In article
,
Bret wrote:

On Mar 20, 2:57*pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Mar 20, 3:27*pm, Dan O wrote:



On Mar 20, 9:06*am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

In another article,http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29772691/*:

"The National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) of the United States
estimated 43 percent of skiers and snowboarders wore helmets in
the 2007-08 season, against 25 percent five years earlier.
...

"The increase in the use of helmets has not reduced the overall
number of skiing fatalities," the NSAA said in a statement.
"More than half of the people involved in fatal accidents last
season were wearing helmets."

So more than half the fatalities were in helmets. *But fewer
than half wear them. *IOW, helmet use is _positively_
correlated with fatality.

Risk compensation, anyone?

People who intend to ski as fast as they possibly can are the
ones more likely to wear a helmet.

Would they ski quite as fast, or in quite as risky a manner, if
they did not wear a helmet?

Judging by those figures above, probably not.

It's a chicken and egg question. Are people wearing helmets because
they're doing something dangerous or doing something dangerous
because they're wearing helmets? You think it's the latter. The
former makes much more sense to me but I don't know. You seem pretty
sure of something that is unknowable without more information. Maybe
you're the type that just doesn't know how to day "I don't know".

There is some chicken-and-eggness, but the numbers are quite
interesting: fewer than half (43%) of skiers wear helmets and yet more
than half of the fatalities were wearing helmets. Clearly a fatal
skiing accident is more likely among helmet wearers than non-helmet
wearers.

The reasons for that are unclear. Risk compensation is certainly one
possible explanation, e.g., that people are likelier to take risks on
the assumption that they are protected by the helmet. Or, conversely,
non-helmet wearers might ski more cautiously.

There are other possible explanations. For example, novices might be
more likely to wear helmets and more likely to suffer an accident
through inexperience, underestimating dangers and lack of skills. The
presence of a helmet could be completely extraneous to the cause of
death- they'd have been killed either way.