File this under, sad irony or faulty studies. Either way, it's been a bad month for snowboarding fatalities. And regardless of the results of the safety study, at least in the U.S., in the past 10 years, a National Ski Areas Association report said that snowboard injuries have more than doubled, from 3.37 to 6.97 verified injuries per thousand visits. NSAA statistics showed that the rates of ski injuries have declined by 50 percent in the past 30 years (source SF Gate). Granted more kids snowboarding and more out of bounds riding is happening, but still numbers are not heading in the right direction. All but one of the snowboarders that died this month were between the ages of 15 and 29 and were skiing off the runs according to Tom Stienstra's article in SF Gate referenced above. That's also a pretty consistent stat for both ski and snowboard deaths. Anyway, read the article but more importantly, be safe out there kids.