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Vic Ranges - Another Steep Price Increase 20-Feb-2004 At 1:44:05 PM Cliffhanger

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Stats used to be available, but I haven't seen printed ones for a while. I know WorkCover in NSW are keeping Stats on climbing gym accidents, not sure about Victoria. Most likely all the education departments would keep stats of school incidents.

Then there are the gym owners, we know what stats we have contributed to, and sometimes what other gyms have contributed to. Some of us get asked to be "expert" witnesses at many of the ensuing court cases after these accidents.

based purely on guess, speculation and heresay, I believe that most accidents fall into 2 categories either human error or mechanical failure, which is going to sound obvious!

In the human error side, it's either going to be
1. Belayer error, or
2. Climber error.

I think most are belayer error, either the belayer not concentrating, the belayer having a total brain freeze and stuffing up big time or a totally incompetant belayer. From an insurance/liability standpoint, the lawyers will argue it's the facilities fault for not providing enough instruction and supervision!

The climber errors have been significant too, I know of at least 3 unclip incidents where the climber was clipped in and had not done up the 'biner, and resulted in an unclip from a great height.

Most incidents happen within the first 2.4 meters of the ground, mainly resulting in minor broken ankles etc, which are the majority og the claims - hence the law changes to put "levels" of injury before you can Sue - 6% impairement in Victoria from memory now.

There have not been a lot of documented Hardware or Wall failures in reality - yet! A wall fell over on someone in QLD a few years ago, some gyms made out of Chipboard have had large sections of wall pull out in people's hands - still attached to holds! An auto-belayer failed in the USA late last year and a climber died (out of interest the gym owner was found guilty of "Man 2" Involuntary Manslaughter here and jailed for 7 years plus a $5000 fine - hence why gym owners need insurance!).

The new Victorian Legislation that is scheduled to replace the recenlty introduced Goods Act changes may prevent a lot of the little cases. This is the new Fair Trading Act Amendments currently before Government. These basically stipulate that if you have an accident whilst partaking in a Recreational Activty, and the facility was not negligent, then you cannot sue.

This will take a few years to result in reduced premiums, as people can still sue under the old system, for existing injuries, for another 3 years yet I think.