Tobogganing counts among one of the most popular winter sports – not only among children, but many adults and adventurers as well. Toboggans on professional runs can exceed the speed of 70 km/h. However, many toboggan runs have technical problems affecting their safety as a recent test by ADAC showed.
The European automobile club ADAC (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club) announced the results of their test of 30 toboggan runs in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. The findings are striking. Many of the tested runs face problems with safety, a third of them failed completely.
Among the resorts that reached the best marks were the runs in Zell am See (Austria), which achieved the “good” mark. “Sufficient” runs can be found in Stubaital (Austria), Kirchenberg (Austria), Steiermark and Salzburg. Thanks to its safety conditions the runs in Montafon (Austria) were assessed as “very poor”.
The loser of the test is Grinderwald in Switzerland. The toboggan run crosses skiing slopes, roads and railway with no proper protection. On the other side, the best run can be found in the Italian Rosskopf; resorts in Bad Hindelang and Oberwiesental, both in Germany, also achieved very good results, reported Traveller-Online.at.
The researchers tested toboggan runs in the most popular tourist resorts in Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Italy. The test comprised an assessment by the researchers on the spot and a questionnaire filled out by the resort owners.
As the results show there is much space for improvement regarding toboggan conditions in the Alpine countries. Austria however is currently working on changing the unflattering state of the runs. The Austrian and Tyrolean Toboggan Associations have been discussing the issue with the owners of the resorts emphasizing the importance of safe toboggan runs.
