Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Who is responsible for bad belaying? 15-Nov-2007 At 11:36:41 AM bluey

Message

Short response to what each party should be doing is learn the skills, practice the skills and (esp, in the case of the gym) meet their duty of care.

If none know what they are doing in the gym context, it is really the gym that has a problem in terms of liability - not only are they responsible for keeping an eye on it, they are responsible for allowing people to lead climb and belay. The climbers themselves should know better but they can hurt themselves and either deal with it or start suing. (From a legal perspective, it would be interesting to know if there are examples of climbers suing each other for bad belaying - probably yes in the US!).

At the end of the day, climbers do this activity willingly and know they subject themselves to the possible shortcomings of their partner. But the gym is where personal responsibility meets public liability. In a way I think gyms create a problem for themselves in checking people for leading - it creates an expectation that the climbers have met a safe standard of skill and will always meet that standard. In a proper licensing regime you would expect some sort of periodic retesting or continuing enhancement of qualifications (but I'm not advocating that!). But it's probably the insurers that require lead checks anyway - that is, I don't think they would allow gyms to take the approach "this is my property with climbing facilities, use it how you like".