When I was growing up, the kid who lived in the house behind me was given a dirt bike for Christmas one year.  It was the coolest thing I had ever seen, and I envied that dirt bike like nobody’s business.  Whenever he took it out for a ride around his house, I would race out the back door to watch, hoping that he would let me go for a ride.  Every once in a while he did, but he mostly made me stand there watching him ride.  It tore my child’s heart to shreds to be so close to such extreme fun and be denied.

I begged my parents for a dirt bike.  Begged.  To no avail.  I was told that they were terribly dangerous, and that kids died from riding dirt bikes.  DIED!  Did I want to die?  Well, I was definitely ready to take the risk, but still they wouldn’t budge.  It just wasn’t to be for me, and the roaring sound emanating from my neighbor was like a knife in the heart every day. 

Thankfully, our government has made certain that no other child will have to suffer the sound of fun coming from the house next door, nor ignore the risk of imminent death.  Of course, my parents feared a crash that would rip my limbs off and leave my head rolling in the gutter.  That isn’t the risk the government finds compelling.  No, it is the risk of lead.

Walter Olson has tracked in excruciating detail the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act at Overlawyered, with its impact felt from books to  thrift stores to dirt bikes.  While the forces that favor the elimination of lead products in the hands of children following the lead-paint debacles of the past couple of years may be well-intended, and even have a very good point when applied with some level of thoughtfulness and constraint, the application of the CPSIA to dirt bikes is not merely inane, but just plain unAmerican.

The point is driven home by the Consumer Products Safety Counsel’s refusal to exempt dirt bikes from application of the CPSIA:

On Wednesday the CPSC confirmed that (per its lawyers’ advice) it was turning down an exemption for youth power vehicles, in that it could not certify what the law requires it to certify, namely that keeping them legal would not result in “any” absorption of lead by a person under 12, ever, or any other risk to public safety or health.

Now there are some sound arguments to be made about why children under 12 should not be riding around on dirt bikes.  Of course, no one would make those arguments if they were ever a boy under 12 who was forced to listen to the roar of a dirt bike coming from the neighbor’s. but there are some people who can suck the fun out of anything.  But of all the potential, theoretical, arguable risks one might raise, the absorption of lead is not one of them.  No, not at all, under any circumstance.  Not even close.

Put aside the concern that the application of the CPSIA to the motorbike industry has rendered $100 million in inventory unmarketable.  This goes far beyond mere dirt bikes, and to the giant sucking sound you hear when you consider the basic American notion of the pursuit of happiness.  In the name of absolute safety, they are sucking happiness out of our country.

The fact that absolute safety for children can never be achieved eludes those who believe that it is theory duty to try.  In their knee-jerk reaction to any threat, no matter how distant or improbable, the proponents of absolute safety demand that the government enact a law to preclude it.  As with the mindless use of criminal statutes to attempt to prohibit any act that might conceivably cause harm, whether real or imagined, the advocates of consumer protection cannot bear the idea that perfect safety might be at risk from any cause, no matter how minuscule or hypothetical.

Here is an unfortunate reality:  No matter how many laws are passed, or how many things that bring pleasure or richness into the lives of children are wiped from the face of the earth, some children will still get hurt.  There will never be a way to reduce our world to one of perfect safety from harm to a child. 

This is not to suggest that children be put at obvious risk, or that items that present a meaningful risk of harm be placed in the stream of commerce under a “buyer beware” philosophy.  This is especially true when the risk is latent, though latency is always subject to dumbing down to meet the needs of the most brick-like parent.  This is not a screed against child safety, but a challenge to the great sucking sound that will deny children the ability to run as fast as they can and risk falling down and skinning their knee.  It can and will happen, but there is no life for a child if government “fixes” the problem.  Don’t even ask about the risk of climbing trees.

No one want to see a child hurt.  But do we want to see childhood joyless?  There is risk in being a child, doing the things that children like to do.  No one, no government, can ever eliminate all risk and stop any harm from coming to a child, no matter how many laws, rules, regulations are imposed.  But they can legislate the joy out of childhood.  Is this really the life we hope to give to our children?  Will children be forced to live in a bubble before the forces of absolute safety are satisfied? 

I will never forget the few times that my neighbor let me ride his dirt bike.  It’s one of those childhood memories I cherish.