# Idiot teens jump from parking garages. Parents blame the garage. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 1, 2005, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teens-jump-from-parking-garages-parents-blame-the-garage/292446 "2005-03-01T16:16:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teens-jump-from-parking-garages-parents-blame-the-garage/292446/101 "2005-03-05T04:20:57Z")
> [@Siege](#): > > Actually, I have a sneaking suspicion A&E may be partially behind this. Yes, the television channel A&E, most noted for making biographies interesting. A few weeks ago I saw a program on something called “free running”, I think, which involves a team of young, trained athletes running, jumping, and performing various gymnastic maneouvers on public buildings, including jumping from rooftop to rooftop. I’ve got to admit, I’m 40 years old and female and I thought it looked pretty cool. The culmination of the show showed the team jumping over and around 7 buildings in London, including the Tate Gallery and St. Paul’s Cathedral. The show repeatedly stressed the importance of practice and training and that this could be a very dangerous sport. Indeed, one member of the team wasn’t able to participate as planned because he’d injured himself. I could see how that show could have inspired these young idiots. YEP! Every kid in my neighborhood has been raving about this show, even my otherwise-not-brain-damaged daughter. And here I thought A&E was a better choice than MTV :smack: . Seriously, one of her friends has talked about doing this, getting trained and practicing and everything. Scares the crap out of me. I told my daughter it sounds like a grand way to break your head open, and if I find any kids on my roof I’ll break their heads open myself. ---
**Author:** ![Millit\_the\_Frail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/51bf81/32.png) [@Millit\_the\_Frail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Millit_the_Frail)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teens-jump-from-parking-garages-parents-blame-the-garage/292446/102 "2005-03-05T08:18:47Z")
I think there’s a difference here between stupid people (people who just aren’t born with smarts) and people who ignore a million years’ worth of evolved self-preservation instincts. I don’t like blaming modern cultural factors (TV, video games, violent movies) any more than the next young liberal, so I won’t, but what’s the deal with this? A few thousand years ago, if a bear was chasing you, you ran away. Or killed it. That’s how we puny humans stayed alive and made our fashionable bearskin rugs. We’re smarter than the bear because we fear the bear! It seems like today, there are thousands of people out there whose first instinct would be to cover themselves in honey and make sweet, bearish mating calls. My point is this: how are we supposed to predict the irrationality of these people? To most of us, including the people who build parking garages, the idea that people would voluntarily ramp themselves off an 80-foot-tall structure and hope to land eight feet away with no perceived reward or benefit is ABOSOLUTELY LUDICROUS. It flies in the face of nature (no pun intended). Even animals who are very low on the food chain have self-preservation instincts. Humans have even better ones. Why and how should anyone have to take the fall for a “thrillseeker” who defies them? ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teens-jump-from-parking-garages-parents-blame-the-garage/292446/103 "2005-03-05T12:05:31Z")
My DVD of **Jump London** arrived this morning! It’s a lot cheaper from Amazon than from the C4 shop. Rest assured that any jumping I might be doing will involve practice and test jumps at ground level… **Millit** , there _is_ a reward, but it is the mind of the thrillseeker. The ability to enjoy a certain level of risk may be an evolved human trait, a survival skill. Under the right circumstances, risk-takers will thrive more than risk-avoiders. Under other circumstances the opposite may be true. I don’t regard these teenagers as idiots for wanting to do the jump. I do regard them as idiots for not testing their ability to do it under safer circumstances. Oh, and I’m against putting up a fence. What are all those kids who can make the jump going to do with their evenings? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teens-jump-from-parking-garages-parents-blame-the-garage/292446.md?page=5)