 Poster: A snowHead
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Winterhighland,
no, I don't. I'm an advanced motorist, a motorbike rider and road cyclist and have my HGV licence. I drive fast and enjoy it, in appropriate conditions and on fast driving friendly roads. I simply care for my life, those of my passengers and of other road users. Ditto on pistes and off them. But thanks for your condescension, darling 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I think Tignes have done a lot to reduce dangers at certain spots in their resort and I'm told that they have cut accident rates there. I think Rob mentioned les Arcs doing the same. I think smaller resorts need to catch up a bit - although as some posters have pointed out, some small resorts attract a family clientelle and there are not too many issues. My local resort, les Sept Laux, has gone after the "student freeride" market. Now I've not got an issue with people skiing fast on black or red pistes, expert runs if you like but it just seems crazy to be out of control (if you hit someone you are by definition out of control) on resort footpaths or the very bottom of the ski runs, what the French call the "front neige".
Yes I should change resort but it is the only one close by that is currently open. I may go up to l'Alpe d'Huez instead with Junior at the end of the week as the snow is very slushy at lower altitudes.
I remember seeing something equally mad at the EoSB last year. At Val Thorens there is a fenced off beginners area with a magic carpet lift. Someone came bombing down the main blue piste, through the access gate and skied at high speed straight through the beginners area. Ok they didn't hit anyone but it seems similar to driving the wrong way up a motorway (which people do a lot of in France too).
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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awesome thread 
Jumping rollers is cool, standing under them is not.
Probably unrelated I know but I witnessed the biggest crash I ever saw yesterday on the haneggschuss of the lauberhorn track. Was waiting to record on the camera a full speed attack on it and let some woman go 1st, she tucked all the way, compressed at the flat bit, ejected from the skis and went back 1st into the netting, only just catching it. She made a hell of a noise hitting it and going UURRGGHHH.
Bombed down to her, stuck my board into the piste to warn others and hit my training, Danger, response, alert Woman was alright in the end but god knows how, insane crash, I thought I was getting the heli out, she must have been around 80kph. After I figured she was not going to die or need SOS I gave her some hassle for not wearing a helmet and going too fast when she obviously was a crap skier.
Crazy huh? Reckless snowboarder stops to help crap skier. 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| snowpatrol wrote: |
alex_heney, Helen Beaumont, my point is that you exceed the speed limit in your car but get your knickers in a twist about skiers/boarders skiing,in your opinion,recklessly...........................????????????????????????so you stick to the rules on piste where an accident that causes a death is extremely rare.. but not in your car when having/causing an accident could very likely result in death?????go figure  you guys are selective to suit yourselves |
That is only "selective" to the type of absolute idiot who believes that exceeding the speed limit is automatically "reckless"|..
Whether there are laws or "just" guidelines or nothing at all is completely irrelevant to the point we are making.
Jumping blind on piste is an activity that most people would describe as reckless, and it is certainly endangering others.
Exceeding the speed limit by a moderate amount in good weather on clear roads is not an activity which is likely to endanger others, and is not an activity which most people would describe as reckless.
Incidentally, an accident causing death on the roads is probably rarer, in terms of deaths per hour of the activity, than collisions causing death in skiing.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| abc wrote: |
| snowpatrol wrote: |
| alex_heney, Helen Beaumont, my point is that you exceed the speed limit in your car but get your knickers in a twist about skiers/boarders skiing,in your opinion,recklessly...........................????????????????????????so you stick to the rules on piste where an accident that causes a death is extremely rare.. but not in your car when having/causing an accident could very likely result in death?????go figure you guys are selective to suit yourselves |
If someone drives like that, they're reckless.
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That is an absolutely ridiculous statement.
I find it hard to believe that an intelligent person could say that and mean it. Fortunately for the rest of us, the law does not agree. If it did, then speeding would carry the same penalties as reckless driving.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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alex_heney WTF,your post before last..thats a wind up??your last sentence is a wind up..right??
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Tue 14-04-09 22:16; edited 1 time in total
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| Winterhighland wrote: |
| Aneira, do you drive at 20mph for mile after mile on single track roads..... |
Sometimes that is the only safe way to drive.
