Climbers wear helmets presumably for two reasons: to protect them from rockfall and to avoid head injury in an upsidedown fall. When I started climbing in the 80s helmets were rarely worn, and new climbers were taught to be acutely aware of rockfall danger and flipping upsidedown in a fall. You didn't belay directly under your partner, you kept a sharp eye out for falling rock, you were careful with your footwork so that you didn't dislodge rocks on those below you, you were sure to yell "rock" if you did, you kept the rope in front of your legs when you climbed, etc. Compare this behavior with what you see from today's helmet-wearing n00bs. Their whole psychology has changed: care and attentiveness in climbing have been replaced by helmet wearing to a considerable extent.

This is not to knock either helmets or grigris. Both are useful tools, but both have been misused by becoming substitutes for safer behavior.

-Jay

Resisting the falling outcome will cause your attention to be focused on down-climbing, over-gripping, stopping climbing, hanging on pro, etc. In other words, your attention will be on what you need to do to prevent falling from occurring.

How can you be sure that the lack of care and attentiveness you see in new climbers is due to their wearing helmets?

Perhaps a more important cause is that many new climbers today learned to climb in a gym where rockfall is not an issue, and climbing is perceived as a relatively safe activity.

-- Ron

Well, the fact that they are wearing helmets suggests that they are aware of rockfall danger,

The false sense of safety, leading to more dangerous driving is the spawn of not ever having to have paid the consequences. NOW, being uninsured will cause you to drive more cautiously, but it has nothing to do with safety, but from a fiscally-induced state of fear.

Arno's latest is in the Articles section. Feeling Safe Is Dangerous challenges conventional wisdom that the search for constant safety is safe. You be the judge!

http://www.rockclimbing.com/...es/index.php?id=2096

But inspite of this example, I believe that the general principle has some validity: that feeling safer causes more reckless behavior. The best example I can think of in climbing is the trend toward helmet wearing.

Climbers wear helmets presumably for two reasons: to protect them from rockfall and to avoid head injury in an upsidedown fall. Compare this behavior with what you see from today's helmet-wearing n00bs. Their whole psychology has changed: care and attentiveness in climbing have been replaced by helmet wearing to a considerable extent.

New grigri users are lulled into a false sense of security by the device's autolocking feature, and make more belay errors as a result.

However, I advocate leading right away.............................Too many climbers get into the sport thinking that climbing is safe. Climbing isn’t safe; it’s dangerous. You can make it safer but you cannot make it safe. .......... As a result, you’ll understand how climbing fits into your life and how it satisfies your need to feel alive.

What would you make of a similar trend in cycling?

This is most certainly a false analogy ( helmets and grigri's ). I would say helmets are pretty binary, where grigri's certainly are not. Also, aren't you flunking the same epidemiological test relating "care and attentiveness" with helmet use ( and-or the opposite )?

I think most people learn not to sit directly under the leader due to large objects whizzing by their heads. Back in the day, most folks assumed a certain level of intelligence from a new partner, like "don't get hit with s---" was sort of assumed.

I think we have to distinguish between safety devices promoting reckless behavior and safety devices allowing one to push the performance envelope. If wearing a helmet allows the rider to ride more aggressively, then that's his choice, but that is different than climbers feeling safe hanging out casually in rockfall zones because they are wearing helmets. That's purely reckless behavior.

I have 11 comments about the above:

1. It's not a false analogy because it it's not even an analogy. It's 10 examples of the same phenomenon.

10. Yes, I may be flunking my own epi test, but my impression that n00bs are willing to hang out at the base of crags with rocks raining down around them is because they are wearing helmets. Those of us without the helmets are always standing a ways away watching in dismay.

11. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't. However, I have no idea what you mean by "binary" in the above quote.

You are avoiding the question. The majority of riders I see these days are wearing helmets. Most aren't trying to ride more aggressively one day to the next, but they are wearing their helmets from one day to the next. Are they all mindless sheep as well?

And if you are really seeing hordes of people with their helmets on standing directly under multiple rockfalls, I guess I can't argue with what you are saying.

I can think of several accidents that happened precisely because the victims felt safe.

...

So Dirt,
How safe were you feeling when you broke your elbow?

Hope it is doing better.

Interesting thread... to a certain extent...


Agreed. But still, I want to be safer, even though maybe it's disadvantageous to feel safer. So, how about some actual practical suggestions? Should I stop climbing stuff more than a letter grade below my level? And how do I reduce the risk when walking home from the crag, blissful after a successful redpointing or whatever? I don't want to break my ankle walking through the woods either...