Helmets .... Is it a Brit thing.

Whilst on my ski trips over the last few years it has come very apparent that every time I see a skier in a lid it seems to be a brit.
I'll be interested in your views as my opinion as a brit is that we are slightly gullible to what we read and see in the press and TV, for example the sales of helmets boomed after the death of Natasha Richardson.
I will be interested if you have seen many european's in helmets on your travels ???

We are all wearing them this year, I am an ex nurse and took a heavy whack last time. I am also fed up with bobble hat fluff on the foam on my goggles, it really bugs me.

Can't say I think it's a brit thing particulary. In my limited skiing experience over the last 13 years always in the same area of Austria I would have said it's more of a gender/age thing. The largest group of people I have seen without helmets tend to be those extremely well dressed/very fasionable women and much older men.But then they have being skiing for years without them. I don't think I ever saw anyone wearing a helmet until 2006. When did she Die?

March 2009 from a seemingly very minor bump. She carried on as usual only to collapse later on with fatal consequences sadly.

......which was a previously underlying problem and had nothing to do with wearing a lid or not.....


Wickers, I disagree. What I've seen is a huge increase in the past few years in the number of lid wearers. I hear voices from all around europe inside those lids; German speakers, French particularly, less so Italians, and scandinavians. And Brits. So I definitely don't see it as a British thing at all.

Sadly, I think we are heading to a time when we are all gong to be forced to wear helmets skiing, probably led by insurance companies not paying out unless a lid was worn.

We can easily end up in another long thread about the pros and cons of lids etc, and all the facts and figures, but statistics clearly show the huge majority of injuries skiing are bones or ligaments.

I'm a firm believer in freedom of choice and I still choose not to wear a helmet, partly because I think a lot of them make people look a bit simple, and also because I prefer to wear what I want to and not be told by anyone.

Anyway, like I said, the danger is this turning into another helmet vs not thread.

But I don't think it's just a British thing for what it's worth.

I totally agree with having a personal choice and it is definitely not the height of fashion but I do think that insurers are looking to bring the wearing of them in. In Sauze d'Oulx under 18' s have to wear them, previously under 14 so the trend is towards compulsory helmet wearing.

I don't think a ban will work, take our frency friends they would not allow it they would blockade the ports and everything else and the Insurance companies are too worried about their pofits, so possibly the last place to ski helmet less would possibly be france. 8)

i made my kids wear 1 when learning and it has carried on from there. now i wear 1 because kids said if i make them wear 1 i should too. im glad i do because i fell when in les arcs and banged my head hard and winded myself. that could have been concusion or even a fractured skull.