The one absolutely inviolable rule in driving on open roads is that you must be able to stop within what you can see to be clear. (I say open roads to distinguish from things like rallies run on closed roads, where you are entitled to assume there won't be anything round that blind bend).
And if the road isn't wide enough for two vehicles, then you should be able to stop within half what you can currently see to be clear, in case somebody else is coming the other way at the same speed.
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alex_heney, "but officer,i know i was doing 90 but the road was clear"...OFFICER "ok mr heaney,well if the road was clear then my apologies for pulling you over..have a nice f**king day"
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| snowpatrol wrote: |
| alex_heney WTF,your post before last..thats a wind up??your last sentence is a wind up..right?? |
Not in the slightest.
The Road Traffic Act has a section in it for "Dangerous, or Reckless, Driving". The penalties for an offence under that section are very severe, with the courts more often than not imposing disqualification (in theory that is mandatory, but in exceptional cases the court can impose high levels of penalty points instead), and quite often jail terms.
The penalties for speeding are 3-6 penalty points and a fine. In extreme cases, the courts can disqualify - but that normally means at least 30mph above the limit. A very large majority of speeding cases are 3 points and £60 (fixed penalty).
If the law considered any and all speeding to be "reckless" (which is what abc was saying), then the penalties would be the same.
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| Quote: |
| 2 posters have admitted to skiing/riding recklessly |
There are a few others who have admitted that they do things that are against the FIS code and against common sense as well and can't see it because of their holier than thou attitude. In a couple of posts I was taking the mick cause this thread is OTT and when I initially read the posts of those who have been deemed to have caused offence I took it much to be as what lots of people were doing all day yesterday on the Ciste Fairway on CairnGorm.
Most rollers will have some degree of blind spot at some distance from the lip, but if you are paying full attention to what is going on around you and what is happening up ahead you'll know if someone has gone out of side and not re-appeared or if there are sufficient density of folk around that you need to slow right down before going over a rise, air or not. The rollers on the Ciste Fairway are blind at certain distances, but if you are paying attention you can see enough of the other side such that the area you need to check just before the lip is minimal and there is still time to pre-jump the feature to prevent real air and change trajectory. Most people on this particular run were getting air of these rollers yesterday, Lift staff were doing it, patrol were doing it. Are we all now to be considered lepers for not keeping our planks firmly on the snow outwith the terrain park?
I didn't see one person yesterday out of a few hundred skiers and boarders up the mountain that I would have considered to have been riding in a reckless or dangerous manor, yet the vibe I get from this thread is that quite a few would have condemned most of us as the lowest form of life on the slopes. I do not know the exact circumstances or how much 'luck' vs judgement manicpb, etc were relying on in the incidents they refereed too, but some polite education rather than a prejudice filled witch hunt might have been more successful in moderating behaviour towards the judgement rather than luck end of the scale.
If I offended anyone, well in some cases I am sorry, but people posting comments that you should never get air outside a terrain park were being just as ignorant in their own way as some of the most reckless don't give a stuff about other skiers about. The problem with the FIS code and thus this thread is that everyone has opinions, and like ass holes everyone has their own!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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alex_heney, not that sentence..the one where you said that accidents causing death in a car crash are rarer than deaths caused by accidents on the slopes..that sentence..thats a wind up..right???
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| snowpatrol wrote: |
| alex_heney, "but officer,i know i was doing 90 but the road was clear"...OFFICER "ok mr heaney,well if the road was clear then my apologies for pulling you over..have a nice f**king day" |
If you were any more stupid you'd need watering.
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| snowpatrol wrote: |
| alex_heney, "but officer,i know i was doing 90 but the road was clear"...OFFICER "ok mr heaney,well if the road was clear then my apologies for pulling you over..have a nice f**king day" |
Well actually, that is pretty close to what did happen to me, about 10 years ago.
They pulled me over when I was doing 95 (which I never do nowadays - the two recent ones have been right on the threshold for prosecution at all), at around 8AM on a clear August morning on the M50 (they were in an unmarked Vectra).
