 Poster: A snowHead
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| pam w wrote: |
Why does winter sports insurance cost more than a package tour to the Costa Brava? Insurance companies understand statistics or they wouldn't make any money.
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Not necessarily the chance of an accident (risk) being higher (although it may well be!), but the cost is likely to be much higher for a skiing accident than a Beach accident, hence the higher premium. Also most policies include beach hols as pretty much standard as that's what most folks do, not so skiing.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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pam w, Good points. Also, any stats on accident frequency need to be further broken down into the amount of time spent on the activity. I bet the mean cycle journey is well under an hour, perhaps most ski users spend 2.5 hours a day actually on the slopes where they could either be hit or suffer an crash accident. Too many questions 
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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 is an interesting article which looks just at the numbers.
http://www.aans.org/Patient%20Information/Conditions%20and%20Treatments/Sports-Related%20Head%20Injury.aspx
The following 20 sports/recreational activities represent the categories contributing to the highest number of estimated head injuries treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms in 2009.
Cycling: 85,389
Football: 46,948
Baseball and Softball: 38,394
Basketball: 34,692
Water Sports (Diving, Scuba Diving, Surfing, Swimming, Water Polo, Water Skiing, Water Tubing): 28,716
Powered Recreational Vehicles (ATVs, Dune Buggies, Go-Carts, Mini bikes, Off-road): 26,606
Soccer: 24,184
Skateboards/Scooters: 23,114
Fitness/Exercise/Health Club: 18,012
Winter Sports (Skiing, Sledding, Snowboarding, Snowmobiling): 16,948
Horseback Riding: 14,466
Gymnastics/Dance/Cheerleading: 10,223
Golf: 10,035
Hockey: 8,145
Other Ball Sports and Balls, Unspecified: 6,883
Trampolines: 5,919
Rugby/Lacrosse: 5,794
Roller and Inline Skating: 3,320
Ice Skating: 4,608
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Quote: |
Statistics is a respectable branch of mathematics. Much misused.
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too right
A journalist has absolutely no skill in using or understanding statistics in the mathematical or scientific sense. Hence every single statistic in a newspaper is "baloney", or at least the reporting of it is. Scientific papers I'd believe. Papers submitted to politcal parties and governments for the purposes of legislation or directing the running of a nation/locality, I'd interpret as statistical BS too.
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Wed 1-01-14 16:33; edited 1 time in total
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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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Avalanche Poodle, Whats an "estimated head injury"?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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| thecramps wrote: |
| Avalanche Poodle, Whats an "estimated head injury"? |
'I think I may be getting a headache' ? 
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| thecramps wrote: |
| Avalanche Poodle, Whats an "estimated head injury"? |
Come on Cramps, read the article.
The actual incidence of head injuries may potentially be much higher for two primary reasons. 1). In the 2009 report, the CPSC excluded estimates for product categories that yielded 1,200 injuries or less, those that had very small sample counts and those that were limited to a small geographic area of the country; 2). Many less severe head injuries are treated at physician's offices or immediate care centers, or are self-treated.
Included in these statistics are not only the sports/recreational activities, but the equipment and apparel used in these activities. For example, swimming-related injuries include the activity as well as diving boards, equipment, flotation devices, pools and water slides.
The following 20 sports/recreational activities represent the categories contributing to the highest number of estimated head injuries treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms in 2009.
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Avalanche Poodle, No, you come on. You wrote "categories contributing to the highest number of estimated head injuries" when surely you meant "categories contributing to the highest estimated number of head injuries". Or is my English incorrect?
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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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Unbelievably they wrote that too.
Seems cheerleading is also fairly dangerous.
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Reminds me of the age old quote of a driver, who never is any accidents but sees lots in his rear view mirror
Or something like that 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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sev112, Or
"I've been driving for over 30 years and I'm very tired"
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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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| Ham wrote: |
| I'd reckon that if you want to gauge danger by the colour, it has more to do with wrong labelling than anything else, plus those slopes that move up in difficulty because of conditions. EG there is a bit of a blue off the top of the Roche de Mio in La PLagne that fairly steep-ish and gets cut up something rotten, not even into proper moguls. Add hundreds coming down and you have a super dangerous situation on what is actually a difficult slope by then |
that's somewhere you never want to be at 3pm on a Friday afternoon on any kind of busy week
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thecramps, I didn't 'write' that, as I stated I just posted the table from the article, that is the title of it. It's an American article, if you believe that they are going to use technically correct English then you may also be waiting to see the Easter Bunny 
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You know it makes sense.
