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Another sad story of a hit and run incident

tch

What do I know; I'm just some guy on the internet.
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Wow, just wow.
Terrible story. I feel sorry for the woman and incredibly angry at the skier.
But unfortunately, if you read the comments, you can see the arrogant and ignorant attitude some young people have:

"Hopefully this should serve as a reminder that being downslope isn't a license to be oblivious to everything occurring behind you. "Right of way" shouldn't be confused with 'right to ignore your surroundings'. As much alcohol as is served on the mountain there shouldn't be any realistic expectation of safety from your fellow skiers.

The description from the witness is short on detail (and biased due to the relationship with the injured party) but my money says she cut a line directly in front of the teen immediately before the collision and never even saw it coming.

I see this all day. Dinosaurs leisurely zig zagging across the entire length of the run, leaving no room to pass and completely unaware of anyone else on the mountain, cutting in front of folks while smugly satisfied they have the 'right of way'.

That aside, at a certain age/point it becomes reckless to engage in extreme sports. If your spine and ribs disintegrate after a collision the other party simply walked away from you might be past due to hang it up."


Incredible. :doh:
Hope they find the a$$hole.
 

LiquidFeet

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....I see this all day. Dinosaurs leisurely zig zagging across the entire length of the run, leaving no room to pass and completely unaware of anyone else on the mountain, cutting in front of folks while smugly satisfied they have the 'right of way'.

That aside, at a certain age/point it becomes reckless to engage in extreme sports. If your spine and ribs disintegrate after a collision the other party simply walked away from you might be past due to hang it up."....
On what actual evidence, other than age (and who knows maybe gender too), are you blaming this collision on the victim?
 
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raytseng

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Solely on the topic of the commentator,
Internet comments such as that spawned the description of "edge lords" where people say controversial things just to be "edgy" for attention. Most comments sections have been toxic cesspools for the last decade, you know what it is, it's up to you if you want to dip a toe in.

At the same time, I also recognize this is a pandemic, some people need to get out their frustration and seek validation one way or another, even if it's toxic validation and they are just keyboard warriors.

What really matters is real life and not the distorted lens of comments sections.
 

AmyPJ

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Wow, just wow.
Terrible story. I feel sorry for the woman and incredibly angry at the skier.
But unfortunately, if you read the comments, you can see the arrogant and ignorant attitude some young people have:

"Hopefully this should serve as a reminder that being downslope isn't a license to be oblivious to everything occurring behind you. "Right of way" shouldn't be confused with 'right to ignore your surroundings'. As much alcohol as is served on the mountain there shouldn't be any realistic expectation of safety from your fellow skiers.

The description from the witness is short on detail (and biased due to the relationship with the injured party) but my money says she cut a line directly in front of the teen immediately before the collision and never even saw it coming.

I see this all day. Dinosaurs leisurely zig zagging across the entire length of the run, leaving no room to pass and completely unaware of anyone else on the mountain, cutting in front of folks while smugly satisfied they have the 'right of way'.

That aside, at a certain age/point it becomes reckless to engage in extreme sports. If your spine and ribs disintegrate after a collision the other party simply walked away from you might be past due to hang it up."


Incredible. :doh:
Hope they find the a$$hole.
Wow! And people wonder why I get so fired up about dangerous behavior on the mountain! Attitudes like that are why. This is really sad all the way around.
 

Noodler

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This has been discussed many times before and what we should all acknowledge is that the Skier Code of Conduct really needs to be updated. Skiers on a slope are like traffic on a road. What we permit in the code of conduct is just not conducive to proper traffic management. There are a number of safety best practices that I taught my children that are nowhere to be seen in the code of conduct.
 

François Pugh

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Andy Mink

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Wow, just wow.
Terrible story. I feel sorry for the woman and incredibly angry at the skier.
But unfortunately, if you read the comments, you can see the arrogant and ignorant attitude some young people have:

"Hopefully this should serve as a reminder that being downslope isn't a license to be oblivious to everything occurring behind you. "Right of way" shouldn't be confused with 'right to ignore your surroundings'. As much alcohol as is served on the mountain there shouldn't be any realistic expectation of safety from your fellow skiers.

The description from the witness is short on detail (and biased due to the relationship with the injured party) but my money says she cut a line directly in front of the teen immediately before the collision and never even saw it coming.

I see this all day. Dinosaurs leisurely zig zagging across the entire length of the run, leaving no room to pass and completely unaware of anyone else on the mountain, cutting in front of folks while smugly satisfied they have the 'right of way'.

