In reply to Graeme Alderson:
> "I am 100% certain that people have been hurt due to landing badly on a crab or belay device or nut tool attached to their harness or even chalk bag with a krab or by keys or something else in their pocket but I don't know if there has ever been a RIDDOR type injury."
Sorry not sure what RIDDOR means but: if you are 100 per cent sure this has happened at a bouldering wall tell us what happened. It ius completely different from this happening outdoors or onto a hard surface.
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> Taking your harness off is a lesser inconvenience than being asked to leave a wall for a) not obeying the walls T&C's that you have signed up to, and b) for being rude to the staff who are doing their job. Your choice I guess.
Yes but the rule is unnecessary in the first place. Taking the harness off is invconvenient. I would not intend to be rude to staff, but would possibly be to the person who told them to enforce an unnecessary rule.
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> Your faith in the judiciary is greater than mine. And you don't seem to understand how civil litigation works in England (I see you are based in Scotland so far enough this might be different in Scotland). Robust common sense is often inadmissable.
I spent many years working in England, and a fair amouint of time in court, although most of it was criminal cases (I just kept getting caught...). My experience of both civil and criminal courts was there was a lot more common sense than terrified ninnies seem to think.
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> Judgements, the blame culture and the cost of defending cases is what has us running scared. The climbing wall industry and their insurers do not want to recieve solicitors letters regarding potential cases.
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You don't want to receive solicitors letters because you are frightened - understandably - of tackling them. But shouldn't we resist this kind of bullying? Lawyers will try it on when they know the case is pretty thin in the hope that organisations will pay out to make life easier: by doing that, we only encourage them.
> If an injury occurs solicitors look for something that is different from the norm. Wearing a harness whilst bouldering is not the norm.
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Actually y'know I had never even thought about this before but I genuinely have seen plenty of folk bouldering in harnesses. They look sooooooooooo cool. Certainly where I have been it appears to be quite normal, if not the norm.
> By all means turn up at either of the bouldering only walls that I am involved with wearing your harness. Be prepared to be asked to remove it before you start climbing or be asked to leave, with your money refunded of course.
Cue litigation from me as a result of unreasonable behaviour on your part!!! You can keep the money, you running dog lackey ...
Oh sorry, red button pressed by accident again.
Seriously I kinda understand were you're coming from but it's not just the lawyers or insurance firms or whatever that are to blame: we really need as a society to resist their behaviour.