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I remember reading an article about cheerleading, they really do get a lot on injuries during practice with the pyramids and gymnastic moves.
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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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[quote="Idris"]
| Ham wrote: |
I don't agree that black pistes are safer, very much the opposite. The difference between a black piste and a red piste in terms of steepness is On a red run you fall you slide you stop, on a black run you fall you slide you ACCELERATE.
If we are talking UN pisted runs then again a red is safer than a black, on the black you are way more likely to fall than the red, due to being scared.
But if you are comparing pisted red runs with UN pisted black runs lets compare apples and grapefruits ? |
You've completely missed the OP's point, which is about the risk of collision! And the speed and resulting consequence of such collision.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| queen bodecia wrote: |
| .. I agree statistics are a load of baloney and can be made to 'prove/disprove' any point you want... |
I think you mean that misuse of data can produce "results" which are useless or even misleading. It would be a mistake to go from that to a belief that all evidence is useless.
Politicians and journalists predominantly have no scientific training, but the rest of us can do rather better with this stuff.
On the OP: I don't know: is there any breakdown of accident rates by piste grade? I suspect not, because I think the objective risk of any specific piste would not be particularly dependent on "grade", which is an imprecise thing at best. I'm sure that resorts have lists of injuries run-by-run, and I would imagine that their piste design and practice is guided by those data.
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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 suspect snow conditions have a far bigger impact on accident rates than piste grading...
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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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| Quote: |
Statistics is a respectable branch of mathematics. Much misused. A basic understanding of statistics ought to be part of the general knowledge of any reasonably well educated person. A statistician asked to answer the question posed in this thread would need to seek a good deal of clarification before trying to answer it. It's a silly question really, though an interesting discussion! Given an empty ski resort then self-evidently a black run is going to be far more dangerous than a green run. Given a busy resort then a high number of accidents will happen on green and blue pistes because that's where most people are most of the time. And so on.......
Just anecdotally how many of us know people who have been skiing recreationally for all their adult lives and not had at least one injury? I have had two, happily with a quarter of an inury-free century between them! |
Very sensible, and true. It is impossible to answer the question precisely with statistics as the question is imprecise to start with.
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Of all the ways of reducing your risk, downloading in a gondola rather than on the kind of valley runs described above is a good start.
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But then you fall into the trap of annecdote and assumption becuase there are no stats to back this up.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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good suspicion.
biggest piste carnage I've seen was a Blue in Avoriaz. No snow, so all heavy wet snow canon snow with the consistency of mogulled cement. Punters out of their depth skiing on the karzee. All the near beginners in our chalet refused to go high and stick to the lower blues, because in their eyes, high means difficult or expert.
In fact high was ace, and so much off piste had been tracked out that it was like a red run in ace snow conditions.
Chopper 8 times in a day in one area is what I counted.
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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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A couple of years ago I was flattened when standing in front of one of those large boards showing a piste map (on the flat in a large gathering area) by a skier out of control who ran several of us over.
The worst collision I have had was on a blue. Large wide run, great conditions, very quiet. I was skiing behind a disabled skier, doing wide sweeping turns in a regular pattern when I got hit from behind at speed. They were going so fast they dragged me beneath them for over 50 m on a very flat section. Several people who saw it said I was lucky to stand up and walk away. I had some lovely large bruises. I was disgusted with them, especially as it was a disabled skier on a sit ski type skiing with 4 assistants (two who had her on a 'lead') not one of whom appeared to have had any control. Those who saw it said the five of them were coming straight down the blue, had already cut across a junction without looking and headed straight for me and made no attempt to slow or turn and just barrelled into the back of me.
I'm terrified about being hit now and I hate the sound of someone behind on any run, if only I had my own personal ski area, wouldn't that be wonderful!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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By far the greatest number of people hauled of the slopes(pistes) in Arlberg are on fast flat runs blue or red runs.
