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There are all sorts of dangerous sports that teenagers engage in. Skiing, waterskiing, playing football, biking. Heck, even riding a plain old horse is dangerous

See the stats in post 10 and then tell me that skiing, etc are anywhere NEAR as dangerous as bull riding. Oh and you can skip the false dichotomy. Teenagers aren't limited to chosing between bull riding and watching tv. This is a tragedy, and any attempts to soft sell it are just blowing pink smoke up everyone's backside.

Many of those injuries are not very severe, and the more severe ones are things like fractures. I have known many people who ride (non-professionally) and she was doing everything right. But sometimes these things happen.

Nobody’s soft-selling anything. But you can also sit and watch TV all day and then get killed crossing the street to buy another bag of Fritos to nourish your fat behind. It’s sad that she died, but she knew the risks, and I think that she would rather have gone that way than on her way for more Fritos.

"There are all sorts of dangerous sports that teenagers engage in. Skiing, waterskiing, playing football, biking. Heck, even riding a plain old horse is dangerous"

From Occupied GA wrote:
"See the stats in post 10 and then tell me that skiing, etc are anywhere NEAR as dangerous as bull riding. Oh and you can skip the false dichotomy. Teenagers aren't limited to chosing between bull riding and watching tv. This is a tragedy, and any attempts to soft sell it are just blowing pink smoke up everyone's backside."

You're probably one of those who think people have to be protected from themselves or their desires to do dangereous things. Your solution probably involves some sort of regulation. Rodeo is and has been as American as apple pie. You'll never take that from rural America. These animals are cared for better than most humans. Unlike the days of Lane Frost, these riders today have the option of wearing a helmet and required to wear a specially designed impact vest. They love the sport and know the risks or they wouldn't be doing it. Yet it's attitudes like yours would have everyone believe you know what's best for them.

Riding horses is statistically 20 times more dangerous than riding motorcycles. Should we ban horse riding? Require only adults to ride horses? Make helmets mandatory?

Answer yes to any of the above, and you'll be revealed as a democrat.

Bull riding is dangerous. But as a society, we ought to ENCOURAGE risk. We've become so safety obsessed that it is embarrassing. You cannot achieve much in life without taking risk, and we ought to admire it, not discourage it.