Where to Ski And Snowboard - Lawyer calls for compulsory helmets

Lawyer calls for compulsory helmets

1st January 2014, by Abi Butcher

Recent research shows ski helmets greatly reduce the risk of serious head injury

A leading firm of personal injury lawyers is calling for ski helmets to be made compulsory across all European ski resorts. It is illegal to ski without a helmet in some US resorts, but in Europe some ski resorts require only children to wear helmets while others have no rules on helmets at all.

Colemans ctts law firm says recent research by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), and Michael Schumacher’s current critical condition, show skiers should always wear a helmet.

After a series of trials, leading safety research firm TRL concluded that “skiers wearing helmets experience two-thirds less g-force than skiers without helmets, which means a greatly reduced risk of a serious head injury, such as a brain contusion”.

Doctors treating Michael Schumacher, who remains in a medical coma in Grenoble hospital following a head injury while skiing, say the F1 champion would not be alive if he had not been wearing a helmet.

Clare Roantree, Partner at Coleman’s ctts said: “Many accidents [like Michael Schumacher’s] happen every year, in which a helmet played – or could have played – a vital part. We believe there is no margin too small on lives saved. We urge every ski resort in Europe make the use of safety helmets compulsory.”

TRL recently conducted a series of impact tests simulating a collision between a dummy skier and a tree at 10kph, 20kph and 30kph, both with and without a ski helmet on.

The results revealed a greatly reduced risk of suffering a serious head injury when the dummy skier wore a helmet. They also showed that the compression force on a skier’s neck during a collision was reduced when wearing a helmet, although not enough to significantly decrease the risk of serious neck injuries, such as fractured vertebrae, at 20kph or 30kph.

Last year, UK insurance firm Essential Travel announced it would make helmets compulsory for skiers taking out any of its policies, but Brits still lag behind their European and American counterparts in wearing a helmet while skiing.