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Avalanche Poodle, these numbers are just raw data and do not have much statistical significance without a known rate of participation. If there are more people cycling than skiing, cycling is relatively safer than skiing despite resulting in more injuries in absolute terms.
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| tangowaggon wrote: |
| This is one of the reasons that, even after 28 years on skis, I still enjoy skiing in Grandvalira, Andorra, even at 1/2 term the resort runs rarely get crowded and, being "unpopular" with advanced skiers, the reds and blacks are often deserted. although I would far rather that blacks were never pisted, the pisted reds with no-one on them are fab for pushing the skis to the limit of grip, carving flat out from top to bottom with no-one to get in the way. |
Couldn't agree more. Andorra still has a "bottom end" reputation. True, the resort (Soldeu) is pug-ugly, but some of the new 5* hotels are OK. The key is that everyone stays on the face of the hill overlooking the resort. Head over the top and there're miles of beautifully bashed empty pistes.
This is a resort where the punters pay €10 to the instructors on the last day to "be shown some other runs" - because they can't/won't read a piste-map. Long may it continue, since that makes it great for everyone else! The lift ticket's crept up in price recently, though.
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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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never summer, Pretty much what I was saying in the added post, but even that is meaningless unless the time spent on the activity is the same. A ten minute cycle journey would not be comparable to a full days skiing.
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| Quote: |
Posts: 153
yes, but - talking about knowledge of statistics and related phenomena - I suspect this thread may be skewed slightly by survivorship bias. 
Wow, sobering to see the number of people who have been taken out on the slopes by other skiers/boarders. Is it just me who this doesn't seem to happen too?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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All this talk of busy runs having the most injury's is probably completely true. It is also of no use whatsever if you are trying to make a decision regarding where is safest.
Do busy pistes see lots of injuries because they are dangerous or just becuase there are lots of people with potential to injur themselves? What we really need to know is per KM skiied how likely a person to be injured.
If 1,000 people ski down a black slope in a day and one of them gets bloodwaggoned off then that seems fairly safe, only one blood wagon per day compared to a redish blue run where the bloodwagon was dropping people at the bottom every 30 mins.
What we are missing is that the blue run may have been skiied 40,000 times that day with only 16 injuries. Therefore is is realtively safer for an individual to ski the blue run.
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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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Flet©h, But what if say 150 people who skied on the blue piste then skied on the black and that the blood wagon travelled at an average of 18mph and on each journey it could carry 3 casualties each trip and 63% of the skiers were wearing helmets?
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Using the stats provided so far... I would suggest that skiing on a black run IS safer than cycling on a blue run whilst cheering on your favorite Football team?
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You know it makes sense.
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| Idris wrote: |
. The difference between a black piste and a red piste in terms of steepness is On a red run you fall you slide you stop, on a black run you fall you slide you ACCELERATE.
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Well, only if you've never been shown how to stop yourself and been made to practice it a few times. I think it would be a good idea if this were something regularly taught. You can stop yourself on a 45º slope if it isn't icy (and that is 15º steeper than you'll find at the steepest section of all but a hand-full of European blacks). Having said that I admit that some pistes do sometimes get so hard that a boot tip doesn't really penetrate even the bit necessary.
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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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| Avalanche Poodle wrote: |
| never summer, Pretty much what I was saying in the added post, but even that is meaningless unless the time spent on the activity is the same. A ten minute cycle journey would not be comparable to a full days skiing. |
Exactly - I find these threads interesting because my day job is risk management, mostly for major accidents in the offshore oil and gas industry. In this we express risk as fatality frequency/yr or Fatal Accident Rate (no. of fatalities per 10^8 exposed hours) and a few others, depending on regulatory requirements (governments and companies often have tolerable risk criteria which you must demonstrate compliance with). To calculate either of these relies on knowing the amount of time people are exposed. Indeed, one way companies could fiddle the numbers downwards is to group the statistical personnel distribution in such a way that it brings the "average" individual risk number down, reducing the "average" person's exposure (not that anybody would ever do that of course ).
Several times I have tried to apply these kind of methods to other areas of my life (yes I am that sad  ) but it always breaks down when you try to estimate exposure.
The stats for skiing tend to be comparatively better than for other activities (cycling, driving for example) because the resorts have a good record of ticket sales so you can estimate the number of "skier days", which gives you some figures for exposure. However, that still has a great deal of uncertainty because clearly not everybody skis all day.
