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United States24701 Posts
About a week after my last ski trip I went to a fairly nearby ski resort for a full day of skiing. It was very cold but otherwise the conditions were pretty good (some ice, but that's kind of unavoidable around here).
The biggest difference was the skis I rented. On my last trip they had given me 150 cm long skis (I'm 178 cm tall). This time I asked for the 'next size up' which they said was 165 cm. A person I was with had not skied for a long time, so they wanted to spend most of the morning on the bunny slope and other green trails. This worked out well for me because I needed time to get used to these longer skis. At first I was kind of freaking out by how difficult I was finding turning, even on the bunny slope. Towards the end of the morning I ran a couple of intermediate trails and realized they didn't really feel any harder than the bunny slope... apparently I was just getting used to the skis and the trail had almost nothing to do with it!
I played around a bit with trying to carve, but I just couldn't get the hang of it. In fact, I almost took a tumble on the bunny slope! When I tilt my skis to the side to try and use the ski-shape to turn, I find the skis get tilted different amounts, causing them to carve in circles of different radii. This does not bode well for my legs as my legs prefer to travel in the same direction, generally. I eventually gave up on trying to carve and just skidded like usual. Once again I wore my goggles over the glasses which worked out "okay." I don't think I have more time to ski this season so I'll address the problem next winter if I plan to ski a lot.
I did a little bit of looking into helmet use. This was partly triggered by comments in my previous blog suggesting (or in some cases demanding) helmet use for all skiing and snowboarding. As I observed, and as several posters confirmed, helmet use (according to the sources I looked at) has been much on the rise over the past 10-15 years. However, skiing and snowboarding don't seem to be any safer now than they were back when I used to ski years past.
Helmets are great to have on when you take some type of a fall that would give you a minor head injury. You can avoid small impacts, scrapes, and other injuries simply by having a helmet on. However, they are insufficient at protecting you from major accidents, and obviously don't protect other parts of your body besides your head. The problem is that skiers who wear helmets statistically tend to ski/snowboard more aggressively or dangerously than they would without a helmet. For example, on my Stratton trip I was pretty cautious because (for the reasons I gave in the previous blog) I wasn't able to wear a helmet. I took no falls or injuries (granted this is anecdotal). My friend, in contrast, had a helmet on and was pushing himself to the limit. He fell like 20 times and messed up his shoulder somewhat. To his credit, he did get pretty good at skiing in a very short amount of time.
My belief is that a skier who is aware of this phenomenon can improve his/her level of safety by wearing a helmet and consciously resisting the urge to push harder, faster. However, on average, the increased protection from a helmet is fully compensated for by its behavior-altering effects. Where I was skiing, New Jersey, has a state law that all youth skiers/boarders must wear a helmet. What this law seems to be doing is decreasing the likelihood of minor head injuries, increasing the likelihood of non-head injuries, and keeping major head/neck injuries nearly stagnant.
This issue just doesn't seem as simple to me as "wear a helmet or else you are an idiot." Such knee-jerk advice, while well-intentioned, appears to be nearly as suspect as someone 15 years ago saying "Don't wear a helmet on the mountain; it makes you look like a moron."
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
This issue just doesn't seem as simple to me as "wear a helmet or else you are an idiot."
glad you came to your own sensible conclusion on this issue, i too hate that reaction people have when i tell them i dont wear a helmet.
you said you tested the longer skis but how did they feel?
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United States24701 Posts
The longer skis felt fine after a couple of hours of skiing. They are a bit harder to 'skid to a stop' on than the shorter skis, but I really love the feeling of stability they give you at higher speeds. Next year if I'm skiing more I'll probably spring for a lesson and work on my turning with a pro. I'll definitely stick with this length rather than go back to the shorter skis.
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Well, I'd never snowboard without a helmet.
Even if the increased "aggression" while boarding offsets the protection to the head more or less, I FEEL safer with it on and its more fun pushing the envelope than it is being afraid of everything. Dunno. Probably once every day or 2 of skiing I have a fall that I'm glad I had my helmet on, even if the consequences without wouldn't necessarily have been a serious injury.
