The Ski Helmet Debate

A story indeed, and Tony you are correct about taking bigger risks - but it opened my mind more to hitting my head anywhere on the slopes, as caron-a mentioned above..

However, I have made a good recovery but suffer from slight twitches/sharp pain in the same area - not often, but it does happen.. althought it doesn't affect the way I do anything :)

Yes I got a new helmet, shiny new from Bern :)

Risk is always going to be relative and open to perception. The reality is that banging your head does not only happen in the park, and no matter how small the risk is... it is still there.

I was having the helmet discussion with some friends on a lift in Davos (Jakobshorn) on Sunday. While we went up on that lift we did not see one person skiing or boarding below us not wearing a helmet!!! In the areas I ski (Central and Eastern Switzerland) helmets are now totally normal. People not wearing them are the exception.

Good. I like to be different

ir12daveor wrote:Risk is always going to be relative and open to perception. The reality is that banging your head does not only happen in the park, and no matter how small the risk is... it is still there.

I was having the helmet discussion with some friends on a lift in Davos (Jakobshorn) on Sunday. While we went up on that lift we did not see one person skiing or boarding below us not wearing a helmet!!! In the areas I ski (Central and Eastern Switzerland) helmets are now totally normal. People not wearing them are the exception.

But I wonder how much of that is publicity from the Natasha Richardson accident ????

Ian Wickham wrote:

ir12daveor wrote:Risk is always going to be relative and open to perception. The reality is that banging your head does not only happen in the park, and no matter how small the risk is... it is still there.

I was having the helmet discussion with some friends on a lift in Davos (Jakobshorn) on Sunday. While we went up on that lift we did not see one person skiing or boarding below us not wearing a helmet!!! In the areas I ski (Central and Eastern Switzerland) helmets are now totally normal. People not wearing them are the exception.

But I wonder how much of that is publicity from the Natasha Richardson accident ????

Honestly, I'd say none. It got nowhere near as much publicity here as it did in the UK or Ireland and helmets have been in the majority over here for quite a few years now.

ir12daveor wrote:Risk is always going to be relative and open to perception. The reality is that banging your head does not only happen in the park, and no matter how small the risk is... it is still there.

People do attribute different risk levels to the same activity so you might say that's perception, but if that were really true we'd see a lot of people being killed in a huge range of activities. But risk is a fairly easy thing to define, it's a function of the probability of an event with the potential outcome and a risk assessment is nothing more than plugging numbers into that. In the case of ski helmets it's pretty simple, millions of people ski all over the world so incidence or probability of events is well known as are the outcomes. That's why people that supervise others in activities as varied as mountaineering or scuba-diving aren't killing their clients on a regular basis, they're able to calculate the risk of of the activity and manage it. Insurance companies employ armies of actuaries doing exactly the same thing, if they weren't able to calculate risk they'd go out of business, they might have looked more carefully at their own risks in their investment activities though :roll:

The fact that people are appallingly bad at assessing risk and arrive at different conclusions doesn't make it relative, it generally means they can't distinguish between the probability of an an event and the outcome. There's nothing particularly odd about that, it's a heuristic trap that's wired into our brains and we all suffer with from time to time. The different opinions you get on helmets are a perfect demonstration of that happening. On the one side you see people taking precautions against something that's not going to happen, this is represented as being prudent in someway or justified by a interpretation of the precautionary principle which is mistakenly assumed to be real immutable principle rather than just another heuristic trap liable to lead faulty conclusions. While on the other you see the low probably of one event creating a blind spot to all other risks.

Mostly people just try to transfer risk, they identify some other group, like boarders, bladers, people skiing off-piste, someone with an iPod on, another nationality and so on as either being more at risk then they are or of representing a risk to them. It's just the way our brains work unless we step in think more clearly.

Personally I find it fascinating as I'm interested in risk and how it's measured and managed but mostly people are just on holiday trying to relax and it's hardly reasonable they walk around with actuarial tables :lol:

ir12daveor wrote:I was having the helmet discussion with some friends on a lift in Davos (Jakobshorn) on Sunday. While we went up on that lift we did not see one person skiing or boarding below us not wearing a helmet!!! In the areas I ski (Central and Eastern Switzerland) helmets are now totally normal. People not wearing them are the exception.

I think that's got a lot to with the fact the health insurers here have been keen to encourage people to wear helmets, my insurer sends vouchers each year for money off helmets. I assume their actuaries have worked out it's cheaper for than treating the minor head injuries that make up the majority of accidents. They really ought to get more people on sledges to wear helmets in my opinion as well.

ise wrote:
I think that's got a lot to with the fact the health insurers here have been keen to encourage people to wear helmets, my insurer sends vouchers each year for money off helmets. I assume their actuaries have worked out it's cheaper for than treating the minor head injuries that make up the majority of accidents. They really ought to get more people on sledges to wear helmets in my opinion as well.

Yip, you are correct. SUVA have done the math and worked out that it is cheaper to encourage people to use helmets! Similar to the reasons why some of the health insurance policies here offer you a discount on Gym membership. I wonder what that means in terms of injuries? ) I totally agree about sledding. My personal perception is that sledding is more dangerous then skiing or snowboarding.

As I have stated previously, my decision to buy a helmet was not based on marketing or figures (though I did read some epidemiological studies on skiing injuries as part of my job after I started wearing a helmet. I've been wearing one since before there was any real movement to encourage people to wear one. I chose to for two reasons. One was I was given one and told to wear it on the first Avalanche course I did so I realised that they were not too bad to wear. Not long after that I and my girlfriend both smacked our heads pretty hard. I hit my head hard enough that I was seeing stars. At the time I hit my head I was not in the park, I was not off piste and I was not doing a stupid speed and I was well past the beginner stage of snowboarding. I just had a silly fall where I caught an edge and went down. Instantly for me all excuses went out the window. Banging your head was not something that happened to other people... It had happened to me.

I road bike and mountain bike a lot. I would never dream about not wearing a helmet on the bikes. In many cases I am travel at about the same speed on skis or a snowboard as on the bikes and very often in the same areas with the same things to hit your head on. Just because the ground is covered in a layer of snow doesn't mean all danger to your head magically disappears.

TBH, I wouldn't like to see helmet use compulsory either, after all in most places it is not a legal requirement to wear one on a bike, but very few people would argue against it. But I do think that on balance wearing a helmet is a sensible thing to do.

" Allo, allo."
I see my usual forum stalwarts are at it again. :D
Hello from sunny and warm Melbourne 28c today and just peachy.
We had a hot November then a cooler and wet December. Christmas Day was just 20c. Perfect for the
traditional dishes. :lol:
I went skiing in August and September in OZ, for about 10 days and we had a late blast of snow in early
September. Mt.Buller and Falls Creek were great.
I purchased a helmet, getting back on theme, and used it the second day after a side foot shuffle
to avoid a Boarder, bang straight onto my noggin and slid for 10 metres on my right cheek.
Not fun at all and only slowing into a carve at the time. Unexpected bumps and not giving right of way
is a hazard every day. I did buy the right size beforehand and it was snug fit. Yes, i advise getting
a hair cut if you do suffer from helmet hair.
Going to Canada in February for two weeks, "yipee ki yay"
As the world congregates on Whistler, i will try out Big White and Silverstar in peace and quiet.
Oh yeah, the helmet is a coming along, less jocks if need be but that baby has a melon to protect.
It is 8.45pm here and i suspect most of you are on holidays or at work.
Bye for now.

Vince