3 ms·

Can you cite any of those studies? Is this one of those things where studies count the accidents reported for each group without controlling for population size

Can you cite any of those studies? Is this one of those things where studies count the accidents reported for each group without controlling for population size? I ask because there are “studies” that show there are more skiing accidents with helmets than without, but anyone who has spent a day at a ski hill can tell why that is: the vast, vast majority of people are wearing helmets. Throw a rock into a crowd of skiers and you’ll probably hit someone with a helmet. Does that mean helmets attract rocks? Assuming their accident rates are anywhere in the same ballpark, accidents will involve more helmet wearers by a significant margin just because they outnumber non-helmet wearers.

msrenee 4y ago
It's been over a decade since I last stepped foot in a ski area. I don't remember anyone wearing a helmet that wasn't on a snowboard. Are they more common now? It makes a lot of sense with how bad things go when they go bad plus all the trees.
- usrusr 4y ago
  It's almost ten years for me and the last thing I remember was a landslide shift from "hardly anybody" to "almost everybody" within only a few seasons (Austrian alps). Never read any triumphant reports about how this has saved ten thousands of lives though, so I suspect that numbers aren't that impressive.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Though I do very little downhill skiing these days, they're extremely common at US ski areas now whereas they used to be almost unheard of except for racers. (I don't wear one but I do wear a hat that has ribs of deformable material.) I don't remember a big campaign or anything but probably some combination of snowboarders normalizing, it becoming seen as negligent not to make kids wear them, and probably a general increase in safety culture--especially among the sort of people who can afford to downhill ski. There are only around 40 downhill skiing deaths in US annually--although the majority of those are brain injuries.
  - MandieD 4y ago
    The landslide was 2009/2010, after the Ministerpräsident of Thuringia caused a really bad accident, which he survived but the woman he crashed into didn't. He was wearing a helmet, she wasn't.
- troupe 4y ago
  Very common now. There has been a huge shift in the last decade.

msrenee 4y ago

It's been over a decade since I last stepped foot in a ski area. I don't remember anyone wearing a helmet that wasn't on a snowboard. Are they more common now? It makes a lot of sense with how bad things go when they go bad plus all the trees.

usrusr 4y ago
It's almost ten years for me and the last thing I remember was a landslide shift from "hardly anybody" to "almost everybody" within only a few seasons (Austrian alps). Never read any triumphant reports about how this has saved ten thousands of lives though, so I suspect that numbers aren't that impressive.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Though I do very little downhill skiing these days, they're extremely common at US ski areas now whereas they used to be almost unheard of except for racers. (I don't wear one but I do wear a hat that has ribs of deformable material.) I don't remember a big campaign or anything but probably some combination of snowboarders normalizing, it becoming seen as negligent not to make kids wear them, and probably a general increase in safety culture--especially among the sort of people who can afford to downhill ski. There are only around 40 downhill skiing deaths in US annually--although the majority of those are brain injuries.
- MandieD 4y ago
  The landslide was 2009/2010, after the Ministerpräsident of Thuringia caused a really bad accident, which he survived but the woman he crashed into didn't. He was wearing a helmet, she wasn't.
troupe 4y ago
Very common now. There has been a huge shift in the last decade.