Skilifts.org / SORT Forum

Don't see one on this chair at Whitewater

I see one... I would circle it and attach a pic, but I can't for some reason.... It's the silver bar to the right of the hanger arm.
Code excerpt:

5.12.2 Each chair shall be equipped with a restraining device that will not open under forward pressure.

It dosen'thave to be a bar like we see today it can be a chain, a small bar like in the above picture, or like the bars we comonly see.

I know for certain that employees @ Vail Resorts are required to have the bar down from the second the chair leaves the terminal to the second it enters the top if there is someone else with them. At Copper they are not as strict about it, but I think that ski school groups are required to use the bar (if available.) That never seemed to affect my instructor. He did make us put it down on S and Super Bee because he said that tower 25 will bounce you off. That hasn't happened (yet )

As for me I only put it down if someone else wants it and I still don't use the footrest. I hate people who say "this high part really scares me, do you mind if I put the bar down for a second." I reply, "you're just as likely to fall off whether you're 10 feet or 100 feet off." My pet peeve is people who want the bar down on Excellerator. You spend half of the ride getting the bar up and down.

I have proof that the bar causes more injuries than it saves. A few seasons ago, a kindergardener who went to the same elementary school as I did fell off Peru Express when his instructor didn't check for everyone to be ready for the bar to go up. The footrest lifted him up and he hung upside-down by the bar until his bindings released and he fell. Amazingly he survived with just a few broken bones.
This post has been edited by skierdude9450: 02 July 2006 - 06:57 PM

skierdude9450 i find that very hard to believe.

I do think that kids sometimes have trouble reaching up to get the bar and can slip off. I think the system I am used to in Washington State is logical, having it be completely optional.

skierdude9450, on Jul 2 2006, 06:48 PM, said:

That only applies to ski instructors who are taking a kids group, otherwise it is optional, but most will use it when they have beginners with them.

Out here in the Wild West, we don't call them Sissy Bars for nothin'. Cowboy up & ride w/o them! Nambsy pambsies. ;)

Benbosnow, on Jul 2 2006, 09:12 PM, said:

Do you now? I remember reading it in the Summit Daily News. I'll try to find the article.

Here it is
This post has been edited by skierdude9450: 03 July 2006 - 10:40 AM

Well the ski instructor must be very strong and stupid that when he lifted the bar, it be a bit heavier.And you would that he would try and grab the kid. Thats not the Saftey bars fault, its the stuipitdy of the Ski instructor.

I don't know. My guess was that he threw the bar up really fast and that was enough. The bars on Peru Express are also very heavily spring loaded. If you take your feet off of the footrest for a second . . . fwoosh, up it goes!

as far as I know - nowhere in the west requires safty bars - our insurance guys did mention that if one chair on a lift is done; then all chairs have to be before it is opened to public. Someone falls off a chair without s/b - lawsuit. It apparently it doesn't matter if there is a combination of s/b and s/b with footrest.

New York state is just like Vermont, restraint bars are required and riders are required to use them. Ski resort employees in New York will enforce that rule. I've seen ski patrol stand under the lift line instructing riders to lower the bar if they have not already done so.

As people have said they aren't on many lifts out west, just the newer high speed lifts and some of the newer fixed grips. I never really use them unless the other riders on the chair would like it down. It doesn't make me more comfortable or anything, it just kind of scares me. My dad sometimes puts and I've been hit in the head mutliple times from it coming down or up with people not looking. It can hurt and I wonder if anyone has actually been hurt badly by one. Imagine that lawsuit...

Benbosnow, on Jul 2 2006, 08:12 PM, said:

That happens more than you would think. I'm not sure how much training instructors receive in actually riding the lift. It seems they get clinics in skiing but that's it.

liftmech, on Jul 10 2006, 05:23 AM, said:

Funny you should say that, but I got smacked in the back of the head this year on one of our lifts...I had a headache for the rest of the day/night, does that count?

The newest lift that I've seen w/out a bar is chair 9 at loveland which is a 99 poma fg quad. None of the lifts there have bars.

The Collins lift at Alta is a 2004 high speed quad with no bar. None of the lifts at Alta have bars.

Skier, on Jul 11 2006, 10:41 AM, said:

The beginner liftstat DV, Burns and Snowflake don't have safty bar either. Not required by code.

Interesting. I´m living and skiing in Europe. Here every lift must have a safety bar (and also has a foot rest). Its law. And you have to close it. In some beginners areas the lifties have to look that everybody closes the bar. Otherwise they stop the lift, call the person to close it and then the lift starts again.
Last winter I was with some friends in Canada and there we rode our first "safety bar less" lift. Well, I didn´t feel very comfortable. But wihle I´m riding a lift, I usually make photos, count chairs and towers and so on. So I like to know that there is some solid metal stopping me from falling down. Also I always have a rucksack with me (I hate to take it of for lifting). In Europe no problem, because there is the safety bar. In Canada I nearly always had to take it off (because the lifties said, sometimes I was lucky and I ignored them). Also isn´t there a problem if a lift makes an emergency stop? Don´t people fall out of the lift? I think its amusing, the US as the country where you have a sign on your microwave showing " no cats in here" (and all the other things people got money for) and then no saftey bars on chair lifts.