Facts About Skiing/Snowboarding Safety from Nat'l Ski Areas Assoc.

[Pat Donnelly]

http://www.nsaa.org/nsaa/press/1112/NSAA-Facts-About-Skiing-Snowboarding-Safety-10-1-12.pdf

[Neil Gendzwill]

Thanks for that, Pat. Interesting factoid from the report:

The reason for the increase in mid-shaft tibial fractures appears to be due to a decline in the functional properties of the ski-binding-boot systems.

There is nothing else in the report regarding this, but taken on face value binding safety is getting worse for skiers? How is that possible?

[b0ardski]

1 in a million or so chance of dieing while sliding, 7x better than winning the lottery;) think about that the next time your giving the state some extra money.

[Puddy Tat]

Thanks Pat.

I found it interesting that

"...research also confirmed that alpine skiers are three times more likely to be involved in a collision with other people than snowboarders."

(7.7% to 2.6% apparently).

I wonder why that is? I had always assumed that snowboarders would potentially be responsible for more collisions due to our blind spot.

Maybe knowing we have one makes us more careful about it?

Dave

[Neil Gendzwill]

I'd say the fact that many of the high-risk aggressive riders are in the park or the pipe where they are mostly a danger to themselves has something to do with the higher skier crash rate.

[Dan]

Thanks for that, Pat. Interesting factoid from the report:

There is nothing else in the report regarding this, but taken on face value binding safety is getting worse for skiers? How is that possible?

Good question, that seems odd. I could believe that more people are using higher DIN settings and therefore not releasing when they crash, but it's hard to imagine that binding performance / characteristics are getting worse over time.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Maybe the increased width of skis has something to do with it?

[KingCrimson]

Or the way skis are being used. I can't access the page, but if that's as compared to 20 years ago, freestyle injuries could change that dynamic.