They said to me "Normally, at that speed, it goes to court, but the road is nice and clear and there was nothing dangerous about your driving, so if you will accept it, we will just issue a fixed penalty". Me - "Yes thank you officer". And yes, they genuinely did say that tere was nothing dangerous about my driving.
But of course that is not what any of us have been suggesting anyhow. Why you talk about 90, I don't know, since both Helen and I have been talking about exceeding the limit by a moderate amount (and I would consider anything above low 80's in a 70 limit to be more than a moderate amount). On a 70 limit motorway, up to 78, you will not normally be prosecuted. 79 up to 90 it will be a fixed penalty 3 points & £60, 91-100 will be 4-5 points, over 100 will be 6 points or short term (up to 8 weeks) disqualification.
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You know it makes sense.
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PJSki, doh!
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| Winterhighland wrote: |
| Quote: |
| their holier than thou attitude. |
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Yep.
John.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| alex_heney wrote: |
| Winterhighland wrote: |
| Aneira, do you drive at 20mph for mile after mile on single track roads..... |
Sometimes that is the only safe way to drive.
The one absolutely inviolable rule in driving on open roads is that you must be able to stop within what you can see to be clear. (I say open roads to distinguish from things like rallies run on closed roads, where you are entitled to assume there won't be anything round that blind bend).
And if the road isn't wide enough for two vehicles, then you should be able to stop within half what you can currently see to be clear, in case somebody else is coming the other way at the same speed. |
There are plenty of stretches of single track road in the Highlands were it is perfectly safe to travel at 60mph, others bits, corners, blind summits where over 5mph is suicidal. Just wish that the 20mph everywhere drivers would look in their mirrors once in a while and understand the concept of allowing faster traffic to pass, as clearly indicated in the diagram signs that say "Police Notice - ALLOW OVERTAKING" !
So like the big yellow signs on the Highland Section of the A9 "Frustration Causes Accidents - ALLOW OVERTAKING", if we are going to apply comparisons with roads and driving, the police notices are stating that the slower person being overtaken has a responsibility to enable faster traffic to pass safely.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| snowpatrol wrote: |
| alex_heney, not that sentence..the one where you said that accidents causing death in a car crash are rarer than deaths caused by accidents on the slopes..that sentence..thats a wind up..right??? |
No, it wasn't.
It is impossible to get precise figures, of course, but What figurs I have seen suggest that around 2 million wintersports trips are taken by Brits each year - averaging at around 6 days skiing per trip. Obviously, That is nowhere near all skiing, but if we guesstimate at it accounting for maybe 10% of European ski days ("ski" being used generically here to include boarders/bladers/etc), then that gives a total of around 120million skier days. This is unlikely to be accurate, but I doubt it is out by an order of magnitude.
There are about 30 million vehicles registered in the UK, and I have seen estimates that about 20 million are used each day.
So the question (rather over-simplified) becomes whether there are more road deaths in a week in the UK than there are skier deaths in a season in the Alps. And I don't think there are.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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This thread is hilarious and I am amazed some people even get out of bed in the morning 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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alex_heney, Most police in lane 3 I see are doing over 85mph on the motorways, and that is normal diving on route to non-emergencies.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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rayscoops, I think end of season cabin fever might be setting in!!
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| rayscoops wrote: |
| This thread is hilarious and I am amazed some people even get out of bed in the morning |
And that is precisely the problem - idiots who think that it's hilarious even to discuss safety on the slopes. I hope that I and my kids never ski in the same resort as you.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Quote: |
if you hit someone you are by definition out of control
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Not so. Some kid ran into me on Monday on a busy track, but this was because I fell over right in front of him and he had nowhere to go. I also hit someone earlier in the season when he cut straight across in front of me without warning and I had no time to react. Come to think of it, I ran into a wild boar last year in similar circumstances as well.
And if you're considering skiing in the Oisans I'd go for 2Alpes - Alpe d'Huez is sheet ice until about 12:30 and knee deep slush from around 13:00.
