Using iPods while skiing or snowboarding has been branded dangerous by one of Britain’s leading ski organisations. The Ski Club of Great Britain says that listening to music — often using clothing designed to house iPods and headphones — could be contributing to more accidents on the slopes.

Wearing headphones makes people less aware of their surroundings and more likely to collide with other people, it says. “It’s OK to listen to music on chairlifts and in queues, but not on pistes because you’ve got to keep your ears open,” said Fiona Sweetman, marketing manager at the Ski Club.

Several products with built-in earphones, wires and iPod pockets, some with sophisticated sleeve screens that allow people to change songs without opening jackets, have been put on the market in the past two ski seasons. Prices range from about £40 for a beanie hat with built-in headphones to £1,000 for a top-of-the-range Spyder “men’s limited-edition iPod jacket”, with a sleeve control panel. Some products, such as the Burton Audex Jacket (£399), allow people to connect phones and iPods, so that iPods pause when calls come through.

A spokesman for Burton said: “They come with a warning for people to listen only on lifts.” He said that most users are snowboarders, many inspired by the sight of Olympic competitors using them in the recent Winter Olympics.

He said: “If you are in a snowboard park, you are in a closed environment. In the Olympics it was like an advert for Apple, watching all of them drop in to do their runs.”

Details: Ski Club of Great Britain (www.skiclub.co.uk), Burton (www.burton.com), Ski and Rock (www.skiandrock.com) sells Spyder jackets.

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