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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User
Extreme sports and kids... 22-May-2015 At 3:44:56 PM Wendy
Message
On 22/05/2015 Snacks wrote:

>
>Ok, more clear cut is if you actually take the safety off the person yourself
>as the trusted instructor who knows what you're doing.
>
>At Point Perp recently I had to tie off a belay that the belayer had left
>with a climber dangling off a grigri in a braked position and gone to talk
>to their pal. The handle could potentially have been locked open if the
>climber moved around and managed to twist the rope etc...
>
>In this case had the person died from the grigri locking open then the
>belayer would potentially be up for 'involuntary manslaughter' (the dangerous
>act type?)... IF the belayer was inexperienced and instructed to do that
>then the instructor could in turn could be up for involuntary manslaughter
>(the criminal negligence type?)
>
>These legalities haven't just suddenly started in climbing... they've
>always been there in the background.
>
>Without them you're saying you'd rather accidents resulting from negligence
>just going into the 'Oopsie daisey better learn better for next time' basket
>for recreational climbers?
>
>
And just how useful have they been sitting in the background? Have they stopped anyone doing stupid shit?

I'm sure that person wasn't thinking, gee, there's no way I could be sued for negligence so I'll just leave this guy hanging and bugger off, it won't matter if he falls and I don't really care if he dies. He's thinking that it's perfectly fine to do so, otherwise, he would think, f--- I could kill my friend if I did this and that would be bad. Negligence laws are completely irrelevant to this sort of behaviour. He doesn't need law explained to him, he needs to hear that a grigri could be weighted in away that moves the locking mechanism by movement of the rope and he can back it up very simply with a knot. And maybe not to go very far ...

What I think people are talking about as negligence here is actually incompetence. Is there a law about incompetence? Negligence law is useful when somebody knows better but does something anyway that results in something rather bad happening. Like knowing that lowering through slings will melt through the slings, but telling your mate to do so and lowering them off anyway. You just wouldn't do it. People only do it when they don't know that it's dumb.

Hence my point that the problem isn't with negligence, it's with lack of general skills.

There are 37 replies to this topic.

 

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