Should there be a helmet law?

[bdfreetuna]

The Stone Church has comedy shows? I've only seen bands play there.

As for helmets, I doubt I'll ever go without one again. Been wearing one for two seasons now. I spend a lot of my skiing time sort of crashing through the woods, and I've banged it fairly well on some trees/branches that would have otherwise been my skull.

The best part about the helmet is the boost in confidence. Most of your body can take a decent beating, but not so much the head. With a helmet on I tend to push limits more which in turn makes me a better skier and makes me feel better about how I'm skiing.

Mountain biking is a whole different story I know my life has been saved by a helmet on at least 3 occasions where I basically went head > tree at a high speed.

Should it be law? No. Most people without helmet are 1) noobs who haven't bought one yet or 2) expert skiers who know their limits. The amount of people without helmets now is a fairly small minority, so why not let them have the same freedom of choice we've always had.

Like I said there are expert skiers who choose not to wear a helmet and ski responsibly. But overall I think most people who don't wear helmets will start wearing them soon. As seen in this thread a lot of hold outs are considering them. I was a hold out for a while because I figured if I raced in school without a helmet I can ski for fun without one no problem. In the last couple years however I've stepped up my game on the slopes and sidecountry and the #1 external factor I can attribute to that would be getting a helmet.

 

[steamboat1]

Been skiing 50+ years without a helmet. I'll take my chances. One less thing to carry & one less thing to lose.

 

[witch hobble]

Nah, not transparent, just an ongoing interesting topic.

Here is a report just released earlier this week:

http://www.alpinezone.com/news-and-...-head-injuries-increase-despite-helmet-usage/

In a nutshell here is the statistics:



Now, I think we need to look at this broader than it states .... how many skiers in 2004 vs. 2010, etc, were conditions different, are people skiing more aggressively (bigger parks / more glades), etc.

Still, interesting topic nonetheless.

I just find these yearly threads to be somewhat repetitive. I'd say there is almost a real consensus within them: people think helmets are good, and warm and comfy, they can't imagine not wearing one now (until that 70 degree day in April!). There is some hand wringing about whether they will really protect you when you are going fast, as well as whether they give certain people a cloak of overconfidence. People are generally unenthusiastic about mountains requiring them, and are firmly against some sort of gov't legislation enforcing their use.

As for the link you provided, I think we need more than two data points to really understand the information. Was 2004's head injury count higher than the years leading up to it, and then it has continued to climb since? I don't have the time or inclination to search out the source data.

Anecdotally, as former patroller and someone who tries to pay attention to these things, I'd say any increase is due to large terrain parks and speed. There are relatively few glade injuries over all, certainly not enough to drive the stats. But people in general are skiing far faster than they did a generation ago.

The Kmart/River types of threads are far more likely to result in entertaining drifts and impotent rage!!!

 

[Nick]

Yeah I mean maybe it wasn't the right thread to bump, maybe it deserved it's own thread. Legally we have probably discussed the question around ten times. But safety issues change and statistics change and those are relevant new discussions yearly. Maybe it just didn't belong here.

 

[skiNEwhere]

This is pretty much a re-post from what I said on November 1st, 2006 in a similar post started by Greg

This is going to be a long reply.........Bear with me.......

So the date was March 5th, 2002. My mother, my sister and I were going to go skiing together. We went to Sugarbush, and had already enjoyed a couple days of skiing. My mother is a very experienced skier, she has been skiing longer than I have been alive (20+ years), but she was still very conservative. My sister and I are a little more aggressive, so we would get down the slopes first. Both of them wore a helmet, as do I.

So we decided to go over to Mount Ellen. We went up close to the top of the mountain, then they went down what I believe was "lookin good", an intermediate trail. My sister and I got down first, of course, and waited for my mother to come down. And we waited. And we waited. But she didn't come down. So we went up whatever chairlift was there in '02 that took us to 2/3's up the mountain. We skied down the trail, and saw a crowd of people around the edge of the trail. It was my mother, barely conscious laying on the ground. Ski patrol came and took her to the bottom, but there was nothing they could do for her there, so they transferred her to a hospital. They performed immediate surgery, but she died a few hours later, the cause being a cardiac arrest. I think she hit the tree mainly with her chest, which is what caused the cardiac arrest, but I try not to think about it.

How did she end up skiing into a tree? You tell me, we still don't know. She was a very good skier, I don't think she lost control. Honestly, I think she was cut off, without the person who cut her off realizing the consequences of what they had done. But I don't know

You would think all of this would lead into me saying that helmets don't work, and there is no point in wearing them, but it couldn't be more the opposite. Helmet's do work, it has been proven, and while I do wish they worked a little better, they can help save your life. Its like the person before me who said that you wear a seatbelt for that guy who isn't paying attention and swerves into your lane. Same concept, different field.

I was 16 when that happened, and I am almost 27 now, and I have been skiing many times since them. I even moved to Colorado so I could ski more because I was sick of the Northeast winters

 

[deadheadskier]

The Stone Church has comedy shows? I've only seen bands play there.

Maybe a couple a year......

Tough times at the Stone Church the past 4 years. After it was closed in 2008, the local fire inspector cut the capacity almost in half. The plus side is that there's a lot more elbow room and the sound for shows is much, much better. The downside is we really don't see the same quantity and quality of talent rolling through town as the Church drew 5 years ago. When you can only sell 125 tickets per show as is now the case, it really limits the profit for bands looking for places to play in the East. You used to see a lot of bands do a regional tour and they'd play Boston 1 night then the Stone Church the next night. This is no longer the case as it simply isn't worth it for the bands to play for 125 people.

Thankfully the owner (who is our local State Representative) doesn't rely on the Church to make his living. He simply values the arts and realizes the importance to the community of keeping the music alive on Zion Hill.