Every chairlift I’ve ever been on has a combined bar/footrest that either automatically comes down or is manually done by the people on board. I’ve never ridden on a chair where the bar was not put down and have seen several occasions where the chair attendant stopped the lift until the bar was lowered by the occupants (accompanied by much shouting)
With the bar in place it is pretty much impossible to fall out by accident. You would have to wriggle around and attempt to get out to accomplish that.
I know a woman who regained consciousness in a hospital with no memory of what had happened. The nurse told her she’d fallen from a ski lift. She had pelvic fractures, a leg fracture, concussion, etc.
The hypothesis was that she’d passed out on the lift, slid under the bar, and fell, but her doctors never found an explanation for her passing out.
Absolutely not true where I ski. None of the chairlifts I ski have automatic safety bars. A few have no safety bars at all, but those are getting pretty rare. I’ve only seen a very small number of liftees requiring skiers to lower the bar, most don’t care or have the time.
On a modern lift that’s probably true, but there are plenty of older lifts where it’s trivially east to get past the safety bar. And lots of folks never lower them.
I am wondering why the lift attendant, upon stopping the lift and realizing someone was dangling, did not run the lift in reverse. They were still within sight of the bottom, and running it backward would have brought the boy at least lower to the ground. Perhaps running it in reverse is more complicated than I suspect, or maybe doing that is even more risky, or (more likely) the lift attendant did not know how. Most of the lift attendants I encounter are usually young people who only know how to stop or slow the lift, and then get it going again (by pressing a button).
Running a lift in reverse is a dangerous proposition, which would put many more people in danger than the girl dangling from the chair. It’s not something a random liftee can do from the loading station.
I think you would have to manually override a safety brake that prevents a lift reversing. Bear in mind that you then have maybe 10-20 tons of extra weight in the form of people on the cable now running with gravity. It isn’t done lightly.
I recall once seeing some film of a chairlift that did reverse uncontrollably and it was scary stuff.
That’s the one I think, There’s some scary amount of force as they flip round the bottom curve.
At least with a cable breaking you get only an immediate drop around the point of the breakage and the others either jam on the pylons or lower to ground at a slower rate. With the reversal you have pretty much all of the chairs coming round to the same collision point. I’m not sure which scenario I like least.
Yeah. Agree with you-all - running in reverse would be bad. However, I thought I saw a warning sign loading a lift recently that stated “Lift may run in reverse”. It made me wonder under what circumstances that would be necessary - the idea of a kid hanging off the chair just in front of the loading area would seem like one of those circumstances.
You run in reverse under a very controlled situation, not an emergency. Lots of precautions have to be in place, because you’re overriding some of the basic ski lift fail safes. They can run in backwards for short distances, especially if no one goes around the lower bull wheel backwards, I believe.
I weigh a little over 100lbs, and every chairlift and carnival ride I’ve been on I could have easily slipped out of. The safety bar doesn’t really present much of a barrier for small/thin people. It’s a big gap if you’re a small person.
Yeah, I thought about that a lot when I started taking my kids to the slopes. I told them to sit back as far as they’re legs could go, but don’t slouch - sit-up straight. I always kept them within reach until they were big enough to sit with their backs on the backrest without slouching.
Jesus. I’ve never been on a ski lift but they always looked dangerous to me. But I assumed that that was just an uninformed opinion based on how they look – surely it couldn’t really be possible to fall off as easily as it seemed. After reading this thread, I’m going with my first impression, and I won’t ever be riding on a ski lift.
Millions of chairlift rides occur each season without incident and enjoy the mountains. Accidents are very rare, but are noteworthy due to the exposure/circumstances. People falling off a lift is a subset of “accidents” in general. The risk and “danger” on ski lifts is tiny. There is probably more risk driving to the ski resort, or slipping and falling down in the parking lot, compared to riding the lift.
But, hey, you can have a perfectly safe existence by never leaving home.
Yes, you get on while they are moving. The modern detachable chairs are slower when loading, and faster when between ends. Basically, once you move yourself into the loading area, there is a red bar in the snow that lets you know where to line-up, then the chair comes behind you and you just sit down. If you are at the red bar, you are either loading the next chair, or asking them to stop the lift (to the ire of everyone in line). Honestly, it’s about as complicated as scary as getting on an escalator.
Some of the new lifts, especially 6 and 8 packs, have magic carpets where you just have to step on board and stand there and the chair catches up to you. You just need to sit down.
Chairlifts are pretty darn safe considering how many rides per year there are.
