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.

It has already been said that contact sports like rugby have far higher injury rates. CTE is a thing.
If skiing is surely more dangerous than you surely have the data to back it up?

Where are the injury stats for things that whole families do?
Skiing is the whole family, including children.

I've not seen whole families doing rugby holidays, have you?

And that's relevant how?

I'm not the one posting that skiing is the most dangerous sport since bullriding.
But if I would I would at least have the stats to back it up and not use a tragic death for some hysterical ramblings.

I suppose you'd need to compare it to cycling, boating, or beach / swimming holidays.
Although comparing to a beach holiday you have to take into account the amount of time adults in particular spend on sunbeds compared to the amount of activity time.

Lying in a sunbeds has to be 'low risk' but I'd lay a bet some poor sods pop it every year doing just that.

It's up there with the tale "Bob down the road died on the way back their holiday, is that not awful" and someone else "could have been worse, could have died on the way there, at least they got their holiday"

No because most people can play rugby weekly from home, they don't have to travel to the mountains to do so.
Absolutely there are whole families who play rugby every week during the season.

My quick Google search on average 400 people drown in the UK every year.
Ok some of them will be bathroom incidents but I didn't think it would be as high as that.

I remember a stat from years ago so not sure if it's still the case, on average more people die on Ben Nevis than Mount Everist every year.

On average about a 100 cyclists die in the UK every year.

@Needspaceforlego most of them are drunk. I know someone who died swimming in open water after drinking all day.

I agree that’s it not always a social circles thing, I know a wide variety of peeps who go skiing simply because they enjoy it ☺️ as for DD, it’s quite possible that’s she’s a moaning Minnie, and she was given the option to stay home… (there’s a huge backstory relating to why she joined them, which isn’t relevant to the skiing debate), however she’s back out on the nursery slope this afternoon - injury free, hurrah!

That's how I read it. If you talk about 1000 people skiing in one resort daily then it would be 1000 days ie 3 years ish before someone died there, but actually there will be many days of the year when nobody skis and, for a big resort, many days when >1000 people ski, so it's a bit of an awkward sum.

We are 5 people in my family and because we live near Scottish skiing, we ski approx 10 days per year, or 50 days per year for the whole family. We'd have to ski for 20,000 years before one of us got killed skiing. Now of course that's not really how it works, but puts the risk into perspective.

Getting ahead of the traffic is safer for cyclists and most cyclist deaths are due to bad driving. Please don't victim blame.

Think how many kids get killed on the way home from school by cars or other people. Far more than are injured skiing. Life is for living and enjoying rather than fearing everything.

We ski with our kids and teach them to control and ski within moderation. There are plenty of idiots in ski resorts going too fast and that's my biggest fear, other people hurting them, so we go to quieter safer places.

Everyone’s perception of risk is based on what they are skilled in. I’d put skiing, cycling and ice skating way down the list of risky things because I’m good at them (independently deemed good at them, I’ve represented England in the past at one of them) compared to horse riding (never done it so would be a beginner) or anything in open water as although I can swim well in a pool and im pretty confident I wouldn’t drown if I’d just gone for a swim, hurting yourself and being dumped into water seems much worse than hurting yourself and falling on to snow. Someone who was a competing kayaker would probably say ice skating was riskier.

You can’t control other people, in any activity, but you can control you. Get appropriate tuition, make sure you are fit enough before you embark on said activity, don’t drink and do things, don’t go outside your ability outside of controlled training with an instructor, keep your head on a swivel and be aware of your surroundings. Stop before you get tired. Don’t go out in really crap weather/visibility. Wear appropriate PPE (last resort!) This goes an awful long way to mitigating risks!

Thanks for explaining basic road sense to a highly experienced cyclist 🙄…are you a man? The risks I encounter (roughly one per mile cycled) are not from HGVs who are mostly courteous and well trained where I ride; they are mainly from school run drivers and some commuters, plus the occasional works van. They pull out of side roads without looking, stop suddenly and pull into a parking space without indicating or slowing, throw open car doors without looking, and get annoyed at me for not cycling adjacent to said car doors so that they can squeeze past and squash me against parked cars. Shaving maybe 10 seconds off their journey, even though it’s clear I won’t be in their way for more than a few yards. Oh there is also a tendency to assume that a cyclist indicating to turn left should give way or be hit by, a car turning right into the same road. And yes, before you ask, I follow the highway code, give way where I should, wear hi-viz and run lights. (And also a camera, nowadays… the Met Police reporting portal is excellent 😉.). Give me skiing any day, nobody on a ski slope is throwing 2-ton metal boxes at me.

As a horse rider I would put it as more riskier than skiing as you are trying to control an animal that weighs more than half a tonne for average adult. Same animal is not a machine and has independent thoughts and feelings.
I’m nowhere near a professional but a middle aged horse owner/rider who loves the animal first and sport second. The worst that happened to me was a broken arm which was partly my fault, a friend had same injury tripping over a step.
Just last week a 24 year old professional Irish jockey died which is sad.

I think we both agree on horse riding being riskier than skiing!

Yes but I’ve not desire to ski lol, it’s not my thing but riding is.

There was a poster here the other day whose husband was in a coma in France after a ski accident. Why do people take that very real and not unheard of risk for the sake of keeping up with the Tarquins and Jocastas?!?

Why do so many of us hear of more ski accidents than any of those then?

Because ski accidents are actually quite rare.

If 200 people are killed cycling every year, that's 4 people a week. It's not news it's every other day normal.

Same with drowning I honestly didn't think it would be 400 people that's more than one a day. OK lots of them will be bathroom incidents. Some might be fishing accidents, And some might be intentional. But it's a heck of a lot of people.
So unless there is something exceptional about the incidents, like 3 people drowning in one incident, it's not going to make the local news, never mind national news.

Skiing accidents that result in death are rare. Injuries to limbs, especially knees, and broken bones are fairly common.

According to the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA), there are an average of 39 skiing and snowboarding fatalities per year in the United States alone. Additionally, there are over 45,000 skiing and snowboarding-related injuries each year that require hospital attention.

It's not the death that worries me. It's the idiots. That could hurt you, break your bone, ruin your holiday. People who aren't proficient, beginners on red or black runs, irresponsible ski'ers. There's no guarantees that others will obey rules and common courtesies, the rules of the slopes . snowboarders taking out the whole lift.

snowboarder

Because they’re not doing it to keep up with anyone? Perhaps they like clean air, beautiful scenery and a very enjoyable form of outdoor exercise.

i Ski as I drive - anticipation - watching (some) idiot drivers and likewise non proficient skiers .i would only go off piste with an instructor . Given up on my early 20’s Jäegermeister before the last run down - slopes are more crowded now , except for black runs so I often pull over and let the throng go by before taking off again .
Parapenting is fun though

love and do both skiing and horse riding