A history of ski safety: bindings, brakes, helmets and codes.

This is a history page, not safety guidance. Skiing and riding are learned from a qualified instructor, and an injury needs medical care. The current rules and research are in the Safety section.

Bindings that release

The compiled timeline of the International Skiing History Association (ISHA) lists several earlier bindings: Fritz Huitfeldt's toe-iron binding of 1894, Guido Reuge's Kandahar binding of 1928, which locked the heel down (uncited), and the first Kandahar cable binding in 1935.

Hjalmar Hvam, 1939

The ISHA timeline lists 1939 as the year Hjalmar Hvam invented the first useful release binding, in Seattle. The Source, a newspaper in Bend, Oregon, tells it differently in a 2010 article by Bob Woodward: Hvam broke his leg on Mount Hood in 1937 and again in 1938, came up with the idea of a releasable binding in 1939, and sold it as the Saf-Ski. Search summaries of Portland television reports date his inspiration to 1937 and say the bindings were on sale by 1940. The Source says Hvam was inducted into the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame in 1967, and that by the 1950s dozens of European makers had released bindings of their own.

Jean Beyl and Look

Look's own brand history, a maker's claim, says Jean Beyl developed the "Anti-Fracture", which it calls the first safety ski binding, in 1947, founded the Look company at Nevers, France, in 1951, and that its N17 of 1963 was the first "pivot" binding. Other sources date these differently: the ISHA timeline lists Beyl's Look releasing plate binding in 1948 (credited to Lou Dawson), and Wikipedia, seen in search summaries, gives 1948 for the company and 1950 for the Nevada toe piece.

How bindings are tested to standards today is on bindings and standards. This site gives no release settings.

Ski brakes

The only source found on ski brakes is an enthusiast history, RetroSki (Greg Morrill, 2015), so everything in this section is unconfirmed. It says single-bladed brakes by the rival designers Earl Miller and Mitch Cubberley appeared in the early 1960s but did not catch on; that Klaus Obermeyer brought the first two-pronged brake, the Ski Stopper, from Italy to the United States in 1974, an attribution the author credits to a reader; and that by 1978 every major binding company offered two-pronged brakes. It adds that US ski areas were at first slow to accept brakes and mostly allowed them only with safety straps, while European slopes allowed brakes without straps. No ski-area association record of this was found.

Helmets

In competition

FIS's page on its 1979 congress at Nice records the decision that wearing a helmet becomes obligatory for ski jumpers. No source found dates when FIS first required helmets in alpine racing. In the alpine speed events, downhill and super-G, the FIS Council confirmed on 8 November 2024 that airbags would be mandatory at World Cup level from the 2024/25 season. FIS's 2026/27 alpine equipment specifications (section 3.6.3) say helmets "do not offer an absolute protection" against the consequences of accidents. The current rules, discipline by discipline, are on FIS athlete safety rules.

On the slopes

The National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) gives these helmet-use figures for US skiers and riders:

A trade-press report, seen only in a search summary, cites NSAA data of 91 percent for 2024/25; that is unconfirmed. The NSAA says it urges helmet use but asks people to ski or ride as if they were not wearing one, says behaviour matters as much as or more than equipment, and runs a programme called Lids on Kids, for which it gives no launch year.

The research, both ways

Studies of helmets and head injury do not agree on the size of the link, and each is given with its own study and years:

• CMAJ, 2010. A meta-analysis by Kelly Russell, Josh Christie and Brent E. Hagel pooled 12 observational studies from Europe, Asia and North America and found that helmet users had lower odds of head injury (odds ratio 0.65, about 35 percent lower) and no higher odds of neck injury. The authors say the studies were of moderate quality, results for potentially severe head trauma were mixed, helmet design and fit were not examined, and no included study reported deaths.
• JAMA, 2006. A Norwegian case-control study by Sulheim and colleagues (JAMA 2006;295(8):919-924), of 3,277 injured skiers and snowboarders and 2,992 uninjured controls in the 2002 season, found helmet use associated with 60 percent lower odds of head injury against uninjured controls (adjusted odds ratio 0.40).
• British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2016 or 2017. A follow-up by the same group (vol. 51, issue 1, pages 44 to 50), dated 2016 in a search summary and 2017 in a sports literature-database record, is summarised as finding the association weaker in 2010 (odds ratio 0.79) and not statistically significant in 2011 (0.80), which the authors called unexpected. The journal page refused access, so this is unconfirmed.

This site does not present a helmet as preventing injury. What the standards test and what the bodies say about the limits is on what helmets do and do not do.

Codes of conduct

FIS's page on its 1967 congress in Beirut records the distribution of advice and rules for circulation on skis. FIS's page does not say how many rules there were in 1967, and no FIS source read dates the ten rules to that year. FIS's page on its June 2002 congress at Portorož records a revision of the Rules of Conduct to include snowboarding and carving. The copy of the ten rules found is marked "Approved by the FIS Congress 2002" and "version 2016", and FIS's current file, created on 24 August 2023, carries the same ten rules in gender-neutral wording. On 6 September 2023 FIS released a separate ten-rule code for cross-country.

In the United States, the NSAA's safety page says it first developed the Skier Responsibility Code in 1962 and has revised it several times since, including to cover snowboarders. Some secondary accounts give 1966 instead, but they rest on sources that could not be read, so that date is not confirmed and this site follows the NSAA's 1962. The NSAA says the 2022 version grew from seven points to ten. Both codes in full are on the codes of conduct. The National Ski Patrol was founded by Minnie Dole in 1938, according to ISHA's magazine (see the 10th Mountain Division).

Trail-difficulty signs

The NSAA's own About page says it was established in 1962; the ISHA timeline gives 1963, and this site uses the NSAA's date. The statement that the NSAA adopted the green circle, blue square and black diamond in 1968 rests on Wikipedia and on a blog of a resort trade association, both seen as search summaries; no NSAA page saying so was found, so the 1968 adoption is unconfirmed. The same secondary accounts say the symbols came from research for a Disney resort planned at Mineral King, California, that was never built, and that an earlier, confusing system was briefly used in 1964; also unconfirmed. ISHA, in a book review seen only in a summary, dates the announcement of Disney's Mineral King plans to 19 September 1966.

In Europe the history runs through standards. A French ministry answer of 2012 to a parliamentary question names the AFNOR standard NF S 52-102 for marking and signs on ski runs, in a July 2001 edition cited by a later mayor's order. Austrian Standards lists ÖNORM S 4611, current edition 1 August 2016, with earlier editions in 1999 and 2003; Wikipedia names the Austrian standard ÖNORM S 4610 instead. Today's markings, country by country, are on trail difficulty markings.

An early avalanche record

The ISHA timeline lists an avalanche on the Susten Pass in 1899 that killed two skiers, which it calls the first recorded skiing fatality in Europe. The entry names no source, so it is unconfirmed. Avalanche figures as the warning services publish them are on avalanches as published.