 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Over in Europe, new research has shown that almost three quarters of Austrians would back a law making wearing helmets mandatory on pistes. |
Lol! This statement is pure drivel without any indication of WHO was asked and WHAT was asked? You could probably stand on the high street and conduct a survey "should extreme sports be banned to prevent injury" and get a large majority saying yes then turn round and say "skiing is an extreme sport that should be banned"
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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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Certainly three quarters of Austrians would back a law making lederhosen mandatory on pistes. You don't need a survey to know that.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Just do away with Groomed Pistes & Helmets wont be necessary 
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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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For once, I had to agree with stanton! 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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stanton, Explain, I would think the chances of falling would be greater in a mogul field.
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Dwarf Vader, Quite simply, speed kills. As I understand it, hit your head plumb square at over 15mph and you're almost guaranteed stone dead with or without helmet. Anything below that but over walking pace and you'll sustain a nasty or potentially life-threatening head injury. On ungroomed pistes the traffic slows down considerably. They might fall more but a pure fall doesn't normally involve hitting of head and if it does it's a decelerating "glancing header". It's the collisions that do it, mainly with immoveable objects like trees. For some reason California has a lot of head v. tree incidents involving death, and a few of them involving famous people so they've had press. The trees at Heavenly, for example, are invitingly spaced so people venture in there and of course some are bound to have unscheduled meetings with bark. If I remember rightly, they even take trees out in certain areas to make the tree skiing as good as it can possibly be. In typical American fashion, they now need to introduce a law to somehow mitigate the chance of croaking. My advice - avoid headbutting trees or rocks or piste bashers or buildings; they are all obvious enough.
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Bode Swiller, yep - "gladeing" trees is pretty common practice in US and Canada - and it is the trees more than anything which make me wear a lid.
But as Winterhighland says - they don't mention whether the people polled were even skiers. 
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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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Bode Swiller, I see what your point is but it does seem to have a contradiction.
At the start you stated speed kills on groomed pistes, then went on to say collisions with trees had a large occurrence. Tree runs tend not to be basheds (unless that’s different in the USA) and they are taken at lower speed.
While I agree with you and stanton, on your point about groomed pistes, my feeling from the news I have read is that excessive speed is a factor in only a 50% (SWAG).
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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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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Dwarf Vader, No, you can have groomed runs and trees in same proximity - down the side of tree-lined runs in the USA you see quite a few little shrines on the trees. This is invariably where someone has been hammering down a groomer, caught an edge or needed to take avoiding action, and introduced their head to a tree at speed. If the run had been left ungroomed they'd probably still be alive. Whichever way you meet a tree though, it hurts.
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Bode Swiller, I see and I agree.
The last fall I had took a chunk out of my helmet (with a ski I think) above my ear. I just think If I was not wearing my helmet I would not be able to wear glasses any more 
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You know it makes sense.
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Most skiers who purposely go into the trees are already wearing helmet. It's convenient not having to keep ducking for small branches too!
The helmet "law" being debated, are largely for skier on piste who don't volunteerily wear one. I can't blame them for not wanting to have their own choice taken out. On a warm sunny day, I don't feel like wearing a lid myself! If more pistes are left "natural", a lot of us would be happier not to worry about being hit by flying human objects. And I'll be more than happy to ski slowly without a lid.
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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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| Dwarf Vader wrote: |
| stanton, Explain, I would think the chances of falling would be greater in a mogul field. |
Most collisions accidents (Except Tree Skiing) involving head injuries occur on groomed pistes & there has been a huge increase since the advent of carving skis.
Do away with groomed pistes which encourages fast skiing in public areas & folk will learn how to ski in control in all conditions.
To me the Ski industry has created the problem by making skiing easy, kind of self proliferating 
Groomed Pistes/Trails, Fast Carving skis which folk cut across causing collisions & now they want everyone to buy a helmet because of there own stupid/greedy mistakes.
A Helmet will not prevent folk from skiing fast, accidents will continue to happen & I can foresee many many more.
The next stage will be to have mandatory speed controls (cameras) on trials/pistes.
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Poster: A snowHead
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I watched 2 people collide at the top of Trolles in Tignes last week. This was on a red section which leads to a black and would, you would think, only be used by skiers of a certain standard. The two chaps were unconscious for well over a minute whilst our cable car completed its journey. We stopped and told the piste rescue who were there seconds later.
5 minutes later one was standing and the other was sitting. Neither were wearing helmets and the outcome could have been very different.
I wouldn't dream of boarding without wearing a helmet and my wife wouldn't ski without hers. Its all very well saying that speed causes the accidents (it does, well loss of control/spacial awareness does) but if you are the slower person, in control, who gets hit, that doesn't really count for much.
We could all ski/ride at <15mph but that's just not going to happen, is it?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Interestingly california law requires all under 17 cyclists to wear helmets. (even though some us states don't even require a helmet on a motorbike)
Surely anything that de-risks winter sports without spoiling things is a good idea.
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