J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by ise

Trencher wrote:
My reasoning would be that in order to be burdened with a duty of care, a person would have to imply that they are an instructor. Paid or volunteer, every instructor assumes a duty of care and maybe found liable if they have failed to meet the professional standards when something goes wrong. However, someone just giving unqualified advice does not assume that responsibilty. It seems to me that the resposibility of the host company remains the same unless they knew the advise given would cause some danger. How could they ever know that.

In fact, isn't this simmilar to the "Good Samaritan" situation ? Where if you help someone in distress, you should not be held liable for your good intentions. Without this protection we would all have to drive by accidents where we might have saved a life.

Trencher

That's all a bit confused, liability and duty of care aren't the same thing, for both different standards exist in different countries in different environments.

Between the two snow ploughers the common law principle of Volenti non fit injuria (latin: to a willing person, no injury is done) would apply with the caveat that actual recent case history rests more up contributed negligence in the UK.

The centre is obliged to lay down and take reasonable measures to enforce reasonable standards to prevent injury, ie

- not allowing people to use the facility who lack experience, for the obvious reasons plus they can then be termed to have given consent and also be covered by Volenti non fit injuria
- not allowing unqualified persons (as defined by the relevant governing body) to instruct or coach
- not allowing people to engage in activities likely to present hazard to others.

If you give a follow me snow plough lesson in the middle of the main slope you're breaking all three.

Incidentally, "Good Samaritan" legally generally means some US laws and has no legal basis in the UK. Instead some common law applies regarding necessity which it's too late at night for me to explain now )

jaycraig wrote:i started to demonstrate the way i do a snowplough and she copied

jaycraig wrote:showing them a more effective way of doing something i dont strictly speaking think this qualifies as teaching as she has skied before and was just brushing up a little.

I didn't misunderstand. That's teaching, it's what we're assessed on when we're qualifying to be ski instructors )

If you set off in a snowplough with someone copying you then you must see that it looks like teaching and you must be able to see why that's not a great idea on a small indoor slope. If you're using a snow plough to stop as well it looks like you're a beginner and it looks like you can't hockey stop and then it looks like you're not really in control so much either. So when the staff see you it looks like one beginner is teaching another, that may not be the case but it's how it appears even using your own account of events.

To put it another way, if you'd been demonstrating how to land a perfect 360' with a grab I'd think you'd not have got any comment at all.

bandit wrote:Bennyboy, I would suggest that you contact the facility of your choice for an absolute. I do know that Warren Smith runs a series of courses at UK centres throughout the summer, and of course BASI have been running L3 at various centres recently.

They each bring their own Instructors. Each is run by arrangement with the specific centres.
I was approached by a parking warden when I arrived at MK last week. He was enquiring to see if I was on a BASI course and wanted an all day pass. It was nice to be asked :D

You can book as a club and bring your own instructor, I mentioned all this to a friend the other day and she was saying that's what their ski club did, ie make a booking as a club, take beginners and provide instruction/coaching themselves.

bennyboy wrote:Interesting!

Does this mean that those of us with instructor qualifications still cant teach our own family there then? If i was teaching my sister/mum and someone came over and told me that i'd be kinda annoyed, as i an actually teach them. I can understand that they want the only teaching on the slope to be theirs and of their own standard, however good it may be. But dont see why they take someone else doing it, as a basic level of snowplough, so seriously!

Yes it does seem to. It was bandit that mentioned this to me a few weeks back when I mentioned I was going to take my niece to an indoor slope when I was in the UK. I'd expected I could teach her and that was a non-starter. In the end we went to "Go Ape" which was way more fun )

I think you're getting it backwards though, it's not more acceptable because it's just a snow plough, I think it's probably less acceptable. Giving someone feedback on their carving must be just fine, doing a follow me demo of a snowplough is disruptive. One of the reasons they're trying to keep beginners off the main slope is to allow the more accomplished skiers to get a good run and not need to weave around "follow me" teaching.

bandit wrote:To my knowledge, all of the UK indoor snow facilities and plastic slopes do not allow teaching/coaching/instruction by members of the public. All of the sites employ BASI/ASSI qualified teaching staff. I can imagine that H&S Regs and their insurers require them to run a tight ship, and avoid the inevitable litigation and probable on slope carnage that an open policy would risk.
Coincidentally, I have heard that the teaching staff are on rather a low wage, which is in stark contrast to the tuition rates which are :shock:

Yes, you probably lucked out with an overly keen member of staff, or they have had recent problems and have tightened up.

That's perfectly correct, I looked into this myself recently in fact. It's an indoor sports facility and governed by much the same rules as gyms or swimming pools for example. There's no comparison at all with pistes on real outdoor slopes.

Giving someone a few tips is perfectly reasonable, teaching someone to snowplough very clearly isn't. In fact, Jay was lucky not to be thrown out altogether as he/she had ignored the booking conditions and made an inaccurate statement when booking. Beginners aren't allowed on the (indoor) slopes without instructors and someone who can't snow plough is a beginner. If nothing else it should be perfectly obvious that someone doing snowplough lessons on the main slope is a hazard for everyone else.

Admin wrote:Wow. There you have it; definitely more snow in Cervinia than Niederau in September!

) I'd think Cervinia's much the same as the rest of the alpes where it snowed in June, July and August as well like normal, I'll bet that's why the tops of the mountains are all white )

:oops: yes, sorry, I should have explained that.

It's pretty good odds, effectively it means you're exceptionally unlikely to have an ACL injury. Incidence in women is slightly higher, I can't recall immediately but the figure of 8% higher rings a bell.

pavelski wrote:That ACL injury visits many skiers!

Something of an exaggeration, the actual incidence is around 2200 MDBI and has been falling for some time.