Skiing Fast on Groomers

A snowHead

and if a driver of a car doing 28 in a 30 mile limit should hit a pedestrian (maybe one that has done something really stupid, like dash across a road rather than walk the extra hundred yards to a proper crossing) it won't do as much damage as it would at 38 mph when, however daft the pedestrian had been, the driver would almost certainly be held culpable. Busy pistes with lots of different kinds of skiers on, lesson snakes, beginners, etc are the equivalent of 30 mph zones.

When I had my crash I was the downhill skier but I was going gently uphill - carrying my way to a lift queue, and the other guy, crossing downhill near that lift queue, heading for another behind me, had made a sudden change of direction to avoid somebody else. So we collided almost head on - except we both turned sharply to avoid the collision, unfortunately into each other (now had those sailing rules applied we'd have known which way to turn and that wouldn't have happened). I felt somewhat culpable as I could have slowed down earlier and then shuffled up the slope to the lift queue rather than doing it the lazy way. I would probably then have been able to accommodate his swerve.

A snowHead

I think the point that was being made tough is the same as yours Pam, ie that it is not always a reckless act when an accident occurs, ie if your skiing within your ability and are doing what you can, someone may do something that causes you to have a bang, it doesn't always mean your reckless, sometimes it is an unfortunate series of events. It happens sometimes. I still believe though that speed should be equal to stopping, and the area you are skiing in. Crowded pistes would be a slower zone, but then if you can't hocky stop on blue ice then don't come zooming down an empty black either.

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

I don't think it really matters - people who would stick to any new rules or any of the existing FIS guidelines aren't, by-and-large, the people who are the problem. The fundamental responsibility remains that of the uphill person to give people below them enough of a wide berth to not cause them or yourself problems, If you can't find that line, slow down. But we all have to accept that, despite all involveds best intention sometimes poo-poo happens...

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Same thing happened in Vail in the 90s:
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20040412/NEWS/104120009
Quite right.
If you are out of control and injure a slower skier below you / in front of you, you should pay for their medical costs and damages. If you fly blindly off a roller, land on someone's head, and kill them, you should be charged with criminally negligent homicide.
If you want to go fast on a closed run, without endangering others, register for masters racing and enter some Super G events:
http://www.mastersski.com/

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I took a guy out by hitting him right behind the knees last season. He was standing on a black looking down, I had bit a big frozen series of bumps quite a bit higher up, taken a tumble but just slid down on my back not able to stop. Technically I wasn't the uphill skier, I was the uphill slider. No harm done, but pretty difficult to avoid the situation as the bumps were not visible until I hit them, it was the third that caught my edge, the guy was also standing on a small lip 15m out from the side of the piste having a breather.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

So, @Scarpa, would you have said you were out of control?

^ I would.

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Must admit I tend to think of blues and the shallower reds as where I or more worryingly my daughter, might get hit. People who are good enough to go fast but not good enough to rescue a 'situation' and there are a lot of things that can cause a 'situation'. They are also the slopes where you get 'slow' skiers doing big turns with lots of traversing. The mixture makes for a pretty scary run for both sets of skiers. I feel a lot more confident when there are some moguls to keep people honest.

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I think the worst bits are the narrow links between runs. These are usually preceeded by the netting and 'slow, ralentir' signage however i invariably see people going through these at pace.

One example is the bit in courchevel 1850 at the top of altiport drag. There is a bit, skiers right where it goes down the pramurel but there is a left turn option to go back on the pralong chair or altiport drag. Me and my 2 girls been almost taken out or had to take avoiding action many time as we have slowed to take the left option but someone is trying to hoon down the track back over to 1650 lifts at speed.

snow reports

@under a new name, Definitely once I fell I was out of control, I was skiing well within my capabilities and making nice turns on SL skis until I hit those big frozen chunks of slush though. The only way to avoid those situations is to never ski quickly, or to ski one person on the piste at a time, and on steepish blacks that is just not going to happen.

You know it makes sense.

I skied 15 weeks last year and I think there were only three proper on-piste crashes, two were caused by a ski popping off hitting compressions, I later found out that I had snapped part of the heel on the binding on an off piste crash and it had made it unsecure. Just a shame that on one of them there was someone standing in the middle of the piste below me Sad

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

A snowHead

It's no criticism, Scarpa. I'm sure you're a far better skier than I am Little Angel

But whenever I've fallen, I know it's been because I've been out of control in some way. When I blew a turn on steeps a few years ago, and rag-dolled 100 metres vertical, I knew that it was my poor technique that was responsible, not the funky snow. More recently, when I've hit submerged avalanche debris and ejected, it's been my fault for not skiing fast enough to float over it (others in my group got by it with no problems). As horrible as conditions might be anywhere, I'd assume that if I made a mistake, caught an edge on some icy moguls or whatever, lost it and fell out of control, it would be my lack of skills (relative to better skiers) behind it.

