Ridiculous Climbing Gym Policies...Let's Hear Them

https://i.imgur.com/g8SKiS0.jpg

Eric J wrote:
https://i.imgur.com/g8SKiS0.jpg

lol, I think this is too simple, they could have made an effort to make it even more complicated. Seriously, people pay for that ?... 

The term "industry" at the end of the page says it all...

WTF @ "a green disk"        

Eric J wrote:
https://i.imgur.com/g8SKiS0.jpg

If people are too stupid to not or forget clip in, they're probably too stupid to climb with.

Having a partner to check you kind of makes the auto belay irrelevant? That gym should just take them out if they are so worried about it.

Trevor Taylor wrote: All the people arguing about how Americans just want to sue people more than any other country are massively over simplifying the issue.
1. The US is common law while most of Europe uses Civil law
2. Loser more frequently pays in European countries
3. European countries have laws that place greater responsibility on the party involved (for better or worse all those people who died in the alps because an avalanche crashed into a hotel likely saw less compensation than they would in the US)
4. When someone is injured in the US there is a greater level of indemnification owed to that party (partly due to the medical insurance system and the concept of wage loss)
5. US has more trials by Jury (which generally favors victims)

I am in no sense an expert in law, but I am an Actuary so I see more settlements than 99.9% of the population.

There is also the fact that, with 4.25% of the world's population, the US has 70% of the world's lawyers. The economists have a term for it: supplier-induced demand.

Marc801 C wrote:

If people are too stupid to not or forget clip in, they're probably too stupid to climb with.

I think everyone who has been around for a while knows one person, a safe, experienced, and totally solid person, who forgot to clip in once. It's not super common but the consequences are pretty severe.

It's a strange phenomenon, even understanding how it happens, it is still possible.

I suppose you or your friends have never made a mistake?

highaltitudeflatulentexpulsion wrote:

I suppose you or your friends have never made a mistake?

No, never something mission critical  like forgetting to clip in to an anchor. 

Artem Vasilyev wrote:

This is the kind of attitude that leads to complacency. How many people who have died because they didn't finish their knot also had this attitude that they are too smart to make a stupid mistake? If you think you are immune to stupid mistakes, then you are prone to stupid mistakes, imo. 

Hopefully this doesn't across as too big of a snap judgement (I don't want to make somebody feel bad unnecessarily), but I hate, hate, hate this perspective.

That's an overly simplistic way to think about "smart" versus "stupid".

Artem Vasilyev wrote:

If you think you are immune to stupid mistakes, then you are prone to stupid mistakes, imo.

Not immune - but take proactive measures *every single time* to insure a stupid mistake hasn't been made.

Lee Green wrote:

There is also the fact that, with 4.25% of the world's population, the US has 70% of the world's lawyers. The economists have a term for it: supplier-induced demand.

This makes it a bit of a chicken and the egg argument. What came first the lawyers or the laws? 

I was just pointing out that one day people didn't decide we should sue everything/everyone, the laws are in favor of suing. That the amount of litigation is not a proxy for America being less responsible society.

If we had the same legal environment as Europe, I doubt we would maintain our current level of litigation but we also would probably be above average.  

Lee Green wrote: 

There is also the fact that, with 4.25% of the world's population, the US has 70% of the world's lawyers. The economists have a term for it: supplier-induced demand.

Not likely. The US has approximately 1.3 million lawyers. India has 1.3 million as well, and China has over 400,000. Europe has more than a million. No idea how many lawyers there are in the rest of Asia, South and Central America, or Africa. So, the top end estimate would be that the US has no more than 30% of the world's lawyers.

Is that still too many lawyers? The principal driver appears to be the size of the economy (more developed countries have more lawyers per capita; the number of lawyers in China has nearly tripled over the past decade as the Chinese economy has grown). With about 25% of the world's economy, a US with 30% of the lawyers doesn't look so bad.

Another driver is the penal system. It's no surprise that the US, which prosecutes and imprisons at one of the highest rates in the world, has a lot of lawyers prosecuting and defending individuals accused of crimes.

As a final data point, the US is not even the most litigious country in the world:

In his book, “Exploring Global Landscapes of Litigation,” Christian Wollschlager notes that the litigation rates per 1,000 people shows that European nations top the list of the world’s most litigious countries. Here is a list of the top 5 most litigious countries by capita: 1. Germany: 123.2/1,000 2. Sweden: 111.2/1,000 3. Israel: 96.8/1,000 4. Austria: 95.9/1,000 5. U.S.: 74.5/1,000. The Top 10 also includes the UK (64.4); Denmark (62.5); Hungary (52.4); Portugal (40.7); and France (40.3).  

Zachary Ott wrote: Vertical Endeavors in the Minneapolis area has a whole set of silly rules.

• No headphones
• No bare feet anywhere unless you are changing in the locker room
• No climbing instruction whatsoever except by staff
• No taking off your shirt
• Everything MUST be stored in a locker or cubby
• No auto-belaying cracks
• "the Boulderer’s feet shall not pass above a height on the wall that is equivalent to the height of the shoulders of the Boulderer when standing on the floor"
• You've gotta be certified and over 18 to top out boulders

There are probably some more that I skimmed over or don't remember from the time that I climbed at their facilities.

