Until now, the whole ski helmet craze never made much sense to me, especially after accidents like this:
"Truckee (Calif.) resident, outdoor enthusiast and business owner James Taylor died following a ski accident Monday at Squaw Valley. Taylor hit a tree below Squaw Valley's Headwall chairlift Monday morning ... Taylor was wearing a helmet."
This has always been the problem with ski helmets. They don't work in those high-speed, head-on crashes when people really need them. There is even a strong argument to be made that they make skiing more dangerous by creating a false sense of security.
But don't get me wrong.
I don't think all helmets are bad. They make a lot of sense for beginners and kids learning to ski. They protect people from the sorts of minor concussions caused by hitting your head on hard snow after falling at speeds of 15 mph or slower.
From purely a safety standpoint, though, skiers are better off using their heads than putting armor on their noggins -- unless, of course, the real interest is more in tuning in or calling home than in skiing down.
A press release from a San Francisco company called BLASToutdoors finally clued me in on this possibility. It arrived in my e-mail with this subject line:
"Skullcandy: Take helmet jamming to new heights"
As usual, it opened with that neighborly friendless you so often encounter in e-mails from people you don't know:
"Hi Craig,
"End the snow season with a bang -- or some tunes at least! Skullcandy, creators of unique headphones and other audio electronics, take your music obsession to brand-new heights by teaming up with Giro and creating a couple sweet helmets.
"Available for last minute spring skiing or boarding, Skullcandy has implemented two types of audio technology into a variety of helmets in the Giro line. ... (A) Bluetooth LINK offers in-helmet stereo paired with technology from Skullcandy that allows you to hardline into your music player, all while connecting to your Bluetooth-enabled phone wirelessly."
One question immediately comes to mind:
If it's dangerous to drive in the controlled-traffic environment of American streets and highways while talking on the phone -- as a number of studies have shown -- what is it to ski on a crowded mountain with traffic going every which way while talking on the telephone?
Here are the possible answers:
1.) Foolish.
2.) Stupid.
3.) Insane.
Maybe some people don't care what or who they ski into. They should. Some things you ski into could kill you. Some people you ski into could sue you.
And though I'm not a big fan of these sorts of personal liabilities suits, I can only hope that skiers hit by others skiers start to bring them.
Why? Because the ski industry seems to have pushed safety to the back burner in the capitalistic interest of trendiness and fashion. I can understand that even if I don't agree.
There is no money to be made selling the idea of safe skiing. There are bucks in brain buckets.
For an industry gradually losing business to video games as American recreation continues to drift from outdoors to indoors, it makes sense to push the "skullcandy."
Perhaps what a ski shop loses in declining ski and snowboard sales, it can recoup in the new, must-have, skiwear-of-the-day fashion helmet.
Skullcandy -- a play on the nickname for expensive designer sunglasses, i.e. "eyecandy" -- is just about the perfect description for a $160 helmet too. The mountains are full of people wearing them these days purely as skullcandy. It's a chance to both stay trendy and show how "responsible'' they are.
Never mind how out of control they might ski. They're "responsible" because they're wearing a helmet and setting a good example for the children, who, of course, think they can cinch into a helmet and go jump off any cliff because their inherent sense of being bulletproof is now safely capped by brain armor.
Fortunately, as a simple matter of physics, the helmet might actually help kids more than adults.
A 100-pounder going 15 mph generates significantly less force than a 200-pounder going 15 mph when a fixed obstruction -- tree, rock, ski-lift tower, what have you -- abruptly ends their run down the mountain.
The visual image I get of one of these skiers going Wile E. Coyote on a lift tower makes me wonder, however, how durable these stereo/Bluetooth helmet systems are.
If you hit the tower and knock yourself cuckoo, does the music keep playing?
Better yet, can you still use the phone to call the ski patrol to tell them you're down?
Imagine that call.
"Ah, I'm not sure where, but somewhere, and I'm seeing lots of stars, and I keep hearing this music playing in my head.
"Are you coming soon? Have I asked you this before?
"Who am I talking to? Why did I call you? Where am I again?"
Outdoors editor Craig Medred is an opinion columnist. Find him online at adn.com/contact/cmedred or call 257-4588.
Important warning about e-mails purporting to be from the adn.com staff.