A snowHead

I'm not sure there's huge disagreement here.

I think it's impossible to second guess something reported in the media. You don't have all the facts, the court did, that's it. Anything I've ever been involved with which has been reported by the media (typically rescues of one type or another) have been reported so badly that the basic facts even have been incorrect. It's a waste of time to try to try to give any opinion on a court case if you weren't there.

I can't think of any rational reason to be afraid of American law. I think rather that this comes from the same mindset which used to cause people to say: "the British Police are the best in the world", even when they'd never been out of the UK and probably never had any real interactions with the police force here or anywhere else. I'm more scared of Trick and Treat. Imagine how foreign places report our legal system, especially the failures of it: they never report what works.

Thinking about the guy sliding on a mogul field and taking someone stood on a bump. Personally I dislike people standing in the middle of expert runs (see thread on etiquette). On the other hand if you crash into someone who was otherwise entirely visible and stationary, and hurt them, I'd expect you'd be liable irrespective of if you were standing up when you did it or not. If you're planning on losing control, don't do it where you can do a lot of harm to yourself or anyone else: to behave otherwise would be....

A different scenario would be a dip in an expert trail hiding kiddy boarders. You hit the lip of the dip, which is not marked, at a reasonable speed for an expert run, and crash into kids you could not reasonably see at speeds appropriate for that grade of trail. In this case I think you could argue that the trail design is poor or the grading is wrong, and in any case the sitting people are being negligent as defined by rules and common sense. If the thought of that makes people ride more carefully, their law is working, no?

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

@moffatross, I know what you mean. Some of the people I ski with would have not even been troubled by it lol. Skiing skill doesn't even really come into it, a beginner can ski more safely than an ex racer 'expert' who doesn't allow for others.

But the unexpected can always happen, we try to mitigate the risk, but the snow snakes are always waiting. Kids jumping out of the woods across a slope are a big problem, I always try to notice if there are any messing about off piste. And I've seen toddlers do suicidal things, like launch down a hill on the side straight across a crowded piste of adult skiers Shocked

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I think that flat light is another scenario where people should slow down more. There is a much greater likelihood of not spotting a death cookie, bump or hole in those conditions.

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@philwig, +1.
I said at the start of the thread "what happened that day?"
All we know is skier A was skiing quickly and "possibly" out of control. Skier A then hit skier B causing injury to both parties. It must have been a bad collision (or a bad landing) as skier B broke nine bones in the accident. Skier A had to have knee surgery.

What I am asking is do you think two years probation, sixty hours community service and a $40,000 fine is justified (hard to decide this due to the scant details)
Do you think your insurance should cover it? (Look Mr Assessor, I was totally in control before hitting that black ice just above skier B)

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$40,000 was not a fine, it was restitution and I would expect insurance to cover it.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Yup, insurance is vital. You may not have been doing anything negligently dangerous but if you cause injury or damage to someone else or their belongings then you should cover those costs.

After all it is free

We are not always talking 'fault' but responsibility.

"Liability insurance" is interesting. I think in the UK at least that would help you with civil claims for damages, but not with any criminal issues, if you see what I mean. From what I recall the UK civil courts don't do "punitive damages". So if someone hurts you because they're negligent, your "damages" claim is purely for costs (although can include "compensation" for trauma), but it's not "punitive" in the sense of the community service you're talking about there. You have to watch about "consequential damages" too, which I think are generally limited (so break my leg today and I lose a season, but I can't make you pay for it, I believe).

Example: a driver ran down my bike from behind in the UK. It was basically assault with a car. I guess he'd had a bad day. I survived, and the consequences were... I threatened to issue proceedings for damages, which the thug's insurance company paid without argument. My one police witness was dissuaded from testifying in court, so the driver escaped criminal charges. By law he has to be insured against my damages claim, but he could not insure himself against his criminality.

Hence the difference is probably important in Colorado law too. So to answer the "Do you think your insurance should cover it", I'd say that if you're relying on insurance then you need to read the small print, but I think that you can insure against the other guy's costs (which may include medical stuff), but not any criminal consequences of your behaviour.

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The risk is that no-one will venture out of their bed...and probably suffocate on their pillow.....NOTHING is without risk!
FFS

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snow reports

“I never thought of skiing being a life-threatening sport,” Vitt said. “I could not have been more wrong.”

Perhaps that also should be written on the back of the ski ticket. Not condoning what the guy did: one needs to be in control. Just troubled that the victim had no idea.

You know it makes sense.

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

@Martin Bell, whilst there as with all press related output some elements of sensationalism the underlying premise of your point is correct. It takes very little to go from fully in control to not going in the intended direction, a bit of ice or hardback which stops you putting in the extra turn, catching an edge or someone else doing something you didn't plan or expect. Whilst it is not possible to mitigate every possible situation we do have a duty to ourselves and others to play within sensible limits.

Ps - hope graham likes his new boots he got today.

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Skiing Fast on Groomers

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