As someone said above, most fatalities probably happen to people in bed, but that doesn't mean beds are risky places to be, it's simply a factor of the amount of time people spend in bed compared to any other activity.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| snowball wrote: |
| Idris wrote: |
. The difference between a black piste and a red piste in terms of steepness is On a red run you fall you slide you stop, on a black run you fall you slide you ACCELERATE.
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Well, only if you've never been shown how to stop yourself and been made to practice it a few times. I think it would be a good idea if this were something regularly taught. You can stop yourself on a 45º slope if it isn't icy (and that is 15º steeper than you'll find at the steepest section of all but a hand-full of European blacks). Having said that I admit that some pistes do sometimes get so hard that a boot tip doesn't really penetrate even the bit necessary. |
^
I've spent some hours practising self-arrest with an ice-axe, which is a lot more effective than anything available to a falling skier, and I don't fancy my chances of self-arrest on anywhere near 45 degrees unless we are talking powder.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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dogwatch, I was thinking specifically of the sort of steep north facing slope you find often off piste (firm but grippy - what the French call "souflee dure"). I stopped myself on a slope (above a cliff) that the off piste book said was 50º but I think was more like 45º where I stopped (they said "any mistake and you're dead", but I'm not, I'm fairly sure.) The first time when my boot tips bit I was flipped over but managed it the second time. The other thing is that the guide should have told us to tighten our bindings before skiing it - losing skis somewhere like that is a very bad idea (the guide caught one of mine in mid-air as it went past him). I would now, of course, but this was long ago.
Last edited by Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person on Thu 2-01-14 23:42; edited 1 time in total
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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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bobmcstuff, I'd hazard a guess that people spend a lot more time on lifts and in queues than actually on the slope during a day
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Of course there's also the factor that you spend by far the largest proportion of your piste-sking day on reds and blues, coz there are more of them and you need to get places.
Do I get extra points for getting taken out on a blue by a Kamikaze pilot? Well, she was Japanese.
(ValTho, Morraine, a wide lovely blue, freakin' empty! nobody else in sight, she was just completely out of control. I'm afraid after stomping and grumping back up hill with her ski, and checking she and the bloke with her said they were OK I just left them to it. To discover her binding was broken all by themselves  )
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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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Ham, careful mate, the race card being used elsewhere today
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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rasmanisar, Not happened to me either, but I carry a lot of, shall we say natural padding, so wouldn't be anyone's first choice to ski into.
My own experiences have led me to believe that the most dangerous runs are the ones used at home-time, irrespective of colour: eg the black home run at Kronplatz can be a nightmare, but so too can the run at St Anton (which is Blue possibly?).
The only place I have skied in North America is Whistler, and whilst not my favourite resort by a long way, what I was impressed by was the threat to remove passes from anyone that skied too quickly in the designated slow zones around the ends of the home-runs. Why is this idea is not adopted in Europe? Does anyone know?
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mozwold It used to be far more common to have lift passes removed for bad behaviour in France than it is now, I can't really remember it happening for the last 15 years.,
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| queen bodecia wrote: |
Rate of injury per 1,000 visits (US figures for 2009):
Skiing: 2.7
Snowboarding: 3.37
Cycling: 11.4
I agree statistics are a load of baloney and can be made to 'prove/disprove' any point you want... |
Sure, you can use statistics to lie, but you can also use words to lie. I don't see many people saying "words are a load of baloney".
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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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| Idris wrote: |
| ... Snowboards have their place....NOT ON A PISTE |
Just because incompetent snowboarders exist doesn't make us all incompetent. Learner snowboarders sideslip; learner skiers snowplough. My Kessler is a piste board. Dude.
Whistler has a slope design which focuses traffic on specific "home runs". The "speed cops" there work remarkably well. They take out the dangerous quick people. There's a trick to riding quickly past them, but once you learn what they're looking for it's entirely possible to ride moderately quickly top to bottom without ever being passed - perfectly safe, the Canadian way. No rude shouty skiers needed, thanks.
The tougher stuff doesn't get the out of control crowd on it in the first place - they want motorway, not bumps. Which perhaps is what the OP was on about.
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FAQ
