Written in Blood

It's Mardi Gras time once again in New Orleans. If you have been to New Orleans' Mardi Gras parades you know that the edges of the curbs along the parade route are lined with ladders. These ladders are no ordinary ladders. They have three foot long bench seats attached to the very top where we precariously place our precious babies. It's enough to give an OSHA inspector a heart attack. How could this be legal?  On very rare occasion a cop will tell people they need to move their ladders back away from the curb. Of course, the parents respond that they do this every year and it has never been a problem before. They are reluctant to move because they will lose their spot and someone else will quickly place their ladder on the edge of the same curb. It is highly unlikely that another cop will come along and tell them to move. This causes a little deja vu for me. As a Coast Guard inspector, I was that cop. I always enforced the regulations accurately and consistently. I encountered much of the same arguments and resistance. One inspector training me had told me that the regulations were written in blood. That is, some catastrophe had happened that caused the regulations to be written.  I took that to heart. Even though I didn't know what the catastrophe was for each regulation, I enforced them all. After all, that's what the tax payers were paying me to do. Maybe those few New Orleans cops that occasionally tell confused parents to move their ladders back from the curb remember the story of Christian Lambert. According to a recent article in local Gambit newspaper, it turns out that putting our ladders on the curb is not legal. In 1985 the New Orleans City Council passed an ordinance which requires all ladders to be "placed as many feet back from the curb as the ladder is high." That's because of a tragedy that occurred in 1981 at the Krewe of Orleanians parade. Christian was an eight year old boy who was launched from his ladder and was crushed under float number 48 when the crowd surged forward. Accurate and consistent enforcement is a critical component to ensuring compliance. Understanding the origin and intent of regulations is an essential motivator.