Guys, this is from rec.windsurfing. I have permission from the author in that thread to copy/paste here. I don't wanna give a pointer to that particular conversation because this is the one entry of interest (or entertainment, call it as you will).

I bring the topic up because I have shared his experience, that is, them endangering people around and finding it 'cool' and laughing at it. The link BF provides hereunder is a particularly good selection. Made for good family entertainment to watch them all here last night...

PC
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Sergio,
Sure, or link to this discussion here.

I really don't want to start a "them or us" type debate. Maybe there
is nothing you can do about the attitude problems....some people never
change. But the technical problems will always be there.
These kites can generate hundreds of horsepower suddenly when hit by a
gust. The safety systems can't react fast enough. I think the
analogy to a power boat with no one at the throttle is apt. But
unlike a power boat, the kite will keep pulling straight onto shore
and across dry land. A kiteboard should be classed as an experimental
vehicle of some sort....not a toy that is marketed to the general
public.

As for attitude problems....the arguments and flame wars never change
anything. But right now I'm out of sympathy for the kite world.

What finished it for me was a few days ago when this happened:

I was standing on a beach which is a family oriented type area...lots
of retired people and also kids. Kiters are rigging and launching from
all around the area, even when they have hundreds of yards of empty
beach nearby.

So a kiter sails in to the beach and brings it down for his buddy to
grab the kite. Wind is onshore, so the kite is coming down 60 feet up
on the sand. Well, they land the kite, and the lines come right
down onto the heads of an elderly man and his wife who are sitting in
beach chairs. The lines wrap around the man's head and then around
the woman's arms and legs.

Now the unbelieveable part: I'm expecting the kiters to run over
immediately to apologize and help out, but instead they stand there
laughing and joking about it. The man meanwhile frees himself and is
trying to untangle his wife and I get over there to help them. Later
I try to talk to one of the kiters about it and I hear remarks about
how polesurfers and old people need to stay out of their way.

From my experience, the innocent people on the beach have no idea how
powerful these kites are and how quickly they can get out of control.
Even worse, I think that applies to most kiters also. Especially on
the beach, and at launching, things can go bad so fast that nobody
knows what happened. This is where maybe 50% of deaths and serious
injuries occur.

Please take a look at these archives to get details on what can go
wrong. Interesting that very often it is the experts that are
killed:

www.fksa.org/forumdisplay.php?f=31
www.fksa.org/forumdisplay.php?f=29&order=desc

As for windsurfers, the most important thing is to stay well upwind
of all kiters. This means you will have to run a gauntlet of them to
get outside, because they like to congregate right on the shore where
the water is shallow and their fans can see them. They are often
watching their kite up in the sky and not aware of what is around them
so it's up to us to keep out of their way, or else this can happen:



Even on the beach you are not safe and neither is your windsurf rig as
kiters may try to body-slam you or your board from the air. This
brilliant fellow attempts to impale himself on a windsurfer's fin:



No doubt, youtube is full of idiots on kiteboards, here are a few
classics:




In that second one, Erik Eck is lofted up a couple hundred feet and
lands a quarter mile away, but please notice that the wind conditions
on the ground are fairly light...the kind of day where everyone would
say "how can anything go wrong on a day like this?"

Of course there will always be a few fools in any sport, but consider
that one of the biggest kiteboard schools, Real Kiteboards (you know,
the guys who pasted "Windsurfing is Dead" bumperstickers on cars
around Hatteras), seems to target the skateboard mentality with this
sort of promo:




Here are a few more examples picked at random from youtube:
















BF