of their own, setting down rules for using these potentially poten-tially hazardous "toys." The most important rule for drivers driv-ers of a motorized vehicle whether a child or an adult all traffic laws must be obeyed. Most experienced drivers would understand under-stand this is an essential requirement. require-ment. Children do not, nor do they have the necessary experience and maturity. matu-rity. This is why children younger than 16 years old must be supervised super-vised when using these devices. While riding a bike, scooter or other motorized devices, the driver must not exceed the speed set by law and the design of the vehicle, which is 25 miles per hour. Some scooter owners have had the motor modified so it can travel 35 mph, exceeding the city's residential resi-dential speed limit. Others have gone so far as to remove one of two scooter brakes. When mufflers are modified, it becomes difficult for the rider to hear horns or activity going on around them. Children speed by cars and trucks in neighborhoods. Riders on their low-profile bikes next to or behind cars cannot be seen by the drivers until it is too late. Without safety helmets, rules and caution, kids on such "toys" are a hazard to other drivers and to themselves. Those found breaking these laws may not be cited, but their parents will be ticketed and fined. Teenagers 15 years and older could be sent to juvenile court. Most families have established their own safety rules for operating the scooters and bikes. For those who haven't yet, let this be your wake-up call, before someone gets hurt. Learning the hard way My friend Peter (not his real name) learned a valuable lesson last weekend: never weld while wearing thongs (at this point I think I need to clarify that by "thongs" I mean the flip-flopping open-toed sandal kind of footwear - although, come to think of it, the lesson could apply equally well to any other kind of thong that may come to mind). As with so many of the most powerful lessons life has to teach us, Peter learned this lesson les-son the hard way. He was puttering put-tering around in his garage working on a project when it became clear what was needed was some welding. "The first thing my dad told me when he was teaching me how to weld is, always wear gloves, long pants and solid shoes when you're welding," Peter confessed. "Of course, he didn't really need to tell me that. I mean, it's sort of obvious, isn't it?" Well, yeah, it is - even to those of us whose only experience experi-ence with actual hands-on welding weld-ing was during junior high metal shop, when the teacher kept our spot-welding project to show to future classes as an example of what NOT to do. We know who we are. But even though he knew better, bet-ter, Peter decided to go ahead and weld even though he was wearing thongs and shorts. He made this decision for two reasons. rea-sons. First, it was only a little bit of welding that needed to be done. In the time it would take him to put on long pants and shoes and socks, he'd have the weld completed. The second reason for his decision is . . . well, he's an adult male. Enough said. So he proceeded to weld, standing as far back as he could so the sparks wouldn't land directly on his exposed legs or feet. And for the most part, it worked - the weld was completed complet-ed without incident. But as he bent over the project and began to flick away the welding residue, one last glowing ember bounced onto the ground and onto his foot, nestling between two toes. i Yelping, Peter tried to shake the ember away, but it was so snugly ensconced between those toes that he had to pluck it out with his fingers, which made him yelp even more. Dousing the sizzling digits in cold water and applying some soothing lotion helped remove some of the sting but none of the embarrassment. "I know better than that," Peter said, still chuckling at the memory. "Dad warned me a million times about what could happen. He even showed me the scar on his leg." "The scar?" I asked. "Yeah," he said. "I don't remember the whole story -something about needing to weld something while he was wearing swimming trunks." Evidently Peter comes from a long line of men who learn lessons les-sons the hard way. As do we all, come to think of it. The guy who invented fire was probably also the guy who figured out that if you touch fire it burns. Still, people have been playing play-ing with fire - literally and figuratively fig-uratively - from that day to this, learning and re-learning life's lessons without regard to the warnings that inevitably come from those who have experienced expe-rienced stuff before us. We hear the warning, and we think, "I need to remember that." But when the time comes to put the lesson into practice, we decide that we're smarter or stronger or a better welder, and we think things will somehow turn out better for us. And we get burned. Which reminds me: I asked Peter how his wife had reacted to the welding incident. "I didn't mention it to her," he said. "She would never let me hear the end of it." It sounds to me like he's learned another lesson. The hard way. f No helmet, no turn 1 25.!s3 'Hil! signed, going over the sped limit, and passing V J us. What do wc do? fj " Vie I jj he hits the pavement. VW 5 roof ft f 5! ' a W Vi and Gaining sight from contact lenses I've been wearing contact lenses for about nine months. They're quite an