Every year hillwalkers, climbers and mountaineers are involved in incidents and near-misses on the crags, hills and mountains of the UK and Ireland. Some result in no harm, others in injury or death.
Seemingly trivial decisions can have serious consequences, and so the opportunity to learn from others’ experiences is very valuable. Sharing real-life accounts of these events can help us all manage risk more effectively.
To support this aim, the BMC has launched an incident and near-miss reporting database on a twelve-month trial basis. By adding your report to the database you will help the wider community learn from your experiences.
I do too Paul, though at the moment it’s a bit every-man-and-his-dog type reporting. Of the five or so I sampled, one fell off because their climb was wet, another missed his bouldering mat…
I guess it’s useful to remind you the prosaic can hurt as much as anything, but as the will to report is pretty random it’s hard to say if useful data will come out of it. I prefer the sytem I’ve seen North America where they publish detailed analysis focusing on the less obvious and technical aspects of a few select accidents.
Still way better than the Omerta that existed preciously.
I’ve always wondered why BMC doesn’t adopt something like the PADI scuba diving reporting system, whereby official incident reports are made public when there is a serious accident. Agree that the reporting system needs to at least be moderated: I don’t need to know that some guy nearly got kicked in the head because a twit lobbed off an auto belay, FFS…