Dick of the Day

A snowHead

PS, sorry for those who just read through all of my ramblings there. I have formed very strong opinions on all of this. I see accidents most days which could be avoided some involving small kids and it really frustrates me.

I do believe now we are moving towards a time where criminal prosecution should be pursued in certain cases. My sister was hit and the boarder left the scene. She had no ligaments left in her knee, surgery cost her thousands to have it done right, this was not all covered by insurance as she went through the best surgeon possible, the boarder should have had to pay, to just ride off without checking on someone is incredible and its happening more and more from what I am hearing now. Cases like this make me so angry.

A guy arriving at the top of a lift and saying sorry its my first week is not good enough...thats my opinion in the case of the OP. He was being very irresponsible to find himself in that situation.

A snowHead

It's quite easy to generalise. Most accidents are down to some kind of human error. With hundreds of thousands of people sliding down mountains on planks of wood, it's going to go wrong now and again. I like to think I ski in control and at a safe speed for the area I'm skiing in but I'm also human and could get it wrong in the future and bang into someone. That alone, doesn't make me a dick. I think the video I posted on this thread earlier says it all really. Who was in the wrong? The boarder taking evasive action to avoid a child and hitting another one, or the parent for stopping in the middle of a busy piste to teach their child and pushing them out into oncoming traffic? I think educating skiers has a long way to go. I rarely see signs demonstrating how to ski safely. Unlike driving, skiing is something most people do about a week a year, if that.
Not stopping when you hit someone is dreadful. I always stop if I see someone's down, regardless of how it happened, and see if they're ok. I'm amazed how many ski straight by.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

It wasnt his first week it was his first colision of the week. I dont think he was a beginner I didnt see him ski but I think he had a raise on his binding.

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@R555MAC, I'm sorry to hear about your sisters accident Sad

I rarely fall over and have never crashed into anyone. But I wouldn't label everyone that did crash into someone a "dick". We don't know the full circumstances of the OP so I've no idea if the learner skier was a dick or not. But the OP sounds overly angry about something that really did not amount to much.

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@RussellT, I've been on lifts where the person next to me has skied over my ski or fallen etc as we disembarking - making me unsteady etc...how do you know that someone else wasn't to blame for this guy to lose "control"?

I'm sure it wasn't a pleasant experience for you but isn't it just one of those things?

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We made an early exit from our en-route B&B to get into St Gervais early enough to ski on Saturday .. got on the hill and run 1 this little girl skis into my 13 year old daughter who's stopped on a gentle green about to cross over to a short red .. now she might have moved across the green after stopping but the little 6 yr old plowed straight in to her from uphill on the green .. they both fall over and my daughter says something to the effect of "Oh .. I'm sorry. Are you OK?" to which the little girl says "Yes" everyone gets up and it's all good. I'm just below them on the short red but I didn't see what happened .. The dad .. English .. then starts in on my daughter .. " you just cut up my daugh-er .. " on and on .. then starts towards her .. something about her not being a good skier like his " daugh-er " .. at which point I tell him to back off .. his daughter caused the collision from uphill but whatever they're kids and everyone is ok .. he counters " why is she smiling? " ... to which I reply " because she's on holiday having fun and she's smiling because you're being a such a d1ckhead .."

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@bpirkle,

After all it is free

@bpirkle, ok that is worthy of the d+ckhead moniker

The girls were pretty impressed with my language and they refused to repeat what I said when they told the story to their mother when they got home .. ha ha .. but I have to admit that I was pretty wound up at the time. "Cut up my daugh-er .. " What a d1ckhead.

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Lots of people make mistakes, I would imagine because they're learners. Competent skiers understand and deal with that as a matter of course.

The business of adults calling each other rude words, behaving badly in front of their children, and then boasting about it on here.... I've no experience of that, but I'm sure you can get help for it.

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@philwig,

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@R555MAC, ...I have a lot of sympathy for your take on the behaviour of others.

In no other walk of life is there acceptance of highly irresponsible behaviour which endangers others - it is not ok to issue a simplistic 'skiing is dangerous'.

Climbing is inherently risky, but there is a culture of not deliberately endangering others - eg by avoiding any actions which cause debris to fall on others climbing below, by working with all around to control risk etc

I have been taken out from behind twice in the last 12 months, once causing serious shoulder injury. Older guy skiing well above his reaction times and just ploughed straight into the back of me. On a motorway this would result in prosecution and compensation. In this case the guy just skied off as fast as he could, leaving me with my then 8 year old at 2900m.

Four years ago, a Dutch guy took my son out from behind, hard. Both lost their skis. While my partner and a pisteur attended to my son, I went to the guy to get his insurance details, a legal requirement in Switzerland. He was highly aggressive and refused. I simply picked up one of his skis and walked back to where my son was being attended to. As I walked back, he pulled my shoulder round, and without warning punched me hard on the left side of the face, at which point I laughed and said 'carry on if you want to spend some time in police custody'. Unfortunately his single punch spilt one of my teeth in half and I needed a 3000 gpb implant six months' later. My son was shocked but fine, his helmet and back protector had worked well. After being barracked by the pisteurs it turned out the Dutch guy had given entirely false details to both me and the pisteur. Hopeless.

Tolerance,defensive skiing and forgiving those who through inexperience make mistakes is the way forward methinks. Has the OP considered that those responsible for the table position might have some responsibility here? But since he is clearly perfect he would have made a dynamic risk assessment of this and sat somewhere else.
Where there is a blame there is a kumquatious individual chasing the ambulance.
Nobody here seems to mention the FIS 10 rules. Perhaps there should be a 11th rule.
'When it become apparent to a snowsporter that another individual is not behaving in accordance with the rules and a collision is imminent then they must take such action as to best avoid collision.'
In advanced motoring circles there remains a principle that the 'expert' creates there own safety. There is seldom a situation where one individual is truly and wholly to blame, recognising that the OP was somewhat restricted in his ability to foxtrot oscar at the time.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Dick of the day?

