Is Snowboarding More Dangerous Than Skiing?
After adjusting for age and sex of the participant, snowboarding isn’t inherently more dangerous than skiing, according to Dr. Shealy of the Rochester Institute of Technology, according to a study done in 1990 of 16 mountain resorts that were statistically representative of U.S. skiing. While 7.4 percent of all ski injuries are due to a skier leaving the trail and hitting a stationary object, only 3.6 percent of snowboarders injury themselves that way. Overall, their injury rates are comparable with skier injury rates, Dr. Shealy reports. (He reports the subset of areas that had 5 percent or more had an injury rate of 2.66 injuries per 1000 skier days for skiers and 2.99 for snowboarders.) Snowboarders don’t appear to be making the slopes less safe for their skiing peers, either, says Dr. Shealy. In a study presented at the Ninth International Symposium on Skiing Trauma and Safety in 1993, Dr. Shealy reported that 7.7 percent of all ski injuries are the result of skiers running into sk