But you can do what you want lol. Helmets are also nice and warm 
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The problem with accidents is not the ones you are inflict on yourself, it's other skiers ramming you and stuff like that... Good luck solving that by being more carefull.
I don't wear a helmet myself but i don't talk myself into thinking that wearing a helmet is not necessary...
All else.. Skiing is like riding a bike... Once you know how to do it you never truely lose it.
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United States24701 Posts
On January 24 2014 06:54 Sn0_Man wrote:
Well, I'd never snowboard without a helmet.
Even if the increased "aggression" while boarding offsets the protection to the head more or less, I FEEL safer with it on and its more fun pushing the envelope than it is being afraid of everything. This is almost exactly what I was saying. The 'security' people feel from the helmets causes them to increase their risk of accidents, such that the protection from helmets is roughly canceled out.
Dunno. Probably once every day or 2 of skiing I have a fall that I'm glad I had my helmet on, even if the consequences without wouldn't necessarily have been a serious injury.
But you can do what you want lol. Well you are giving the same advice you seem to follow: do what you want. That's fine. My goal was to try to establish an evidence-based reasoning for why one action is preferable to the other.
On January 24 2014 07:13 Velr wrote:
The problem with accidents is not the ones you are inflict on yourself, it's other skiers ramming you and stuff like that... Good luck solving that by being more carefull. I'd be interested to see statistics on what percentage of injuries are caused by that, vs other things like just falling on your own... I didn't have access to that. Obviously, helmets are preferable to no helmets if someone crashes into you in a way you could not avoid.
I don't wear a helmet myself but i don't talk myself into thinking that wearing a helmet is not necessary...
Is that what you see? Someone talking himself into thinking a helmet is not necessary? If you want to counter a claim, then you should provide evidence. If the evidence shows that wearing a helmet is definitely preferable to not wearing one, then I and everyone else should ultimately accept that and wear them (or admit we are being very dangerous if we choose not to).
All else.. Skiing is like riding a bike... Once you know how to do it you never truely lose it. Yea I definitely felt that way my first day back a few weeks ago.
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On January 24 2014 07:13 Velr wrote:
The problem with accidents is not the ones you are inflict on yourself, it's other skiers ramming you and stuff like that... Good luck solving that by being more carefull.
I don't wear a helmet myself but i don't talk myself into thinking that wearing a helmet is not necessary...
All else.. Skiing is like riding a bike... Once you know how to do it you never truely lose it.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure 99% of all accidents that I've seen on the slopes are caused by people accidentally running into each other because they lack control. All the injuries I've seen that have come from falls are in the lower body. What kind of fall are we talking about where a helmet actually helps? Or is wearing a helmet more of a safety net in case somebody crashes into you?
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I honestly don't really understand why everyone has such a big deal with helmets. Yes, you can get good enough at skiing so that you will fall maybe 1/100 times or 1/1000 times but in the event that you somehow fuck up do you really want to take the risk of injuring yourself seriously? Besides, who says helmets look bad?  The only reason I can think of someone not wearing a helmet is because they might feel a bit uncomfortable, even though they really don't.
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The problem is that skiers who wear helmets statistically tend to ski/snowboard more aggressively or dangerously than they would without a helmet.
source?
"wear a helmet or else you are an idiot." is pretty solid advice imo
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United States24701 Posts
On January 24 2014 07:13 Velr wrote:
The problem with accidents is not the ones you are inflict on yourself, it's other skiers ramming you and stuff like that... While looking through materials I found this:
Are the rates of collisions among skiers and snowboarders on the rise?
