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Stop saying 14-Jan-2015 At 3:08:29 PM Macciza

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Could we please change the title of this thread to something more accurate and appropriate?
Like 'Stop saying safe, if you're not' or 'stop saying safe, if you're going to end up doing something silly', or even better, how about a positive tack like 'Communicate on cliffs to avoid dramas' or 'Belay as if your life depended on it' ....

Seriously there is nothing wrong with saying safe if that's what you consider yourself to be, what the belayer does in response to you saying this is their decision and what happens at resumption of non-safe status is largely your responsibility as the climber....

There are lots of local variants for safety communication in climbing that will also vary over time as well, and they pretty much all work so long as every one is at least in the same chapter if not on the same page, and that both climber and belay are aware and responsible for their actions . . .

I often use Safe as a call simply to tell the belayer that I'm safe and they can relax a little, if I particularly want them to take me off belay then usually I'll ask, other wise I'm not fussed either way apart from the fact that if they take me off that they tell me they are doing/have done so...
I often use In Hard as well to indicate that I'm clipped into something be it the belay or a bit of gear for a mid route rest and they can relax a little. I'll then sometimes use the somewhat British, On You call to tell them that I want them to take me back on belay

I try not to say Take too often when actually climbing, except maybe when working a route in which case it's usually more like Take Us Here if I want to stop somewhere on the route, or also Take In if I am seconding something and the slack is getting in the way of my feet ...

Generally don't need to call for slack with my usual belayers unless I'm out of site of them, and the its often there but consumed by drag somewhere, though I will sometimes call Clipping, particularly if out of sight, to tell them to pay out a bit and watch me ...

If I'm belaying, then often I'll just pay out a whole lot of slack in response to the safe or in hard calls and wait, keeping an appropriate amount of attention to keep them half on belay. If I take them off belay I usually make sure they know that's what I'm doing and that they are off belay, and on their own ...

The main problem here is the wrong diagnosis of the possible cause of the accident, which I am pretty sure is not the fact that the climber said Safe. Without knowing the actual details I can't add much more except that it seems like a definite communication/attention problem, with the belayer taking the climber off belay without confirming it with the climber, and the climber going unsafe without confirmation of being on belay...

Well that's my 2 rps worth..