If the waist buckle did come completely undone, the climber is still attached by their leg loops. On top rope this means just grabbing the rope to keep balanced. On lead, this might mean flipping upside down if you took a fall. You would then most likely be caught by the leg loops. If you have ever seen a beginner put on a harness, it is in fact very easy to get tangled up and stuck in the leg loops.

It would be a very unlucky climber that didn't double back their buckle, took a lead fall, had the waist come completely undone, flipped upside down, and slid out of the leg loops.

I doubt it often causes serious accidents. Here are my reasons:

The waist buckle doesn't take very much load normally, nothing close to what the rope does. The first thing to take any weight in a fall is the leg loop tie in point. The waist loop basically keeps you from flipping backwards.

Most harnesses have a doubled over stitching on the end of their strap that would jam up in the buckle as it slid through.

If the waist buckle did come completely undone, the climber is still attached by their leg loops. On top rope this means just grabbing the rope to keep balanced. On lead, this might mean flipping upside down if you took a fall. You would then most likely be caught by the leg loops. If you have ever seen a beginner put on a harness, it is in fact very easy to get tangled up and stuck in the leg loops.

It would be a very unlucky climber that didn't double back their buckle, took a lead fall, had the waist come completely undone, flipped upside down, and slid out of the leg loops.

I would tend to disagree.
I saw a harness come nearly undone because the person didn't doubled back the waist buckle correctly. It was on a Tyrolean traverse set up about 100 feet up. The person ran off the cliff to gain speed for zipping across and jumped into the void. There wasn't much of a drop and the harness did not experience a huge force - nothing anywhere near what you would expect from even a short leader fall. When the person made it back to the cliff, the harness only had about 1 inch of webbing still looped in the buckle. The rest (maybe 7 or 8 inches) had slipped through.
This person was a newbie climber. His harness had been checked earlier but no one did a pre-flight check on his gear before he lept. Turns out he had gone for a piss just before leaping off. He undid his harness and didn't double-back the waist buckle when he was done. It could have been really tragic.

At first I thought you were describing the opening scene to the movie "cliffhanger."

-Ian

its ease of use ... you still check the tie in and to make sure that the belt is tight ... its one less thing to screw up ...

is there any evidence the self lock/adjust buckles promote carelessness? ... numbers please

Seriously? Who do you think you are, JTfiveonetwo?

I have about as many numbers as you do, but I have heard/had this conversation with people before starting up a climb:
"you doubled back?"
*eye roll* "hard not to be!"

When you get this flippant response you have to wonder how seriously these people are taking things like harness double checks anymore.

serously? ... lol

you made a claim ... can you back it up?

"Also, it promotes people NOT to do a double check on themselves and their partner."

youve heard stories from some of the other members here that its happened ...

is everyone dying from it? ... nope

but if a simple device could help reduce the problem ... then its a good thing in my book

or maybe everyone is making it up ... hmmmmm

I have the R-320 and the self-locking (always doubled back) buckle is infintely better than the Petzl harness I had before it (Corax or Calidris).

Wow, you're a tool. Please see the post you quoted for my example of people not caring about harness checks.



BTW - you think one starring all your posts will have any benefit for my climbing?

I'm curious, I have the Petzl Corax and it's always double backed. What features of your new harness make it better?

On that note, I was outside having a chat on a ledge, and I had someone make a snide comment that my harness was a 'gym harness' and I was going to die...heh, some people make me chuckle.

Cheers

ls

Have you ever seen someone completely fall out of their harness on a fall because the leg and waist loops pulled through the buckle?

I gather from some of the responses that there are people prefering the non-speedbuckle <(Or what ever the name) harness.

Why?

It's faster to remove?? How many times a day do you remove your harness that it would make the slightest difference?