quads said:
Sometime Friday night another snowmobiler missed the corner in the pine plantation and went way out into the trees. He had to ride a long ways down through the rows to get back on the trail even. I didn't see any blood on the snow, but I bet the guy filled his pants.
There were at least half a dozen snowmobile accidents with injuries over the weekend, in just our county. I heard on the news that there were at least three fatalities in the state this weekend. It's not like the old days when I used to ride snowmobile. I was scared to death at 50mph! My favorite old snowmobile went 35mph, wide open, downhill, and that was plenty fast enough for me. Nowadays it seems like to many people it's a race from one tavern to the next. A lot of the cutting and splitting I have done this winter has been within earshot of the trail and it sounds like a busy airport runway....
I must admit I actually zip along . . . but you also need to bear in mind that a good portion of this speed is due to a change in the suspension and handling characteristics . . . I noticed a huge difference when I went from a 1996 sled to a 2004 sled . . . of course the real issue however is that you can engineer something to be safer (such as a car), but for the driver who doesn't utilize the safety gear (i.e. seatbelts for cars and helmets for sleds), common sense (i.e. obeying the rules of the road for cars and the rules of the trail for sleds -- such as always riding to the right), not drinking and driving (prudent for both cars and sleds) and the very important rule of utilizing commonsense and riding to your experience level . . . well those who make poor decisions often pay for it in the end with sled damage or personal damage unfortunately.
Never had any collision . . . strike that . . . last year my ski clipped a rock hidden at the side of a groomed trail and it pushed me into a small grouping of alders that broke my mirror . . . and wounded my pride.
Seems up here most of the fatal accidents involve a guy who a) has been drinking, b) is riding late at night, c) is riding at excessive speeds and d) often is riding without any protective gear . . . I can't tell you the number of incidents I have heard that have involved a late night "last blast" around the lake where the driver, half or all in the bag, ended up hitting the trees or rocks on the shoreline of a lake . . . of course there are the occasional deaths that are a bit atypical -- guy up here for example just hit a disabled groomer even though it was well marked.
By the way . . . I never drink and drive . . . cars or sleds . . . but I do stop to eat and take frequent breaks while out sledding.
