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Another who's fault is this question?

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Skier. But as ever, everyone's awareness and risk assessments could be better. Pistes joining meaning everyone should be on hyper alert for unexpected lines/angles.
Shocking injury for a relatively low speed coming together.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Dave of the Marmottes wrote:
But I think that a lot of what is accepted as "accident" is anything but i.e. more proactive avoidance behaviour by one or both parties could easily avoid it - even an out of control beginner could learn to flop safely before building up speed etc. And people could actually look uphill when they stop rather than being oblivious.


Agree with you completely.
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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?
Putting aside this particular incident, I note that FIS rule 3 makes reference to the skier/boarder “coming from behind” and that there is no specific reference to the “uphill skier”. On many occasions the “uphill skier” will be the skier “coming from behind”, e.g. when overtaking on a similar line, but is it always so straightforward to determine who is the skier coming from behind? If there is a collision between a skier skiing short turns straight down the fall line and a skier making a longer diagonal traverse, and neither took evasive action (or neither were aware of the other) where would responsibility for the collision be attributed, i.e. who would be deemed to be the skier coming from behind (and under Rule 3 should have chosen a different line)? Ideally, of course, both skiers should be aware of others and choose appropriate lines, but where Rule 3 specifically stipulates that the skier coming from behind should choose an appropriate route, I can see where perhaps there is confusion between which of two skiers this is.
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@Austrian Seagull, The FIS code is clearly framed in the context of two slope users travelling in broadly the same direction. Presumably for simplicity . I think the only real possible interpretation of "behind" in other circumstances is upslope as the "rule" is designed to put the responsibility on the party with the most visibility of the situation. I can see there might be micro exceptions to this - if on a shallow traverse I undercut someone downhill and they then turn into me I think I am still responsible as I failed to pass completely and safely (watch out for that anyone undercutting a boarder on a toeside traverse).
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
It's as plain as a pikestaff - it's the skier's fault. The skier is uphill and the board has right of way. The skier had plenty of time to pick a better line to avoid the collision and if they weren't capable of making the turn (they do look inexperienced) then it's still their fault as they were skiing outside their competence.

Having said that, a lot of boarders would have avoided that collision because it is sensible to look over the shoulder on heelside turns, particularly in heavy traffic like this, and this boarder didn't do that. I disagree with those above suggesting this makes it a 50/50. It doesn't in my view. It's like pulling into a junction controlled by traffic lights when you're driving. It's a good idea to check to be sure no one is running a red light and going to hit you but you do still have right of way.

With all that said, it's an innocuous type of collision which I'm sure didn't ruin anyone's day so I wouldn't get wound up by it.
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monkey wrote:

With all that said, it's an innocuous type of collision which I'm sure didn't ruin anyone's day so I wouldn't get wound up by it.


boarder broke her back
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Skier technically uphill but I would say that the boarder is fractionally more responsible. Skier travelling to their left and looking right, boarder travelling to their right and looking left but this is much more so the case for the boarder. The skier is sort of following the fall line, the boarder is basically making a blind traverse. I know that boarders have a bigger blind spot than skiers but it should be their responsibility to compensate for this, after all if there are two boarders each in other's blind spots travelling towards each other then unless they are making a conscious effort to check in their blind spots then they will crash into each other. The outcome is very sad and sobering. In my first two weeks on skis I was definitely a bit reckless and am just glad that I was never involved in such an incident.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
rambotion wrote:
Skier technically uphill but I would say that the boarder is fractionally more responsible. Skier travelling to their left and looking right, boarder travelling to their right and looking left but this is much more so the case for the boarder. The skier is sort of following the fall line, the boarder is basically making a blind traverse. I know that boarders have a bigger blind spot than skiers but it should be their responsibility to compensate for this, after all if there are two boarders each in other's blind spots travelling towards each other then unless they are making a conscious effort to check in their blind spots then they will crash into each other. The outcome is very sad and sobering. In my first two weeks on skis I was definitely a bit reckless and am just glad that I was never involved in such an incident.


Again this is putting reponsibilities on boarders that just don't exist and are perhaps physically impossible.. We've recently had another thread where people argued it was physically impossible and certainly unreasonable for skiers to shoulder check for what was approaching them - why should boarders have it any different? I had a week back boarding after some time of mainly skiing and despite being an experienced boarder it was a bit scary having so much go on in my blindspot from skiers who should know better (when you are experienced you make sure you are as atuned as possible to what is going on and try to sneak look backs and audible clues). At the point a boarder is in the fall line they have maybe 90deg peripheral vision to the heelside and to get the rest requires them to turn their head frontside through 180 and get 270deg (the rear quadrant) in peripheral. But by then they are definitely not looking where they are going and would be a recipe for more accidents for most beginner thru intermediates
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@Dave of the Marmottes, ok, I've never boarded beyond a couple of hours at a dry slope, if ski resorts were 90% boarders rather than 90% skiers would there be a big jump in collisions because suddenly most of the slope users have blind spots when making heelside turns that they struggle to compensate for?
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rambotion wrote:
Skier technically uphill but I would say that the boarder is fractionally more responsible. Skier travelling to their left and looking right, boarder travelling to their right and looking left but this is much more so the case for the boarder. The skier is sort of following the fall line, the boarder is basically making a blind traverse. I know that boarders have a bigger blind spot than skiers but it should be their responsibility to compensate for this, after all if there are two boarders each in other's blind spots travelling towards each other then unless they are making a conscious effort to check in their blind spots then they will crash into each other. The outcome is very sad and sobering. In my first two weeks on skis I was definitely a bit reckless and am just glad that I was never involved in such an incident.