Vertical Endeavours never even had any top out boulders in any of the Minnesota locations, but still have the rule lol. Also:

- No lead fall practice (unless you work there)
- No kids on fitness equiment under 16 (12 at Lifetime Fitness)
- Belay tests only on a tuber (Who doesn't love the thrill of that new lead belayer on a tuber?)
- No kids on campus boards or moonboard (they allowed it after we complained for a while lol)
- No camping on their parking lot (employees with van only)
- No Ohm allowed in the gym, but they sell it anyway?

I just cancelled my membership and switched to Bouldering Project. None of the nonsense anymore!

PRRose wrote:

Not likely. The US has approximately 1.3 million lawyers. India has 1.3 million as well, and China has over 400,000. Europe has more than a million. No idea how many lawyers there are in the rest of Asia, South and Central America, or Africa. So, the top end estimate would be that the US has no more than 30% of the world's lawyers.

Is that still too many lawyers? The principal driver appears to be the size of the economy (more developed countries have more lawyers per capita; the number of lawyers in China has nearly tripled over the past decade as the Chinese economy has grown). With about 25% of the world's economy, a US with 30% of the lawyers doesn't look so bad.

Another driver is the penal system. It's no surprise that the US, which prosecutes and imprisons at one of the highest rates in the world, has a lot of lawyers prosecuting and defending individuals accused of crimes.

As a final data point, the US is not even the most litigious country in the world:

Depends on how you count lawyers. By crude nose count the US is about 30%; by practicing, that's where the admittedly rough estimate (some countries don't prioritize gathering statistics) of 70% comes from. India has a lot of people with law degrees, not a lot of people practicing law.

Another way to look at the question of "too many" is % of GDP consumed in litigation. Again depending on how you count it, for the US it's anywhere from 1.66% to 2.3%. That is wildly out of line with any other nation, even with Israel (which has the highest per-capita number of lawyers). Even the conservative estimate is about three times the average in western Europe.

BTW, the claim that the US is 25% of the world's economy is also a how-you-count-it. The World Bank says 24%, the International Monetary Fund and OECD say 15%. Depends on whether you compare money using official exchange rates or estimated purchasing power, and where you allocate the $ of multinational corporations that do their best to obscure the origins of their $.

The US doesn't file the most suits per capita, as you point out. But again, how do you count? Those numbers change when you adjust for the fact that those other "high litigation" countries count things as lawsuits that we don't (e.g., every divorce, every auto accident; no such thing as no-fault, as many US states have). Even adjusting for that, the US isn't necessarily the highest though.

But no matter how you count it, litigation clearly distorts both the US economy and US business' behavior to a much greater extent than it does any other nation. When the Harvard Law Review compared the US to other countries, they found that the real difference in the US isn't "litigiousness" measured by the number of suits, but the unpredictability of outcomes. Other countries are quite standardized in how they assign liability, both sides know what to expect, and there are no "plaintiff's heaven" jurisdictions to cherry-pick. The incentive is to settle cases and the transaction costs are modest. The US is very different, so businesses have to cover their butts in ways those in other countries don't.

Ben Hc wrote:

Vertical Endeavours never even had any top out boulders in any of the Minnesota locations, but still have the rule lol. Also:

- No lead fall practice (unless you work there)
- No kids on fitness equiment under 16 (12 at Lifetime Fitness)
- Belay tests only on a tuber (Who doesn't love the thrill of that new lead belayer on a tuber?)
- No kids on campus boards or moonboard (they allowed it after we complained for a while lol)
- No camping on their parking lot (employees with van only)
- No Ohm allowed in the gym, but they sell it anyway?

I just cancelled my membership and switched to Bouldering Project. None of the nonsense anymore!

On the other hand I found a comment on their facebook from a guy saying this: 

"Safety and route setting has taken a back seat to everything else.
The staff does not monitor what is happening in the climbing areas. They run people through orientation and disappear. [...]
The routes being set are aimed at experienced climbers. Newer climbers starting out will be disappointed "

Sadly, some people would like you to hold their hand 24/7 I guess, so that's what this place is apparently (almost) providing :(

Skye Swoboda-Colberg wrote: How's this for some BS:

ATC is required for Top roping but not allowed for Lead belay.
Grigri is required for Lead belay but not allowed for Top Roping.

ATCs banned at Mesa Rim gyms for all climbing. They sell them but you can't use them there.

Marc801 C wrote:

Disclaimer: the rules *should* be common sense and not need to be codified, but... 

I've bolded the ones I agree with:

• No taking off your shirt - yeah, silly, but preferable for most people! Especially the ones that usually want to take off their shirt!

As long as the AC or normal indoor temp is cold. Otherwise people are dripping with sweat. And women can wear jog bras when men can't be shirtless.

If a size 50, XXXXL person can wear skintight leggings/lyrcra/tights or shirts, then a guy can go shirtless. Marc are you intimidated by shirtless men?

Can men wear a bra? I think I'd look good with one of those bras with the spider webby backs.

Darrell Cornick wrote:

Are you a real person or just an internet virus? There is no way a real person has this much time to waste. Are you 30, fat and live in your moms basement? 

Tradi is over 40, semi fit and has a family. The rest of your statement is true.

The gym I go to has 17m 45deg lead wall designed for comp climbing. Quite frequently when you take a fall you're left hanging in space. So bumping up on the rope is something you basically have to do all the time.

They recently implemented a policy to not 'boink' on the ropes. And they will call you out if you even think about 'boink'-ing.