Published In The Great North Arrow, February 2022: Mechanical Bulls Risky For Children

- jim Young

CTV recently reported that studies show mechanical bull rides at children's parties are risky for the children. Hell, children have been falling down since Adam was knee-high to a serpent and never got hurt.

Falling off things was part of growing up. Lots of the playground equipment we used was safe enough to use. The only tricky part was getting off them before everyone else wanted to.

We even had our own version of the “mechanical bull” long before the grown ups got into the fad.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that John Travolta popularized the adult version of the mechanical bull in the movie “Urban Cowboy”.

After that, adults began riding mechanical bulls in bars. 

The real reason that riding modern day mechanical bulls is bad for children is that, apparently you have to be drunk to ride one. It doesn’t take a study to know that drinking alcohol is not good for children.

Next time you think you need to do a study - save yourself some time and money and “just ask jim”.

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