Nearly 9,000 Skiers Answer a Big Question—Do You Use The Safety Bar?

“Chair #43. Lower your safety bar, or I will stop the lift.”

The lift attendant, who was abiding by the Vermont state law, was not messing around. When the teenagers riding the slow-moving double didn’t lower the bar by the second tower, the liftie slowed the lift to a halt. “Fine!” one of the teenagers called out. The safety bar came slamming down with a thud.

“Thank you!” the liftie called out with a sarcastic undertone and a roll of her eyes. The lift roared back to life, and I made sure to lower my bar before fixing my boot buckles or otherwise when skiing in Vermont from then on.

Conversely, skiers in the great state of California seem to view the chairlift safety bar as a nuisance. That could be because tourists are known to slam safety bars on the heads of unsuspecting locals without warning, but that stereotype wouldn’t exist if lowering the safety bar were “part of the culture” to begin with.

The majority of the POWDER staff thought our weekly poll, Do You Use the Safety Bar on Chairlifts?, would garner mixed results, but we were wrong. One answer, perhaps unsurprisingly to our East Coast, European, Australian, and New Zealand audience, dominated the rest.

Without further ado, here are the results. Keep reading for further analysis.

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Survey Results: Do You Use the Safety Bar on Chairlifts?

Poll Highlights—Do You Use the Safety Bar on Chairlifts?

• Total Votes: 8,767
• Number of Votes on Instagram: 2,661
• Number of Votes on Website: 6,106
• Most Popular Answer: Yes (69%)
• Least Popular Answer: Who Cares? (5%)
• Other results:
  No: 1,512 (17%)

  Not As Much as I Should: 762 (9%)

Poll Observations

• The overwhelming majority of skiers, nearly 70%, selected “Yes” that they use the safety bar on chairlifts, but this number seems inflated based on our experiences. Without more data, it’s hard to say what happened, but I have two theories: 1. A ton of people lied because they didn’t want to admit that they don’t use the bar as much as they should (ME!), 2. The poll was skewed towards East Coast skiers.
• Many of our comments shared horror stories to explain why they use the safety bar every time they ride a chairlift. They’re hard to argue with.
• It seems that footrests on chairlifts are a controversial topic. One commenter said he’ll only put the bar down, “If it has a footrest,” while another said “I dont mind the bar, it’s the footrest that caused problems. I can’t bend my knee that far…”. Perhaps we need a new poll dedicated to footrests.
• The overwhelming majority of skiers understand that using the safety bar is safer than not using the safety bar. Some prefer not to use it due to personal freedom gripes, but a lot of that can be chalked up to ego posturing. Sorry… too spicy?
• If you’re looking to read more comments on the subject, check out the original article here and the Instagram post here.
• Much to our European friends’ disbelief, some lifts in the United States do not have safety bars to this day. Yes, that’s right. In the year 2025, you can ride a ski lift free of any metal restraints or hindrances. It feels as freeing as it does dangerous. America.
• Whether you like to use the safety bar or not, can we all agree on two things? Hear me out:
  1. Any skier who would like to lower the bar will not be judged if they give an ample verbal warning or ask the other skiers if lowering the bar is okay BEFORE they begin to lower the bar.

  2. Any skier who would prefer that the bar not be lowered agrees to lowering the bar as long as the asking party follows Step #1.

  Kumbaya. Let’s all be friends and stay safe.

What We Could’ve Done Better

• We had some internal communication snafus regarding the timing and rollout of last week’s poll. We’ll dial it in this week.

About the POWDER Weekly Poll

We launch our weekly polls at 3 p.m. EST every Monday. They remain open until 12:00 p.m. EST the following Friday, with the results dropping on Sunday at 9 a.m. EST (schedule changes around holidays are possible). You can participate and see the results right here on our website or by visiting our Instagram page.