So fed up of stories like this every single year. Stupid bloody Skiing.

[ExcessiveNumberOfNinjas]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14427223/British-schoolboy-14-killed-skiing-accident-northern-Italy.html

This poor lad, only 14 years old, crashes headlong into a tree at speed and dies of chest injuries right in front of his parents.

What's so fucking great about skiing? Every year without fail there are stories like this and I'm sick of them. I know someone who became permanently disabled and slightly brain damaged after a skiing accident in his 20s.

As parents we don't encourage our kids to get into cars and drive them at speed round a race track with very little training every half term in February do we? We don't stick them on the backs of race horses and slap their arses and watch them go over hurdles. We don't encourage them to dive off high cliffs into the sea below and hope that they manage to miss the rocks as they land. So why do we continually let them hurl down mountainsides at god knows how many miles an hour, hoping that they manage not to collide with a tree or hit their heads on a rock?

I don't get it. I never will. However 'fun' it might be it can't possibly be worth the stupid level of risk.

@Nanny1983

Maybe everyone who does extreme sports should be made to have proper insurance at all times so that our NHS isn’t picking up the costs if people want to go ahead and do these dangerous sports.
I know people go abroad and take out insurance but what about people who do the sports in the uk ?

Sure. As long as the plan extends to smokers, drinkers and the overweight.

Loved skiing - went every year for 30+ years always 6+ people and in that time we had one minor broken leg. Fantastic holiday.

I did the same lessons as you but for two terms as they split the class in half and there were extra spaces to carry on. I did give it a go as an adult and actually really enjoyed it and kids were favourably impressed by my ability ( so was I to be fair). I am not a good skier but I can get up and down an easy slope and have fun and not fall over. I did manage to break my wrist very badly putting the bin out. Statistically You are much more likely to have nasty accident at home than anywhere else.

So your parents were the only ones too scared to let their child go and now you are too scared to let yours go. And you base your views on how dangerous it looks because you've never skied.

That's such a sad way to live.

This American data and I do realise fewer people ski than say play football but there are many injuries doing all sorts of activities you would consider normal

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/sports-injuries/sports-injury-statistics

That accident looks heartbreaking.

Skiing is a huge part of mountain culture and a very established sport (with plenty of injuries at that level!) it can't just disappear, although climate change will make ot more difficult.

I ski (slowly and carefully) and on my recent trips the were a minority of people skiing beyond their ability way too close to others, you unfortunately do have to ski defensively on busy slopes. My own instructors were very critical of them and I've seen instructors have words with the worst offenders.

Skiing is something you must weight up the risk/benefit of individually and the risk is significant but I know people who have enjoyed a lifetime of multiple ski trips a year and skied into their 70s. I would hate to think what a crash would do to them at that age but it's a huge part of their lives, often their main social activity and really part of who they are.

There's a Canadian winter sports database of injuries. Most skiing injuries happen to kids - and in the highest injury age group (age 10-14 years) it's 43% percent of them who suffer an injury skiing. That's so high!

Thankfully it decreases as you get older - only 2% of 40 year olds suffer ski injuries, for example.

OP the reason it's not thought of as awful is because it's a middle class hobby. Same as fox hunting and all the vulgarities with that (smearing fox blood on young riders faces, etc)

Maybe not outside the central belt or South but in some parts of Scotland it forms part of PE lessons as it's council run slopes etc.
Scotland is a very big place!

Are you referring to this?

https://health-infobase.canada.ca/winter-sport-injuries/alpine-skiing.html

It’s not saying 43% of 10-14 year olds suffer a ski injury, It says 43% of those that were injured were in that age group, which is a totally different thing. Same with the 2% statistic you quoted for 40 year olds.

I suspect the stats would be the same for skateboarding or mountain-biking. The majority of the injuries will be in the demographic who most take part in it.

Alpine skiing was literally invented by the British. You might as well ask why do so many Scandinavians go to the Alps to do alpine skiing when it is not part of their culture (proper Scandi skiing is telemark).

Is this the database you are quoting? https://health-infobase.canada.ca/winter-sport-injuries/alpine-skiing.html

If yes, I think you have misinterpreted the data. Of those who sustain an injury, 43.3% are aged 10-14.

43% of 10-14 year olds do not sustain injuries.

Just so different isn’t it- it’s very normal around here. 1/2 of my daughters class went with their families at half term- and that’s not an exaggeration! Others are going at Easter. Very normal where I live. Where do you live?

