Safe as fuck?? What price do you put on your safety?

Ever since the high profile death of actress Natasha Richardson while she was skiing, mountain companies are shitting themselves over the prospect of having multimillion dollar/Euro lawsuits on their hands. Now days, you can’t wear sun cream in schools due to health and safety, so why can you throw yourself down steep hills, on as little as a plank (or two) of wood and plastic, manufactured to make you go as fast or as high as possible?

It seems baffling that with all the health and safety laws applied to motor racing, rugby and cycling to name a few, the fastest non motorised sports recreation in the world has no rules regarding safety gear. To cycle through London at rush hour without a helmet is complete idiocy, so why would you ski without a helmet on? Slopes at peak times unfortunately do get busy so why not make them compulsory....

In Italy, children under the age of 14 are required by law to wear a helmet, so why has this not been spread across the whole region for all ages?

Skiing holidays are becoming more and more popular, with people more readily prepared to split their hard earned cash and holiday allowance. So why put the one or 2 weeks a year they have in jeopardy, by risking themselves? Like car accidents, crashes do happen, and more than often, it is not your fault, but the yuppie prat behind you wearing jeans with his legs glued together on his way to his mountain hut for a latte.

For the sake of £50, a good quality (and stylish) helmet can be bought from most places. 

Other safety aspects are making their way into the sport – wrist supports and back supports are becoming common in the parks and about bloody time too.

This equipment doesn’t come that cheap, but at what price do you put your safety? For a stingy £50, your chalet holiday is a little safer, and OK, you would spend a little more time in the chalet hot tub with an injury, to your wrist or back, but a feeding tube from a fat nurse in the Charing Cross hospital is a lot less attractive.

Admittedly, I only started wearing a helmet in the past few years, and having been away 3 times last year in those conditions, I’m pretty glad I did. Now if the yuppie prick in jeans on 3 metre skis would just slow down and find a fur trim helmet we would be fine.

Accidents happen, so ride safe.

Anterior dislocation of MY shoulder.

Jah bless.