Piste police want to call time on skiing speedsters
The radar traps have already been introduced in some resorts, like Grindelwald in Switzerland, and are aimed to trap the speeders who can then be chased by a newly formed piste police.
Those caught will face everything from a lecture through to fines or even a ban, with their ski pass confiscated, depending on the resort.
The radar traps are just one of a range of measures being introduced after it was revealed the number of skiing accidents was on the rise — as record numbers hit the slopes to take advantage of the heavy snowfalls.
Insurance companies are unhappy because they are paying out millions annually in accident claims.
A spokesman for the German Insurance Association said: “It is high time laws were made for ski slopes just like on roads, because the claims from ski accidents are not into the hundreds of thousand but into the millions of euro every season in every resort you can think of.”
He said insurers wanted clarity on the laws of the slopes to make hit and run skiing and skiing while drunk criminal offences — and to give legal status to the piste police.
In America the safety lobby has managed to ban alcohol altogether from ski resorts — an alien concept in Europe where hot wine, cold beer are regarded as normal fare during a day on the piste.
A survey by Halifax Travel Insurance found British male skiers consume an average of 100 units of alcohol on a week’s holiday while their female counterparts down an average of 71 units. Most was consumed on Austrian slopes where skiers drink an average of 114 units of alcohol per week, followed by France (87 units) and Andorra (84 units).
In Tyrol, Austria, 128 helicopter rescues of injured skiers took place over the Christmas period.
In St Johann, a village in the Salzburg area of Austria, an 18-year-old student from Berlin died after he crashed into a tree.
In Salzburg yesterday there were more than 200 people injured, including 51 that needed to be airlifted to safety. Some hospitals had to double the numbers of staff on duty to handle the number of ski accident victims.
The board of directors of the hospital in Zell am See, Austria, has slapped a ban on staff taking holidays during winter.
Manager Heinrich Thoeni said: “Each day we have to deal with more than 100 injured skiers and boarders, and it’s getting busier.”
