UKHBPA - let's get it started

It's definitely an issue that would benefit us all if clarified...

Here you go Joe.

The NA approach:

[]Every player can take space from each other without warning.
[]Fouls are mostly reserved for reckless/dangerous play (punching, malleting wheels, etc).
[]Players that fall off should improve their bike handling.
[]You may not ride into another player forwards or backwards (t-bone).
[*]There is no such thing as a forced t-bone (so a defender may reverse into your path as long as your front wheel hits their bike and the rear wheel didn't go into the side of your bike).

The UK approach:

[]You may be penalised if your "challenge" is overly aggressive/reckless/dangerous in the referee's eyes.
[]You should make an effort to play the ball, playing the ball is a strong indicator of whether a player fouled another (or not).
[]You may not ride into another player forwards or backwards (t-bone), but also, you may not cause a forced t-bone by short-stopping in front of another player.
[]Forced t-bones exist (so defenders may not reverse into an attacker's path at all, no hopping 90 degrees at the last minute, no cutting someone up on their blind side, etc).

The Euro approach:

[]Every player can take space from each other without warning. (NA approach)
[]Fouls are mostly reserved for reckless/dangerous play (punching, malleting wheels, etc). (NA approach)
[]Players that fall off should improve their bike handling. (NA approach)
[]You may not ride into another player forwards or backwards (t-bone), but also, you may not cause a forced t-bone by short-stopping in front of another player. (UK approach)
[*]Forced t-bones exist (so defenders may not reverse into an attacker's path at all, no hopping 90 degrees at the last minute, no cutting someone up on their blind side, etc). (UK approach)

All the rulesets have the same problem of overusing words such as "reckless" and "dangerous" which are subjective.
All the rulesets have also been written to ban/control certain parts of the game without considering the larger ideal/approaches.
All the rulesets would benefit from using black/white terminology that then goes into explaining the details.

My hope is that the NAH release a concise (re-written) ruleset for 2012 that everyone can use without modification, it'll be interesting to see how they give attackers and defenders a more concise boundary for adhering too.

The differing interpretation of the game/rules and the internet arguments that entail will persist until someone writes a more concise ruleset (hopefully using objective black and white terminology).

There is little point in tackling this issue until the NAH ruleset is released. It makes sense to approach the NAH if their rules for the 2012 season are not up to scratch with a better proposal (and with an accompanying shit-tonne of research/reasoning).