"J. Clarke" wrote

If people did not take risks, the funding by tax dollars would not be
needed. Having a town ambulance is one thing, having a full crew for
rescue on a mountain because some idiot wanted to ski in a blizzard or
jump off a cliff is another story.

You don't have that crew because some idiot wanted to ski in a blizzard or
jump off a cliff, you have that crew because in good weather with all the
training and skill and good judgment in the world, **** still happens.

But far less crew and expense is needed if people would stay on sensible ski
trails rather then be lifted by helicopter to ski down the side of a
mountain that is a know very high risk. If you want to take extreme risk,
go right ahead, but don't ask me to chip in and pay your rescue bills.



Make them pay into a mountain rescue
fund or have insurance. I'm willing to share in the everyday risk we all
encounter, but I'm not willing to pay for every daredevil that wants to
set a record.

So who pays when that crew goes and rescues the victims of a crashed
commercial airliner?

When you get on a commercial plane, the risk has been minimized as compared
to say, doing aerobatics over Mt. Everest. Sure there is always a risk
walking out the front door in the morning and we all pay for some
protection. We all don't do the extreme stuff though. Want to jump your
bike over the Grand Canyon? Go right ahead, just don't expect me to pay if
you go splat.




Fishing boats, pleasure boats are one thing, but a single boat setting
out for atypical sea is a different category. Put up a surety bond
payable to the country of rescue or a big insurance policy. Why should
the people of (fill in name of foreign country) have to pay tens of
thousands of dollars to rescue a kid from California that want to set a
records?

Over the last half century, how many kids wanting to set records have had
to be fished out of the ocean and how many fishing crews and freighter
crews and cruise-ship passengers have had to be fished out of the ocean?

It's not the teenagers trying to set records that are the big expense,
it's the people who are out there every day making a living.

Are we so poor as a society that we can't afford to pull one kid out of
the ocean every half century or so?

I don't know. Get some solid numbers and we can talk. Cruse ships take a
lot of precautions to avoid the "**** happens" moment but it still does.
When an individual sets out for a stunt, they know the risk and should be
willing to pay if they get into trouble.


And every boat is a "single boat" so how does being a "single boat"
change things?

Typical pleasure boating is done within a few miles of shore. Sport fishing
is done within 50 to 75 miles of shore. Coast Guard and state marine police
and rescue patrol that area. They can be to a trouble boat in short time in
most cases. That is different than the adventurer that is crossing the
ocean and gets into trouble 1500 miles from shore. Takes more resources to
go get him.