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| Quote: |
So the question (rather over-simplified) becomes whether there are more road deaths in a week in the UK than there are skier deaths in a season in the Alps. And I don't think there are.
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In one of the interminable helmet threads, I wondered about my relative risks of dying skiing or driving and from published figures on skier deaths per day and driver deaths per distance on UK roads I calculated that I was 10 times more likely to die as a result of an RTA snd I do a lot more skiing than the average citizen.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Lizzard wrote: |
| I ran into a wild boar last year |
I expect you made mincemeat of it.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Lizzard wrote: |
| I ran into a wild boar last year in similar circumstances as well |
I am not surprised that the boar was wild and perhaps it was even somewhat annoyed and peeved after taking the brunt of Mrs L as the up hill skier
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snowpatrol, sure is getting his moneys worth out of us/this site! 
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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manicpb,
how do you reconcile these two comments?
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I have had the odd close call with skiers stood just out of eye level
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AND
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I ... will continue to ride in a mannor I feel safe without hindering other people
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If you have these clsoe calls, how can you feel you ride in a safe manner?
You shouldn't jump into blindspots anymore than you should drive on the wrongside of the road round blind corners - it's not safe.
J
J
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Poster: A snowHead
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This thread is highly amusing.... Surely its just a matter of common sense.... Its a bit stupid to go flying over a roller at speed on a crowded piste when your not 100% sure whats on the other side. And saying that its pretty foolish to go over a roller at speed even on a quiet piste when your not 100% sure whats on the other side. Its the same with driving you drive within your limits, if you cant see round a corner you drive at a speed that allows you to stop in time once the hazard presents itself.
p.s Hello all, been lurking here for a number of months and finally decided to get round to posting...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Hello, Twitchy87, welcome to snowHeads!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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great stuff.. i wouldnt go over something i couldnt see over in case the blind spot is inhabited by a child, or a piste basher...etcetc.. they can be some mitigating circunstances as mentioned where everyoen is doing it and you can see people going in and coming out further down.. if we are in a group and approaching a ridge at pace the front man does the slowing n looking and waves the rest thru..
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Ah, good point CANV, thats what we do aswell, a sensible solution at last
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Lizzard wrote: |
| Alpe d'Huez is sheet ice until about 12:30 and knee deep slush from around 13:00. |
Gotta luv that Spring Skiing!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Twitchy87, "Common Sense" are you insane? I think you may be on the wrong site mate, Snowheads is only really for mad pedants who like endless circular rows where they pointlessly try to get one over on each other in their crazy little virtual battles.
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red 27, exactly. Hmm. 2190 posts, eh? You're getting there. 
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| jedster wrote: |
manicpb,
how do you reconcile these two comments?
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I have had the odd close call with skiers stood just out of eye level
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AND
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I ... will continue to ride in a mannor I feel safe without hindering other people
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If you have these clsoe calls, how can you feel you ride in a safe manner?
You shouldn't jump into blindspots anymore than you should drive on the wrongside of the road round blind corners - it's not safe.
J
J |
Reconcile? Not sure thats used in the right context there but...
Quote one, I'm admitting errors in the way I board! Do you want me to lie and just post that I have never been close to an accident?
Quote two, I've never hit them! To me thats boarding pretty safely!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Lizzard wrote: |
| Quote: |
if you hit someone you are by definition out of control
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Not so. Some kid ran into me on Monday on a busy track, but this was because I fell over right in front of him and he had nowhere to go. I also hit someone earlier in the season when he cut straight across in front of me without warning and I had no time to react. Come to think of it, I ran into a wild boar last year in similar circumstances as well.
And if you're considering skiing in the Oisans I'd go for 2Alpes - Alpe d'Huez is sheet ice until about 12:30 and knee deep slush from around 13:00. |
Quite. Skiied the Combe de Loupe yesterday, lunched at the refuge de Sarenne and 'bumped into' nobody for several hours  No future on piste:
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manicpb,
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I've never hit them! To me thats boarding pretty safely!
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listen mate, you are either a troll or a village idiot, that's like saying Russian Roulette is a safe sport because I've never found the bullet yet... 
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FAQ