That aside, at a certain age/point it becomes reckless to engage in extreme sports. If your spine and ribs disintegrate after a collision the other party simply walked away from you might be past due to hang it up."


Incredible. :doh:
Hope they find the a$$hole.
I bet the commenter is single. :geek: What a totally unhinged thing to say. Maybe she looked and didn't see him. Maybe she did and tried to avoid and was crashed into anyway. Bottom line, the uphill skier has the responsibility to avoid the downhill skier, even if that person is "in my line, dude". If someone wants to be where I already am, that's MY line. I hope they catch the crasher.
 

Andy Mink

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Sad.
Regarding the comment posted on the link, it's a troll, and a pretty well written one; it even got a response here on another forum (this one).
Unfortunately there are those who believe what the "troll" said to be true. I'm not so sure the poster is a troll. More likely an entitled bro.
 

tch

What do I know; I'm just some guy on the internet.
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I think @tch is posting quotes from the forum and those are not his actual thoughts.
YES. Not my thoughts; reaction was posted in comment section of newspaper story.

And... before dismissing them as simply "troll" behavior, note that I posted that comment b/c it very closely echoed my own scary experience yesterday. Skiing a pretty direct short-swing line on north face of Mt. Snow when a straight-lining snowboarder brushed by me at what felt like 50 mph. When I got to the lift, he was still there with a bunch of friends and, not feeling up to a big scene, I simply and emphatically stated "You know, downhill skier ALWAYS has the right of way".
Guy just looked at me and said "well, what could I do; you were taking up the whole trail turning everywhere".
 

James

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The article says those who showed up to help told the teenager responsible to leave. So, note that in CO they were required to give their name and address. Telling them to just leave puts them in more legal jeopardy.
 

Dakine

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"Ski in Control" means nothing to the straightlining crowd.
I got lightly clipped from behind by a straightliner, then I watched him hit a bump and crash hard where two slopes merged.
This straightlining stuff was new to me at the time so I skied up and asked him what the hell he was doing.
He told me he was "straightlining" and thought people should stay out of his way.
I was incredulous and felt so moved I helped him out by taking one of his skis to the bottom of the mountain for him.

The rules of the road for most ski areas today are the same as those for street motorcycling.
Assume everyone out there is trying to kill you and deal with it.
I have a particularly bad attitude about this because my friend P. C. Ranney was killed in a collision two years ago.
Even a little bump like Nubs Nob can turn fatal because of others.
 

silverback

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If I were on patrol and had to fill my quota, I would concentrate on skier code #4.

"Whenever starting downhill or merging into a trail, look uphill and yield to others."

I ski pretty fast on groomers and try to avoid crowds at all costs but I still see violations of this rule causing collisions or near misses all the time.

For example, yesterday I stopped above a steeper pitch as I usually do to wait for it to clear. I ski fast but am not usually in a rush. One person stayed on the pitch, stopped about half way down and to the side looking down hill. I waited another minute but new skiers were aproaching from above so I pushed off and kept laser focused on them. Sure enough, as I approached they pushed off, never giving a thought to looking up hill. Makes you wonder if they were parked on the side of a busy freeway if they would just pull into traffic.

The motorcycle analogy is so true, ask any rider what a car stopped on a cross street or driveway will do. Usually they wait until you are sure they must see you comming and then, at the last second, they pull out in front of you. You could set your watch by it.
 
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Johnny V.

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his has been discussed many times before and what we should all acknowledge is that the Skier Code of Conduct really needs to be updated. Skiers on a slope are like traffic on a road. What we permit in the code of conduct is just not conducive to proper traffic management. There are a number of safety best practices that I taught my children that are nowhere to be seen in the code of conduct.
As our two oldest granddaughters are rapidly progressing (proud Nana and Papa) we're doing our best to instill the thought that they have to be aware of other skiers at all times. Look up, stay in your corridor, look before you enter a crossing or start up. One benefit of the reduced school days has been our ability to take them during the week and avoid the weekend zoo.
 

HardDaysNight

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The Code could hardly be simpler, yet it is routinely ignored. @Noodler thinks it would benefit from an update. I doubt that would help. Nonetheless I agree with him that self-protection requires a strategy and continual vigilance even if the Code makes one the right-of-way skier. To paraphrase an old verse:

Here lies the body of the skier so gray
Who died preserving her right of way.

She was right, dead right, as she skied along
But she's just as dead as if she'd been wrong"
 

Carl

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I see skiers straight line all the time. Sometimes too close to other skiers. I've never seen one get their ticket pulled.
 

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