improvement from glasses. They're great in the heat. They don't slip and slide around on my nose when I'm working outside and sweating in the sun. They're great in cold and inclement weather, too. I can walk in the rain or snow without getting dozens of spots before my eyes. And they don't fog up like glasses do when I go from a nice warm room out to the cold. They don't blur up with sweat, dirt or smudgy fingerprints. They're not an enticement to be grabbed by the baby I'm carrying in my arms. Yes, contacts are great. They're comfortable, convenient, and they give everything such crisp clear edges. By using them, my vision has greatly improved. I often wish I had a pair of emotional contact lenses. Something Some-thing that would enable me to better see the reasons for a teenage daughter's belligerence. Something that would allow me to more clearly see the motivation moti-vation behind a child's bravado or a child's fears. Something that would allow me to focus more keenly on a fleeting distraught expression of a friend. A wise fox in Antoine De Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince" succinctly explained the art of seeing into another's soul: Enjoying the fun of recycling A long time ago in a city far away from here, I was a young lass. A bonny young tomboy, actually. actu-ally. One of my favorite after-school after-school activities with my brothers broth-ers and neighbor kids was what we called, "binboarding." Every house had two or three bright green plastic recycle bins we'd sort our glass, milk jugs and newspapers to go out on trash day. Now, of course, being young and imaginative, we neighbor kids didn't think that was the best use of those bins. We thought they were made exclusively for the soon-to-be Olympic sport of binboarding. Binboarding was simple. Empty out the contents of the green bin, preferably in a neat pile so mom wouldn't yell too much later. Place one of those green bins on a skateboard. Push off down the driveway, and jump into the bin before it reaches the street. Now squat in there, knees to nose, and gain speed along the street. Find your opponent. Lean slightly this way or that and head straight for him. Crash squarely into him. The winner was the one who didn't fall out of the bin and smack their head on the asphalt. Yes, thinking back on it now, I'm surprised I can still spell "skatbord." Oops, I mean id! ; if- - V L; "skateboard." Just the thought of hunkering hunker-ing down into one of those bins now makes various muscle groups scream in fear, but it was some of the most fun we ever had on that street. I even remember binboarding binboard-ing with a friend when we were in high school. By then, we'd gotten so good that when we ran into each other, we'd both just slide right off our skateboards and skid to a graceful stop in our bins. I'm sure those recycle men scratched their heads at the worn out bottoms of the bins all along our street. Well, I haven't seen any of those great little toys around here much. That doesn't mean people don't recycle. I know they do in Provo, Orem and Lehi, at least. They all probably just don't have as much fun recycling as we did. And now Cedar Hills has the opportunity to join the recycling recy-cling ranks. The City Council heard a presentation from Waste Management last month aDout a curbside recyclin gram. r-yea '- and this oul( dsor. j pla: "One sees clearly only with the re heart," he explained. "Anything-21 is essential is invisible to the eyes.'-e Perhaps by focusing the visior3 S of my heart toward those I love' -" I'll be able to see their essentia' 501 natures more clearly. 12ft m I'll be able to see an adoles' cent's quest for independence, i- child's search to find his place i 31 the world, a neighbor's burdeisQt when it has become a bit ove the whelming for a time. to And by seeing more clearly, IT ?lea be able to understand to sebjBoi when helping means to step upe cl and when it means to step back-il ms Perhaps that's just whatliat need in order to see into my chit Hill; dren and loved ones more clearly:; inte A contact lens for the heart, br tl ?:;s fr Linda Butler can be reached d Lies i lindasbutlerjuno.com. -hen tdar 'iarve are -:e thf ie f It doesn't incorporate the use a 5: of those cool green bins, though sid - too bad for their kids. Actual- rece ly, now being a creaky old adult, I like the bin they offer much better. J It's this huge blue garbage , bin-sized thing. You just toss alljw your recyclables into it, no sort " . i nil I K 11. - ng, no separating, just tnu- w ill in there, and roll it out tojjjjl ,he street on trash day. i lH IX ing, no separating. a th What an easy way to bene m xi.- landfills- me eiiviiumiicui. -ii So simple and clean, and vb a way to save money from m extra garbage can you re py for. , i My adult self wouldn t evejv mind the extra $4 onniy uti ' . bill to accomplish something JJf t helpful to our earth, and u easy to do. wj'ail I know my mom would ' loved it if they had these thigtk back in my binboarding dJJs" She certainly would had to yell at us a lot leasable those piles in the garage K o But, you know, Im Me brothers and I could have up with some way to things to knock into each j Really, isn't that why have brothers? slims When brothers not eras sisters an int' d frien they can be used to t" . A, at landfills for waste whiK y oilmen enviro pro- efiting the recycling. Not a bad idea. 'Ah, |