Can we talk about how skiers love to operate a soft-pressure MLM scheme?
Everyone who gets talking to me about skiing seems bizarrely keen to convince me that I too, need to ski. Come! Come with us! It's great, you'll LOVE IT. We're going again in [x]. But of course, the more skiers they can rope in, the cheaper it is per head...
Thanks, but I genuinely prefer my ankles unbroken. The fondue does sound lovely, but it's not enough to compensate.

We’re just back from an amazing week’s ski-ing.

I grew up in Scotland so learnt to ski (a bit) from around 12. DH is a brilliant skier/snowboarder as he learnt at 9. DC started at 7 by going to Ski School and are now better than me. We’ve taught them how to behave on the slopes, DH goes down first and I follow behind to pick anyone up if they need it. We tell them where to stop on the run and they do.

DH skis to our limits and we don’t do anything crazy. It’s like any other outdoor activity and I don’t think it’s any more dangerous than mountain biking etc. We’ve never had anything worse than a totally normal fall. Oh, and I’m a peri menopausal vaguely unfit not in the slightest athletic over 50 yr old so do strength training to lessen the likelihood of pinging something.

Only 13 deaths since 1981 but I bet the number of people collapsing and needing urgent medical treatment and/or or actually having heart attacks is an annual occurance.

to add further to this,I’m fairly sure the risk of dying while a teenage driver are far higher than the risk of dying while skiing

most parents I know are desperate for their 17-18 year old kids to start driving

And the elderly. They should have to pay a monthly subscription after 70 or save for health separately in their lives ready for old age like in the US, they cost an absolute fortune to be treated and block beds.

Christ yes, I’d far rather my kids went skiing than got in a car with a teenage driver.

Again, proportionately in terms of the numbers of people who ski versus the number of people who go in cars, and hour for hour spend doing both, probably not.

Indeed

unfortunately with respect to the poor kid that died obviously that’s tragic but often road deaths just don’t make the news, there are so many of them

Based on which statistics? Have you contacted every ski resort in the world, or just stating nonsense because you haven't had the agreement you required from the post?
Would you bet your house on yet another ridiculous assertion?

I don't find playing an instrument or any of the other examples dull, I was pointing out the invalid logic that categorically states skiing is the only thrill inducing activity, and the further more stupid argument, that none skiing children are obese and addicted to their smart phones. It is akin to arguing that thrill seeking sporty children, that do not have the concentration span to learn to read music or have no curiosity about the world around them, completely lack an imagination!

My DC can go skiing with my DH, they don't want to, they are not interested. My DH doesn't think learning to ski is some kind of virtue so he's not bothered that they refuse his offer. He shares other interests with them art being one of them as he is an Architect, his DC being interested in Art and Design are more important to him. It has been more important to ignite our DC's imagination as in our opinion, this is key to living a fulfilled life, i.e I don't think they should have to make a trip to a ski slope to feel fulfilled.

I’m minded that there were more deaths of men (middle aged and young) going for walks on hot mediterranean islands last year than there were deaths by skiing. Perhaps walking should be reclassified as a dangerous sport and anyone caught doing it, or injured in the act thereof, should be denied NHS treatment for being so reckless…

I mean @ExcessiveNumberOfNinjas by all means say things like "I bet..." with no actual facts behind it, much like you claimed deaths was an annual occurrence. There's just no need for scaremongering. People have heart attacks all the time, they collapse all the time. Mostly actually because of not doing things like running and keeping healthy. Overexertion can be a problem but sedentary lifestyles are far, far worse for health and will affect far more people per annum, causing more heart attacks, collapses and death than participating in the London Marathon. I think if you wanted to find out for sure St John's ambulance and London Ambulance services would have statistics on how many people they treated the day of the London Marathon. But there's a hospital admission for heart attacks every FIVE minutes in the UK

@ExcessiveNumberOfNinjas - actually I found it for you. It's 1 in 100 runners that have excessive collapse. Here's an interesting article. https://www.medscape.co.uk/viewarticle/medics-and-london-marathon-5-questions-race-medical-director-2019a1000063
Anyone who's not properly prepared, has underlying health conditions, hasn't trained, hydrated or fuelled adequately etc has a higher chance of collapse. But clearly for the vast majority of people it's a fairly uneventful day and actually as the doctor here says, probably one of the better places to have a medical emergency as there's so many expert doctors there. But clearly 96% of people have no serious problem on the day.
Compare that to 80 people being injured and 5 dying on our roads every day and the London marathon really doesn't seem that risky at all.