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/blog/2009/mar/24/pint-drawing-roof-google

A snowHead

A snowHead

@R555MAC, good analogy, different application of it.

Skiing accidents occur for largely the same reason as driving accidents. Speed in and of itself isn't the problem but rather the resultant inability to avoid hazards. In the clip above, the snowboarder was too gung-ho taking a line between someone standing in the middle of the piste and a child clearly taking big turns. He was unlikely to avoid an accident and should have, rather than leaning away from the child moving into him, taken a more severe swerve out right to avoid both hazards. His speed didn't help him have enough time to clear the hazards.

As I say though, accidents require a hazard. Most times a hazard is actually someone making a very unpredictable swerve across a piste, not looking up before moving across the width of a piste or, as was the case in the only wipe out I have ever had, an ESF teacher pushing a child from the side of the piste into the piste without bothering to look up the mountain to see where it was clear first. She was, no exaggeration, a few feet in front of me when she pushed her out. Contrary to some of the reactions (i.e. the over-aggressive dad above), she initially reacted terribly towards me (out of panic, no doubt) before apologising for being careless. I was surprised!

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@R555MAC, I think your analogy with driving is extremely sound.

Driving is a complex activity which is difficult to acquire to a reasonable level of competence. Skiing is the same.
Driving takes place in crowded settings and is cognitively and physically demanding. Skiing is the same.
Errors when driving endanger the lives of others and can have serious consequences. Skiing is the same.
When you have an accident the consequences for others are the responsibility of the person making the error. Skiing should be the same imho.
Driving is heavily regulated by law to deter crazy behaviour and support those injured by those committing errors. Do we want skiing to be like this?

If we do not self regulate in the hill, then - as has been discussed here many times - legal regulation may follow.

I just don't think its ok to say ' that guy was learning so it's fine he piled into that small child'. We would not accept the same if this had occurred whilst learning to drive.

I saw a highly irresponsible pair on the hill last week - english tall male and his partner in top end gear laughing as their 6 year old-ish youngster snowploughs at high speed down the fall line all over resort. Laughing all the way as they snaked behind her, they were saying 'ho ho isn't she sweet the way she is going so fast' - big smiles on their faces and on hers, as she speeds 20 metres in front of them, and then she piles full tilt into a local infant on a 30 kph nursery slope, to the shock of the infant's parents. Tall man and tall woman instantly shout 'you were going too fast - slow down' to their daughter and then ski off without attending to the infant, whose father is putting everything back together again and consoling his shocked offspring. I see the trio the next day, again on a steep slope with her going full tilt down the fAll line at a really high speed. All laughing again, ho ho ho, he he he. I choke back the inclination to say anything since he is big, loud and abrasive. A disaster waiting to happen, I just hope others can see and hear them coming,...

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@cameronphillips2000,

No
Yes, but only by the fashion police.
We already have piste patrol
No
No
No, many under 10's are very competent.
Too much traffic for that to work I think
They usually put netting across the piste with "slow" in a few languages.
No, it would cover up the Bognor branding
Don't know
Possibly, simple enough to stick it onto the cost of the lift pass?
There is, nursery slopes
All a bit big brother.
"No matter what happens" ...no
Would just cause bottle necks

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I was taken out at new year on a green slope. I was in a lesson and was taken out from behind. My ski instructor had a few choice words to say basically because he was skiing fast down a green he turned around and said I was in his way and I should have got out of his way and shouldn't be on that piste.

After all it is free

@miranda, just to be clear, after piling into my very young child, the Dutch guy refused to give details and was about to ski off, so all I did was pick up his ski and walk back 5m to where the pisteurs were attending to my son, in order to ensure that they were able to get the right details from him, as required by local law. I was then assaulted in an unprovoked manner and later advised that I should have called the police and pressed charges. He also gave completely false information to avoid the consequences of what he had done. If my child had been seriously injured and required prolonged medical care or worse then my son's and our lives would have been adversely reshaped by irresponsibility and deceit on someone else's part. If you think I was in the wrong then I think things have gone a bit weird, really.

@valais2, no, I didn't say you were wrong; I'm saying it didn't work. I definitely think you should have called the police for an unprovoked punch in the face!

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@miranda, ....yes...you're right. In the same circumstances I would now immediately take one or more photos of the person (although sometimes, who knows who is inside a helmet and goggles and neck warmer - not an inch of anything recognisable showing....) and involve pisteurs ASAP including pass forfeit until the situation us resolved.

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>> Should helmets be compulsory?
definitely not.
>> Do current helmets restrict peripheral vision?
Not as much as goggles do. however.. fortunately the human neck is designed to allow the head to turn to eradicate "blind spots" or issues related to a lack of 20:20 vision. However you cannot force people to turn their heads!!! (sadly)

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@cameronphillips2000, and maybe last one "if this safety issue bothers you so much, just stay at home, as it's obviously too dangerous thing for you". Skiing is fun, might be dangerous to some, but it's fun. Regulating the sh**it out of it, would mean end of fun. Even though I sure am all for radar guns on courses... at least I wouldn't need to depend on gps to see if I'm over 100km/h or not Very Happy

PS: There are "piste patrols" on ski places in Europe... in Italy it's normally in clothes of Polizia, Carabineri etc. in Austria they wear Polizei signs etc. But they don't bother much with you, even if you ski at 100km/h as long as you are in control. And that's right way to do it, as personally I would really hate some self appointed freak discussing with me, what feels too much for his taste.

Help!!

Dick of the Day

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