Time to realise the real dangers
Imagine that it is middle of August and you are on holiday in Paphos with your wife and 12-year-old daughter enjoying the sea and sun and generally having a great time. Then, one evening, you decide to take your child go-karting to one of two local tracks advertised extensively all over town. You arrive at around 7pm, your daughter gets into the go-kart and drives away slowly. The next thing you see is her vehicle crashing into tyres used as a protective barrier around the track. Before losing consciousness, she whispers to you something about the steering wheel not working. Then she is taken to hospital. Doctors say she has hit her chest on the wheel and suffered severe injuries to her vital organs. She is in a critical state. She undergoes emergency abdominal surgery and then a further procedure. Four days later she dies. You take her body to be buried in your home town. You mourn, you feel great pain and you also want to know what happened. You want to understand why you lost your kid during an outing that was supposed to be fun.
At first, it seems that you will get answers soon. An investigation into your daughter’s accident is being launched. The municipality where it is located states that the track has no licence and obtains a court order to shut it down until the investigation is completed. Experts talk in local media about what a safe go-kart track should be equipped with. Various officials talk about negligence and make a lot of noise about the necessity of improving safety levels at similar venues around the island.
You receive hundreds of emails from people who live in Cyprus, both Cypriots and foreigners, saying how sorry they are about your loss. Many just share your grief but some go further and express concern about the possibility that it could happen to their own children. One mother asks: “Which go-kart track in Paphos is it? Is it the one I take my son to? I need to know.” She is relieved to learn that it is already not working.
Then one day you get news of a different kind. The court decides that the suspension order obtained by the municipality is no longer valid. The track reopens. Its owner speaks about losing money and reputation. He says he will demand compensation from the municipality.
Afterwards you receive more letters from people. “A report? Where is the report saying that the track is really safe? Has it been completed? Has anybody seen it?” asks another mother anxiously. “I faced a similar situation in the UK,” writes somebody else. “We asked our local authorities to put the speed limit in a dangerous spot of our village down to 30 and they told us that first they had to have three casualties.”
You sit somewhere in Brussels, in a silent flat that just two months ago was a totally different universe, and think what to answer. Then you write simply: “Let justice do her work. Let us do what we need so that another child will not die in this place. Sorry for my imperfect English.”
Dear Mr Weekers, I am also very sorry for your loss and yes, I wholeheartedly agree. I have never been to the go-kart track where your daughter had an accident, I don’t know what kind of safety measures they have there, and I am by no means an expert on such matters. But, even without knowing these things, it is just simply high time our authorities realise that go-karting is a dangerous activity and as such needs much stricter regulations.
According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, more than 10,000 go-kart injuries to children aged 15 and below occur each year in America. Two years ago, a Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Centre carried out a study on children who were hospitalised by such accidents and found that on average they stayed in hospital for five days. Half of them required at least one operation and almost a third, two or more.
“Many parents don’t seem to be aware of the potential dangers of go-karts,” says David Cline, an emergency medicine specialist and one of the study researchers. “Many of these injuries were severe, and all children required follow-up care after they left the hospital.”
He is supported by Jerry Bowser, employee of a go-kart establishment in Chicago: “People don’t realise how dangerous go-karts are. They can go extremely fast and, unlike regular cars, they don’t offer a lot of protection to the driver. A seatbelt (that apparently Cypriot go-karts are not equipped with) can only protect so much. There are no air bags, nothing.”
So please, whoever is responsible for checking out the island’s go-karting facilities, check the facts, have a look at venues, talk to real experts, and imagine that you are on holiday in Paphos taking your kids go-karting…
??
??
??
??
