RCR to remove all kickers in their resort parks

**toiletduck** · 11-11-2007, 05:44 PM

http://tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101135 (already a thread on this one)

**smalls** · 11-11-2007, 05:59 PM

**midget** · 11-11-2007, 06:08 PM

yah rails are safe. you think they could at least write a press release that isn't completely idiotic.

**mnflyfish** · 11-11-2007, 08:58 PM

You can thank a HUGE lawsuit win from last year on that one. Our mgt is extremely concerned with the outcome of the lawsuit I believe in WA this spring. I can't remember the resort but the accident occured in the park, guy's paralyzed, and gets awarded some unreal amount of money. As I uderstand is was the single biggest payout by a ski area ever.

So, at our area, we are now required to have a patroller in our park at all times, we've hired a staff member to join the patroller in the park and explain the features to skiers and how best to safely ski/jump/rail said feature. And on all accident reports, each feature is labled and we have to make daily reports to mgt with regards to what features are experiencing accidents.

This is a huge step backwards for ski areas. Whe I was a kid there was the no jumping rule, which we did our best to work around. Then park comes into the mix, long after it would benefit me cause I'm old, and now we're headed back to the days of keeping the skis on the snow.

Jay

**Name Redacted** · 11-11-2007, 09:06 PM

I heard that whistler is restricting skiing to " established groomed trails" only this season due to fear of lawsuits. All blacks and double blacks will be strictly forbidden and skiing them may result in jail time and/or hefty fines.

**VanPatrol** · 11-11-2007, 09:21 PM

Its really unfortunate that because of one incident and one persons inability to to take responsibility for his actions everyone suffers.

**jerr** · 11-11-2007, 09:41 PM

Originally Posted by shredgnar

I heard that whistler is restricting skiing to " established groomed trails" only this season due to fear of lawsuits. All blacks and double blacks will be strictly forbidden and skiing them may result in jail time and/or hefty fines.

Are you serious? That's retarded.

It's retarded that there is a legal system that allowes people to remove responsibility from themselves and it's retarded that people feel others are to blame for their own stupidity.

I'd like to see someone sue (sp?) the guy who won that big law suit for "loss of enjoyment experienced by thousands of skiers because he was stupid and decided to blame someone else". All of a sudden lawsuits aren't so much fun eh?

Does anyone have a link to any info about this?

**jerr** · 11-11-2007, 09:47 PM

Article about lawsuit here

**jerr** · 11-11-2007, 09:51 PM

This is an inverview with the guy who sued the ski field. Maybe he's got a point? But it doesn't necessitate such a knee jerk "close everything" reaction from the skifields. Maybe jump design could be treated as more a of science than as an 'art' that relys on the designers skills. Maybe we should even expect that? Maybe KS just fu@ked up? Who knows. But what I do know is that ski fields shouldn't 'eliminate' aspects or areas of their fields for fear of a lawsuit. They should sack up and find a way around this.

BONNEY LAKE, Wash. - A skier has been awarded $14 million after being paralyzed in a fall from a ski jump at the Summit at Snoqualmie.

In February 2004, Kenny Salvini of Lake Tapps fell 37 feet from a jump at Central Terrain Park that was maintained by Ski Lifts, Inc.

"The landing was too short on the ski jump, and I ended up breaking my neck and my leg and ended up paralyzed," Salvini said.

A King County jury on Friday found that the operator failed to take safety into consideration and therefore was partially responsible for the crash.

"They charge you $50 to get on the mountain, and that's like going to a theme park and you expect the roller coasters to be safe and stuff like that, you know," Salvini said.

During the five-week trial at the Regional Justice Center in Kent, engineers and an aeronautics professor from the University of California, Davis, testified the jump was improperly designed and featured a short landing area. Salvini said he was surprised to learn the ski jump had never been designed or tested by engineers.

"You go into a terrain park, you think that if they're going to build these big features, there's going to be some design behind it all," he said. "You come to find out it's just somebody gets a back hoe and builds up these mounds of snow, and so it's kind of shocking to find out."

Although 15 other skiers and snowboarders had been hurt on the jump earlier that season, the jump was left open.

The resort released a written statement that says "voluntary participation suggests that a skier or rider accepts the risk associated with the activity." Guy Lawrence, a spokesman for The Summit at Snoqualmie, said officials were "disappointed but respectful" of the jury verdict.

Salvini previously was captain of the wrestling team at Central Washington University in Ellensburg and had been a skier since he was 4-years-old.

He is now a quadriplegic with medical needs that over his lifetime will cost more than $23 million.

"Hopefully this will bring about a change where these ski resorts, when they build these terrain parks they parks they will build them with safety in mind, rather than being negligent about it," Salvini said.

**Cono Este** · 11-11-2007, 10:02 PM

Aeronautical engineer's?

Now opening, life as determined by lawyers. Shit

**SkiED** · 11-11-2007, 10:22 PM

jer are you retarded? just wondering cause youd have to be to believe that about whistler.

**x lurker** · 11-11-2007, 10:28 PM

Originally Posted by mnflyfish

. . .

As I uderstand is was the single biggest payout by a ski area ever.

. . .

Jay

The ski area didn't pay anything. Its insurer that had a chance to settle the lawsuit before trial for a lot less than the jury awarded paid the judgment.

**jerr** · 11-12-2007, 01:31 AM

Originally Posted by SkiED

jer are you retarded? just wondering cause youd have to be to believe that about whistler.

I can't believe a lot of things that come out of the US (north American) litigation system, that happen to be very real, so i wouldn't have been suprised. That aside, and thanks for bringing my mental fitness to my attention, my later thoughts applied to the removal of large jumps as much as anything anybody may have joked about Whistler doing.

I'm off now, to dribble into my folded arms.

**skea 457** · 11-12-2007, 01:43 AM

"They charge you $50 to get on the mountain, and that's like going to a theme park and you expect the roller coasters to be safe and stuff like that, you know," Salvini said.

That is the main problem with US ski areas, idiots who want to switch their brains off in an alpine environment and the lawyers who prey on them.

Thankfully we have the club fields in NZ.

**gobblehoof** · 11-13-2007, 01:21 PM

It's like the insurance troubles that the skate boarding scene got fucked up with back in the late 1980s and early 90s. In the end loads of parks got shut and bulldozed. Seems like RCR just need to sack their insurance broker and kick their underwriter around a bit . Totally weakening.