[spaceflunky]

The whole "safety" issue is a bit of red herring, used to just keep surfing exclusionary and to accuse others of malfeasance if they get in someone's way.

The serious risks in surfing are relatively low provided you're at a sandy bottom beach break with waves under 5ft. No one is taking these soft-top boards to the Pipeline and endangering lives, they're mostly just showing up at mellow low-risk breaks.

Yeah it's annoying when someone bumps into you, and yeah you might get a bruise in the worst case scenario, but no one is dying or drowning in 3ft waves because of too many surfers.