You tax dollars hard at work...
Mood:  energetic
Well it looks like kite tubes are on their way to being banned. The Corps and the National Park Service has been trying hard to banned this product from its lakes and rivers. The company who makes the product has started to recall them. For those of you who have never heard of a kite tube, they are the latest in water recreation. It resembles a regular tube that you hook up to the back of a boat but this tube, when the users pulls up on the handles, soars up in the air like a kite. Sounds fun right? Wrong! These tubes go anywhere from 30 to 70 feet in the air. Like a kite,when the tube tilts just a little, the wind pushes back down causing the person on the tube to crash into the water. Falling from the height these tubes get, would be like falling from a 3 to 7 story building. When you hit the water from that height it is like hitting concrete. There have been close to 40 accidents (include a broken neck, punctured lung, chest and back injuries and facial injuries)in the short while these thing have been on the market. A few have resulted in death. We have had two injuries on my lake this summer. There is a warning on the tube that say, "Never fly higher than you are willing to fall."

You can see a picture of the tube on this website. There is also a video but I couldn't't get it to load. You might have better luck. Wego Kite Tube