Continuing O/T...

I am not sure what the answer is and don't pretend to know. But today I observed 2 boys about 12-14 years of age riding ATM vehicles through a residential neighborhood, loaded with tots playing in the streets. The speed limit is 25 mph. They were in excess of the speed limit. It is a common occurrence. A catastrophe waiting to happen. No license plates, It seems to me their parents are responsible. What happens if their ATM vehicle hits a toddler?

I suspect their parents think they are in the woodlands.

"Yes, he'd been out there in July when you could step across the brooks. And people have been out there in winter in hard-packed snow. But with these spring conditions, it was soft snow, it was deep snow," said Fish and Game Maj. Tim Acerno.

Mason, 17, of Halifax, Mass., had planned to spend one day hiking 17 miles in the New Hampshire mountains but ended up lost after he hurt his ankle and decided to take a shortcut. The shortcut led him into rising water and deep snow caused by unseasonably warm weather.

Mason was negligent in continuing up the mountain with an injury and veering off the marked path, Acerno said. Negligence, he said, is based on judging what a reasonable person would do in the same situation.

"When I twist my ankle, I turn around and come down. He kept going up," Acerno said.

"It was his negligence that led to him getting into that predicament," he said. "Once he was in that predicament, yes, that's what we praise him for - he used his Boy Scout skills, and that's why he's still alive."

Several states, including neighboring Maine and Vermont, have rescue repayment laws similar to New Hampshire, though others tend to be more lenient. In Washington state, a bill that would have created a reimbursement system with fines capped at $500 never even made it out of committee this year. In New Hampshire, however, lawmakers made it even easier to charge for rescues last year when they changed the law to allow fines for those who acted negligently instead of the harder to prove standard of recklessness.

New Hampshire officials have estimated that they could seek reimbursement in about 40 of the 140 or so rescues it typically handles each year. The money goes to the Fish and Game department's rescue fund. In most cases, hikers pay a few hundred dollars.

For the fiscal year that ended June 30, there were 131 missions that cost $175,320, Acerno said. He did not know how many of them resulted in fines.

New Hampshire is a conservative's dream with no state income tax and no sales tax (except on prepared food). None of that spreading the wealth around, right?

I would guess the law was enacted in part because those in need of rescue were disproportionately out of staters who had limited wilderness survival skills. Simply put, Granite State taxpayers got tired of footing the bill every time some city slicker got lost in the White Mountains.

If they had to borrow a helicopter from somewhere else, the tab could easily reach 25 grand. The family should be grateful the kid's alive (thanks to the rescue and his own survival skills).

The idea of possibly forcing parents into insolvency over a juvenile rescue or possibly denying a child a chance at a college education over his reckless decision making, by slapping him with a huge rescue services bill, makes government appear unseemly, and not what it was intended for.

Unless I incorrectly read New Hampshire law it appears there may be other problems as well.

TITLE XII

PUBLIC SAFETY AND WELFARE

CHAPTER 153-A

EMERGENCY MEDICAL AND TRAUMA SERVICES

Section 153-A:1

153-A:24 Responsibility for Public Agency Response Services. –

I. A person shall be liable for response expenses if, in the judgment of the court, such person:

(a) Negligently operates a motor vehicle, boat, off highway recreational vehicle, or aircraft while under the influence of an alcoholic beverage or controlled drug and thereby proximately causes any incident resulting in a public agency response;

(b) Takes another person or persons hostage or threatens to harm himself or another person, thereby proximately causing any incident resulting in an appropriate public agency response; or

(c) Recklessly or intentionally creates a situation requiring an emergency response.

II. A person's liability under this subdivision for response expenses shall not exceed $10,000 for any single public agency response incident.

Source. 1999, 345:6, eff. July 1, 1999.

153-A:25 Collections; Insurance. – The response expense shall be a debt owed by the person responsible and shall not be paid by an insurance company. The public agency which incurred the expense may collect the debt in the same manner as in the case of an obligation under a contract, expressed or implied. Public agency expenses may include reasonable attorney fees.

Source. 1999, 345:6, eff. July 1, 1999.

Clearly the child was negligent, but who else is negligent by ignoring their own law?

The idea of writing a law that excludes the payment of insurance is ridiculous and is unnecessarily punitive.

I hope this matter can be litigated down to an amount that everyone can live with and won't prevent juveniles from calling for help in the future if they need it.

I never heard of the State of Alaska, charging anything for rescuing one of their crab boats in incredibly dangerous ocean waters, why should this kid be any different in land locked New Hampshire?

Fairness---NH is charging people deemed negligent or reckless the actual amount spent on their rescue. No more, no less. So happens this dude's rescue cost a heckuva lot more than most. It's not like the government came up with some arbitrary number. So is that fair? No, not in the sense that fate has dealt him an unfair blow, but as far as I can see, NH is being consistent with its policy. You may want to argue that there should be a cap on what gets charged back (a fair argument, IMO), but then you'd be talking about using more government subsidy... Thus, the other posters' conclusion that you are arguing for bigger government, not against it.