BRITISH skiers have been warned to expect harsh penalties for taking to the piste while under the influence of alcohol when they return to the slopes on the Continent next winter.

A sharp rise in the number of accidents has driven officials at Europe’s most popular resorts to consider draconian measures to restore order.

Many blame booze-fuelled Britons for causing downhill mayhem. Breathalysers and speed cameras, already available in the United States, are likely to be introduced in Italy, Austria and France.

On-the-spot fines are being considered and local authorities face stiff financial penalties for failing to enforce safety measures.

In Italy, the head of the police Alpine training school said that curbs on “excessive drinking on the ski slopes” were overdue. Alvaro de Palma, who trains Italy’s Olympic skiing team as well as mountain rescue police at Moena in Trentino, said that the problem was “becoming serious. It’s become quite the fashion to bomb down the slopes in a drunken state.”

Signor de Palma said that 311 skiers and snowboarders had been fined in the resort of Trentino, where his training school is located, this season.

Many offences related to drinking, he said. “One shot of grappa or whisky after lunch is one thing, but if you have a lot of grappa you lose control,” he said. “It is just as dangerous as being drunk while driving.”

A spokesman for SAI, an Italian insurance company, said that accident figures on the slopes last year had been “like the casualty figures from a small war”, with 13,252 injuries — 1,800 more than the year before — and 17 deaths.

Regulations to make Italian ski slopes safer will come into force next January. Local authorities can be fined up to €200,000 (about £140,000) for failing to enforce the rules, which include separate slopes for skiers and snowboarders, a measure brought in after a skier was killed in a collision with a snowboarder at Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomites.

The new laws oblige children under 14 to wear crash helmets, with a fine of €150 for those who fail to comply. Off piste skiers will have to carry a “personal beacon” so that they can be traced if they get lost, and a “priority from the right” rule will be introduced.

In Austria, which attracts 10 million skiers each year, resorts are deploying piste police. Austria’s accident prevention association estimated that almost 100,000 skiers and snowboarders are hurt each year, with some 80,000 needing hospital treatment.

At least 30 people have been killed on Austrian slopes this year.

Walter Thur, a ski instructor and piste policemen in Salzburg, said: “It’s a bit like the Wild West, the slopes are full of cowboys pelting along at high speed, and it’s almost totally lawless as almost everyone ignores the rules. A piste police force is the only way forward."

Herr Thur added: “It’s about time this happened. I heard some people joking to me about having radar speed traps on the slopes and numberplates on skiers, but I say why not, its nothing less than one expects on the roads, so why not on the slopes as well?”

French police and tourist officials said that Britons were notorious for drinking. Serve Gau, a restaurant manager at Courchevel, said: “Foreigners drink much more than the French. Especially the English.

“I would say that they put away twice the amount of the French or the Spaniards. Sometimes it seems a lot to us and the women drink as much as the men.”

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