According to Dr. Jasper Shealy, professor emeritus at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y., who has studied ski related injuries for more than 30 years, the number of collisions accidents with other skiers or snowboarders accounts for only 6.4 percent of reported accidents.
http://www.nsaa.org/media/68045/NSAA-Facts-About-Skiing-Snowboarding-Safety-10-1-12.pdf
On January 24 2014 08:17 Paljas wrote:Show nested quote +The problem is that skiers who wear helmets statistically tend to ski/snowboard more aggressively or dangerously than they would without a helmet. source? "wear a helmet or else you are an idiot." is pretty solid advice imo
The New York Times wrote on article on this topic, citing the same organization as the url above. However, I'm not finding it easy to find all of their publications immediately. Here is the times article: Ski Helmet Use Isn’t Reducing Brain Injuries.
Relevant to my earlier claims:
Although skiers and snowboarders in the United States are wearing helmets more than ever — 70 percent of all participants, nearly triple the number from 2003 — there has been no reduction in the number of snow-sports-related fatalities or brain injuries in the country, according to the National Ski Areas Association.
Experts ascribe that seemingly implausible correlation to the inability of helmets to prevent serious head injuries like Schumacher’s and to the fact that more skiers and snowboarders are engaging in risky behaviors: skiing faster, jumping higher and going out of bounds.
Perhaps an alternate reasoning for why everyone (including you) are so quick to recommend helmets as the non-idiotic approach to snow sports:
Dave Byrd, the ski association’s director of risk management, attributed the surge in helmet use to grass-roots efforts by resorts, helmet manufacturers and medical professionals to encourage their use. He also cited growing public awareness about brain injuries, a result of persistent news media attention on the issue in sports, particularly in the N.F.L., and several high-profile skiing deaths, like those of Sonny Bono and Natasha Richardson. New Jersey is the only state that mandates helmet use, requiring it for children 17 and under.
Based on the NSAA's publication I linked earlier, the rate of skiing accidents overall has dropped, and has increased for snowboarding. The former seems to be attributed mostly to a move towards shorter skis and improved ski technology. The document also says:
There has been no significant reduction in fatalities over the past nine seasons even as the use of helmets overall has increased. This trend emphasizes the importance of not increasing risk-taking behavior simply because you are wearing a helmet. Skiing and riding in control is essential in improving slope safety and reducing fatalities.
I cannot find in this particular document a source showing increased helmet use correlates specifically with riskier behavior and therefore higher accident frequency, everything else being equal.
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I never ski with a helmet.
You only really need them when you're going offtrail in case your head might hit a rock or a tree or whatever, and I don't do that.
On the trails, the only really risky thing is breaking your neck, for which helmets don't help for shit.
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On January 24 2014 07:59 Whatson wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2014 07:13 Velr wrote:
The problem with accidents is not the ones you are inflict on yourself, it's other skiers ramming you and stuff like that... Good luck solving that by being more carefull.
I don't wear a helmet myself but i don't talk myself into thinking that wearing a helmet is not necessary...
All else.. Skiing is like riding a bike... Once you know how to do it you never truely lose it. Yeah, I'm pretty sure 99% of all accidents that I've seen on the slopes are caused by people accidentally running into each other because they lack control. All the injuries I've seen that have come from falls are in the lower body. What kind of fall are we talking about where a helmet actually helps? Or is wearing a helmet more of a safety net in case somebody crashes into you?
The kind where your head hits a rock/tree/rail/stuff at relatively low speed / height. While it probably won't stop a concussion, it would reduce the odds of ice / rock breaking your skull which is likely good thing.
I wouldn't wear a helmet if I was just cruising pistes.
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On January 24 2014 07:59 Whatson wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2014 07:13 Velr wrote:
The problem with accidents is not the ones you are inflict on yourself, it's other skiers ramming you and stuff like that... Good luck solving that by being more carefull.
I don't wear a helmet myself but i don't talk myself into thinking that wearing a helmet is not necessary...
All else.. Skiing is like riding a bike... Once you know how to do it you never truely lose it. Yeah, I'm pretty sure 99% of all accidents that I've seen on the slopes are caused by people accidentally running into each other because they lack control. All the injuries I've seen that have come from falls are in the lower body. What kind of fall are we talking about where a helmet actually helps? Or is wearing a helmet more of a safety net in case somebody crashes into you?
