Dragon wrote: ↑Those two lost hikers should have to pay for their rescue since they only ended up in that situation due to their negligence. I don't agree with sticking the tax payers with the cost of this easily avoidable accident.
Not that it's my opinion but if you were to relate that to other things like say a "person that fell asleep at the wheel of their car" then they too should be made to foot the bill (for as you say negligence - driving while tired is in it's own way just a negligent as they may cross over the highway and kill someone else) and if they knew that then if they woke up and no one was around they might not call for help knowing that they would have to pay for the services. I know, I know you going to say that's not the same thing, I agree, but it's the principal behind it or the theory behind it.
What most people don't put together is that "services like fire, police, county ambulances" are hugely expensive operations for the "whole" of them. If we were all made to pay for the "individual" help and they tallied the cost of each of our "rescues" in car accidents, our house on fire, etc... we'd all be poor and wouldn't call for the help we need or might hesitate which will cost lives, it's been shown time and again that this does happen.
We see the big number of dollars for that one rescue and we freak out, but if you were to split that number into cost per person for the county that's $160,000/3,055,745 or about 5.24 cents per person.
Once again yes I think they should be found liable to some extent, but if we all had to pay individually for those things that go wrong in our lives, when we make mistakes it would be way to cost prohibitive individually. I think it more important for these two individuals to be required to do some community service for the folks that saved their lives, or be required to go into schools and speak to children about what they did wrong, re-enforce how irresponsible they were and teach others not to make that same mistake.
The whole point being that if people were to be found responsible for any of their mistakes (left a pot of boiling water on the stove, fell asleep, house caught on fire, five alarm fire, neighbors house catches on fire, drove too many hours, feel asleep, drove off the highway hit a power line that came down caught the forest on fire, was out hunting and tripped on a rock shot gun went off hit a rock started a forest fire) do any of these sound familiar, weird but they happen and it is fair to put the total bill for these things on the person that it happened too (trust me I'm not sticking up for these two individuals, I think they showed that you can go to school to get a college education and still not have "common sense"). Then when it came time for asking for help people would refrain from doing so and more individuals would die, plain and simple, ask any SAR individual about why someone waited to call for help and 9 out of 10 people that think like this will tell you that it's because they thought they were going to be charged for the rescue.
We know in the case of the car accidents and house accidents that a good portion of it will be covered by insurance, but not the county and police help, we pay for that in city/county taxes (which if you look at if from the perspective of what it really is "it's insurance" of a different kind. We expect to be covered (Helped) if something goes wrong. We've all done something unless we live in a shell/bubble that required police, fire, ambulance to help us (where I grew up most ambulances were part of the county, that's changed in the recent years, gone private).
What I personally would like to see is that those silly "Adventure Passes" have a portion go towards a special rescue insurance, one that could offset the costs for the county or the governing body that handled the rescue. Me personally, I would pay an extra $5 a year to get more people involved in rescues, even pay them instead of it being all volunteers, remember that all of the SAR guys are "volunteers" can you image the price had they been paid?
I would rather have people that know the wilderness come looking for me, be at the command posts, be in complete control of the rescue operation, (this is not bagging on the people involved) but 9 out of ten times the first responders are not folks that have experience in the wilderness themselves (exception for me is the folks flying around they don't need to be) and they take control because they are required to and a lot of money/man hours are wasted (I've been there when one was going on and they outright lied to me about how they were proceeding with the search). This is just my humble opinion but how is it that it took four days to find someone less than half a mile from the command posts? That part is still baffling to me, regardless of how thick it was in there, it sure would have ended quickly with a simple whistle.
These two individuals showed complete lack of common sense, lack of knowledge of the wilderness, and just bad judgement all the way around. But like most of us they are human and made a mistake that set the ball rolling that put others at risk, to me that's the criminal part, the cost of the rescue as stated is shared by all of us in a society where we all agree to pay for services that were designed to help us when we make mistakes large or small we've all made them. We don't all put in the same amount (we are taxed at different rates) and we surely don't all use the services equally but isn't that understood when we live in a society that has these services set up to be of maximum service to all of us?
I for one as stated would love to see "community service" be the punishment and not a fiscal punishment. There's something to be said about "humility gained" by doing for others when one has made a gross under estimation of something that put others at risk.
I'm not the best writer but I think you'll all get the point - burning these two at the skate (by making them pay for something that they never will be able to afford) will not stop them from making mistakes that require police/fire/rescue again, nor will it stop you from doing the same. Having them do community service "like work doing the food preparations or serving people during another rescue, or something similar" might just make them think twice before they go on another adventure without thinking it all the way through.
Just my two cents
If you're on top, you're not lost 
