[Pattern of injuries in skiing worldwide. Can current guidelines for adjusting ski bindings reduce injuries in the...

World wide injuries show an overall reduction in skiing injuries. Updating the work of Hauser and Gläser (20) the average injury value declines from about 7 injuries per 1000 ski days in 1960 to 2 injuries per 1000 ski days in 1990. A stagnation can be reported for the past 5 years and no dramatic reduction is to be expected. Important, however is the trend of increasing knee injuries. As the risk for knee injuries was prevalent for female skiers (36, 15, 12) we also found a higher number of combined knee injuries especially including the medial collateral ligament (MCL). As the current binding adjustments do not focus on them, we are having a closer look about the advantages and disadvantages of each method. The final result is a suggestion for a radical change. By means of a new binding setting method and the demand for more responsibility to the skier we try to create a new skiing safety idea consisting of the setting table, a recommended binding release test and a gear binding. This is supposed to serve as the basis for a new safety approach.