Maybe not so much a fall, but things like ramming into a tree or rock; or in the rarer case another skiers face hitting you face at a respectable rate of speed.
Then again, I don't wear a helmet myself so...
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
yeah micronesia, if youre skiing on a slope the most dangerous thing is other people around you, not the skiing itself
helmet is only going to save you if you hit a tree, rock or some pole if youre piste skiing as well (excluding other people)
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On January 24 2014 07:32 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2014 06:54 Sn0_Man wrote:
Well, I'd never snowboard without a helmet.
Even if the increased "aggression" while boarding offsets the protection to the head more or less, I FEEL safer with it on and its more fun pushing the envelope than it is being afraid of everything. This is almost exactly what I was saying. The 'security' people feel from the helmets causes them to increase their risk of accidents, such that the protection from helmets is roughly canceled out.
Yeah but being able to ski more aggressively with the same risk as before is an increased experience. In economics terms (cause this is a textbook risk compensation issue) doing more for the same risk is a positive utility, you might remove from one result of something, like safety, but they don't remove an overall utility increase. If you think of it as a trade-off, you can manually adjust and ski the same as before and be safer, obviously a net positive.
Also on crashes/injuries (I've been skiing almost my whole life): on beginner/lower level slopes the main cause is other people who don't know what to do and are out of control, or you being out of control if you are a beginner. Usually these are lower speed and I expect not very often life-threatening.
On higher level slopes traffic is rarely a hazard (far less people ski on them AND even fewer ski on them that don't know how to easily avoid people and take their own space) and almost all injuries are individual falls, which may have a wide variety of dangerous aspects, though high speed is very often a factor, and I imagine most serious incidents are in this category because the speeds are usually just so much higher.
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Ive been skiing for over 20 years now and this last season I finally bought a helmet. I have never been in a situation where i needed a helmet. *knock on wood* My reasoning behind buying one was I really liked the way it looked and the fact that it had built in headphones. I do like wearing it now too. Its comfey and warm, and hey, its a helmet. Why not.
Also, having worked with ski patrols for a majority of those years I can say that a majority of cases where a helmet would have prevented injury were from people colliding or people falling on ice and hitting their head. All preventable by skiing in control.
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On January 24 2014 13:33 omisa wrote:
Ive been skiing for over 20 years now and this last season I finally bought a helmet. I have never been in a situation where i needed a helmet. *knock on wood* My reasoning behind buying one was I really liked the way it looked and the fact that it had built in headphones. I do like wearing it now too. Its comfey and warm, and hey, its a helmet. Why not.
Also, having worked with ski patrols for a majority of those years I can say that a majority of cases where a helmet would have prevented injury were from people colliding or people falling on ice and hitting their head. All preventable by skiing in control.
That's why they're accidents. Skiing in control is not foolproof. If you worked ski patrol you should know that more than anyone.
Anywho everyone can ski how they want, I don't really care, just find this whole helmet debate silly.
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Zurich15348 Posts
On January 24 2014 07:32 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2014 06:54 Sn0_Man wrote:
Well, I'd never snowboard without a helmet.
Even if the increased "aggression" while boarding offsets the protection to the head more or less, I FEEL safer with it on and its more fun pushing the envelope than it is being afraid of everything. This is almost exactly what I was saying. The 'security' people feel from the helmets causes them to increase their risk of accidents, such that the protection from helmets is roughly canceled out.
Well, as you say yourself further down, this is purely a speculation and there is zero proof for this effect. The same has been said over and over for improved safety in cars, and yet accident rates in both skiing and cars continuously go down (disclaimer: based on data from the Alps).
I really, really would advise to wear a helmet as long as you ski on slopes. Off piste it can be argued that helmets are not necessary but on the slopes you have so much less control over what happens. If someone races into you and he is wearing a helm and you are not, you are likely the one in a coma while he will walk a day later.
