Skiing and sowboarding injuries: Legal regulations and safety at ski resorts in Serbia

Abstract

Safety in skiing and snowboarding may be viewed from three aspects of responsibility: the state that passes laws (competent ministries), owners or organizers of providing services in skiing (ski centers, ski services, ski schools, clubs) as well as skiers and snowboarders themselves. The subject of the present paper is an analysis of the content of normative acts in the Republic of Serbia, which refer to safety at the ski resorts. It has been established that there is a number of legal documents and rulebooks, issued by the competent ministries, and that the safety issues are considerably regulated. Deficiencies are in complete application of existing regulations and missing of byelaw documents. Thus, the ski equipment rental in ski services is not regulated in spite of a large number of injuries occurring due to the use of inadequate equipment. The system of recording and analyzing injuries is not regulated within the single system and the existing record of injuries does not encompass data significant for the analysis of causes of injuries. Measures aimed at developing safety strategies may be realized through: public policy, technology and education.

Keywords

• normative documents / prevention / strategy / safety / education