In reply to Wainers44:
> even though what you say about the RNLI is a bit mixed up
You may be right; the point is, that whether they're paid, or volunteers, there is currently no legislation that gives them the power to stop people going in to the water, so no, we don't 'close the beaches' (contrary to one speck of drivel in that damned article).
We might advice people not to go into the water when there is some perceived danger above some given threshold.
That level of intervention I'm quite happy to support, especially at honeypot beaches that have known problems with rips, etc.
Unfortunately, I've seen too many episodes of 'Beach Rescue' (etc) where the lifeguards decide to 'close the beach', and drive around telling everyone to get out of the water, even going into the water to damned near force people out; all rather officious. Provided the red flag means "enter at your own risk; we won't come to help you if you get in trouble", then I don't really have a problem.
Actually, I don't really have much of a problem at all, but I don't like abuse of power, and I don't like people using power they don't actually have...
And that damned article made me grumpy, and I was ranting at the wrong target. Apologies to any RNLI lifeguards...
> Shows how much I know about foreign ski resorts (ie nothing!)...many of them do this all the time already!
Yes, they do indeed... And, if the conditions are really bad, they close the lifts, although that's mostly due to the danger associated with operating the lifts in those conditions. If the avalanche risk is very high, and teams are out clearing, again, the lifts usually stay closed until this work is complete; not a good idea to have explosions and triggered avalanches when there are punters around.
I remember going up on a lift with an ESF instructor (coincidentally), and we saw some people skiing in to a huge bowl with obvious signs of avalanche debris. The instructor did a classic French shoulder shrug and basically said "well, if they want to kill themselves, that's up to them; we won't try to stop them, but we won't go and rescue them either..." Not sure how true that was...