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United States24701 Posts
On January 24 2014 14:38 MoonfireSpam wrote:
Anywho everyone can ski how they want, I don't really care, just find this whole helmet debate silly. Why is it silly to try to determine whether or not wearing a helmet makes snow sports safer? Was it silly for people to study whether or not seatbelts should be mandatory in cars? After a great deal of work it was pretty much proven that you should wear a seatbelt when driving.
On January 24 2014 21:39 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2014 07:32 micronesia wrote:On January 24 2014 06:54 Sn0_Man wrote:
Well, I'd never snowboard without a helmet.
Even if the increased "aggression" while boarding offsets the protection to the head more or less, I FEEL safer with it on and its more fun pushing the envelope than it is being afraid of everything. This is almost exactly what I was saying. The 'security' people feel from the helmets causes them to increase their risk of accidents, such that the protection from helmets is roughly canceled out. Well, as you say yourself further down, this is purely a speculation and there is zero proof for this effect.
I think it's more than just 'a speculation' even though it isn't 'fully proven.' I noticed it in myself (my friend asked me to do something more risky with him, and I told him I better no today because I don't have a helmet but I'll give it a shot once I am wearing a helmet... before I even realized the ramifications of such a statement), in people in this thread (would be interesting to poll people, even informally, to see if they feel more comfortable being more aggressive on the slopes with helmets), in people I skied with (I cited my friend as an example), and I see it in other places as well (things I'm reading, conversations I've had, etc). Note that I'm not arguing wearing a helmet is a bad thing... just that it seems to carry another risk associated with it that might not make it helpful for everyone like we originally thought.
The same has been said over and over for improved safety in cars, and yet accident rates in both skiing and cars continuously go down (disclaimer: based on data from the Alps). Well cars and skiing might work completely differently. I agree skiing accidents have gone down based on what I read also, and also note that snowboarding accidents have more than doubled.
I really, really would advise to wear a helmet as long as you ski on slopes. Off piste it can be argued that helmets are not necessary but on the slopes you have so much less control over what happens. If someone races into you and he is wearing a helm and you are not, you are likely the one in a coma while he will walk a day later. According to what I linked earlier, collisions with other skiers account for less than 10% of skiing accidents. Why does this get so much attention compared to the other 90+%?
On January 24 2014 10:53 ZapRoffo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2014 07:32 micronesia wrote:On January 24 2014 06:54 Sn0_Man wrote:
Well, I'd never snowboard without a helmet.
Even if the increased "aggression" while boarding offsets the protection to the head more or less, I FEEL safer with it on and its more fun pushing the envelope than it is being afraid of everything. This is almost exactly what I was saying. The 'security' people feel from the helmets causes them to increase their risk of accidents, such that the protection from helmets is roughly canceled out. Yeah but being able to ski more aggressively with the same risk as before is an increased experience. In economics terms (cause this is a textbook risk compensation issue) doing more for the same risk is a positive utility, you might remove from one result of something, like safety, but they don't remove an overall utility increase. If you think of it as a trade-off, you can manually adjust and ski the same as before and be safer, obviously a net positive. Yeah I get this perspective. I think a lot of people don't understand it though and think you can put on a helmet, ski much more aggressively, and be safer. Like you said there is a trade-off there.
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Zurich15348 Posts
On January 24 2014 23:21 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +I really, really would advise to wear a helmet as long as you ski on slopes. Off piste it can be argued that helmets are not necessary but on the slopes you have so much less control over what happens. If someone races into you and he is wearing a helm and you are not, you are likely the one in a coma while he will walk a day later. According to what I linked earlier, collisions with other skiers account for less than 10% of skiing accidents. Why does this get so much attention compared to the other 90+%?
They are mentioned because those are the ones you re most likely to injure your head (or in general, where injuries are the most serious) and the ones a helmet is most effective protecting against.
For me the easiest argument in favor of helmet is anyway that it is about 100% more stylish and I can attach my cameras to it
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