I find this slightly confusing. Your saying that the skier is essentially going down the hill and the snowboarder across which by definition must mean the skier must be coming from above in which case its their responsibility to make sure they can avoid what is below them? As others have said - could the snowboard avoided it, maybe but that doesn't mean they are at fault.

As someone who has skied and snowboard I have found its surprising how many people have thought the snowboarders route/path/behaviour isn't right. Thats what beginners snowboard do, slalom from side to side, often finding it hard to initiate the turn so will continue for while a while before turning. Yes I appreciate its a busy slope but its also appears to be a fairly gently beginner slope so exactly the place you will find beginners and thus should adjusting your speed appropriately.
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rambotion wrote:
@Dave of the Marmottes, ok, I've never boarded beyond a couple of hours at a dry slope, if ski resorts were 90% boarders rather than 90% skiers would there be a big jump in collisions because suddenly most of the slope users have blind spots when making heelside turns that they struggle to compensate for?


I don't believe so not least because once boarders get to a level of experience they are acutely aware of their blindspot and making other compensations such as audible checks or peripheral vision or even line choice to avoid problems. I guess you could look at data possibly from a boarder heavy resort like say Brighton UT to see if there were any uptick in collisions
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
@Rob_Quads, say you were travelling directly across the slope at speed, you could easily be outside of an uphill skier/boarder's field of vision almost until you were right in front of them leaving them insufficient time/space avoid hitting you. They would have been the person coming from behind but the collision would have been unavoidable from their point of view and it would be hard to blame them. The border in this clip could have started to turn toe side from about early in the 6th second but instead she accentuates the heelside turn into the 7th second, here I feel that by traversing the hill she is risking entering someone's field of vision very late and giving them little time to avoid her. This is essentially what happens although I do feel that the skier is also at fault, she is not traversing the piste completely perpendicular to the fall line and he could have seen her if he wasn't just watching the skier ahead of him.

If I want to make a hard carve on a gentle slope that will result in me traversing across the slope I will check uphill before doing so as while as the downhill skier I would be entitled to just go for it, you do start to put the uphill skier/boarder in a fairly impossibly position
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@Dave of the Marmottes, possibly, but the problem is before they reach this level of experience as the in this boarder example clearly hadn't and as most 1 week a year boarders probably haven't. My gut feeling is that it would be carnage tempered slightly by the fact that because of the heightened risk of catching an edge on a board, you do seem to get fewer boarders than skiers going far faster than their skills seem to allow for
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Dave of the Marmottes wrote:
rambotion wrote:
@Dave of the Marmottes, ok, I've never boarded beyond a couple of hours at a dry slope, if ski resorts were 90% boarders rather than 90% skiers would there be a big jump in collisions because suddenly most of the slope users have blind spots when making heelside turns that they struggle to compensate for?


I don't believe so not least because once boarders get to a level of experience they are acutely aware of their blindspot and making other compensations such as audible checks or peripheral vision or even line choice to avoid problems. I guess you could look at data possibly from a boarder heavy resort like say Brighton UT to see if there were any uptick in collisions


I think we may be overanalyzing it a bit. I'm not sure if the border had been a beginner skier we'd of seen a different outcome.

Blindspot shouldn't be an issue - at the end of the day it's for the uphill party to not hit you. That said when merging pistes or if I plan to make a traverse, big or unexpected turn I'll always check my blindspot because I'd rather not crash than crash and be in the right. You have to be pretty comfortable on a board before you can take your eyes off where you are going to look back up hill though. I'm not sure on a slope that crowded I would be taking my eyes off what's downhill.

Regarding experienced snowboarders some of the reasons for less crashing will be line choice. If you are travelling more fall line it becomes less of an issue. They also tend to be skiing less busy slopes/areas, I suspect a lot more crashes happen on green/blue slopes than blacks and off piste.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
rambotion wrote:
@Rob_Quads, say you were travelling directly across the slope at speed, you could easily be outside of an uphill skier/boarder's field of vision almost until you were right in front of them leaving them insufficient time/space avoid hitting you. They would have been the person coming from behind but the collision would have been unavoidable from their point of view and it would be hard to blame them. The border in this clip could have started to turn toe side from about early in the 6th second but instead she accentuates the heelside turn into the 7th second, here I feel that by traversing the hill she is risking entering someone's field of vision very late and giving them little time to avoid her. This is essentially what happens although I do feel that the skier is also at fault, she is not traversing the piste completely perpendicular to the fall line and he could have seen her if he wasn't just watching the skier ahead of him.

If I want to make a hard carve on a gentle slope that will result in me traversing across the slope I will check uphill before doing so as while as the downhill skier I would be entitled to just go for it, you do start to put the uphill skier/boarder in a fairly impossibly position


Yes in your scenario its a lot more debatable, if someone is travelling at speed then they are not being responsible in that sort of environment.

This scenario the snowboard was not travelling at any significant speed at all and so yes its the skiers responsibility to be able to judge what other users in the vacinity are going to do and that includes how snowboarders go down hill even if they are skier
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
The accident in the video is exactly that - an accident. Not everything is someones fault.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
vjmehra wrote:
What is very frightening is that the lady in question (the boarder) ended up with a broken spine, as from the clip I didn't think it looked as severe as that.


This is the fact that I can't stop thinking about rather than whose fault it was.

The skier is a relatively small child not travelling particularly fast so would not have had a huge amount of momentum. They collide but doesn't really look that bad at all. The boarder falls to the side rather than headfirst down the slope or anything.

I was fully expecting then both to get up and dust themselves off. Quite scary how such a minor collision could result in such a serious injury. Sad
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