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New Hampshire’s Bad Search and Rescue Policy May Be About to Get Even Worse
New Hampshire is one of the only states in the nation that regularly makes hikers it deems negligent pay for their own rescue. Now, legislators are considering suspending their driver's licenses if they don't pay. It's a dangerous policy, our editor says.
There are a lot of differing opinions about this charge for search and rescue. Defining negligence is a slippery slope in my opinion and to my knowledge there has been no reduction in SAR’s as a result.
If SAR is to cost prohibitive for NH maybe they should just stop offering rescues. Let private enterprise take over, heck if you need an ambulance either you or your insurance will have to pick up the bill. Car gets wrecked gotta pay the tow truck. Hey I hate insurance companies as much as the next guy but maybe I might check into getting a rider to my policy that covers hiking emergencies in NH.
"Climbing is about freedom. There's no prize money; there are no gold medals. The mountains are all about going there to do what you want to do. That's why I'll never tell anyone else how to climb. All I can say is, This is how I prefer to do it."
Ed Viesturs
I hope they don't take away my fishing license for that unpaid jaywalking ticket I got in Manchester last summer.
How in the world can they justify taking away your driver's license for not paying a civil judgment that has nothing at all to do with your car? Isn't the threat of referring the debt to a collection agency/ ruining your credit score enough? This makes zero sense to me. I would imagine no court in the world would go along with this if somebody challenged it.
This is sort of like the drinking and boating laws in Ontario. If you have a couple beers and then go paddling in your canoe (and are caught), you get a DUI on your drivers license.
I'm not sure if that law in universal in the US as well, but I can verify that it applies to NY and MI. FWIW you can also in rare cases get a DUI on a bicycle in many US states, although shockingly NY is not one of them.
I like New Hampshire's "attitude" myself. Who is responsible for "needing" rescue? I believe it would be the rescuee. Money is compensation for what others have done for you. Of course it can be scary when its a large rescue, but some compensation is in order, for the oops moment. I suppose people can't get past the possible cost when they go on their "free" hike, not that any hike involving gas consumption is a free hike.
Possible unpopular opinion here: I don't think NH's SAR rules are bad to begin with, nor do I think this makes it worse. To be completely honest I 100% support NY moving in the same direction and here's why...
First and foremost, NH only imposes the repayment of services when they find a victim to be willfully negligent. This doesn't happen very often. Most of NH's SAR's, while avoidable, are not determined to be willfully negligent. When a person commits an act so egregious that they actually invoke this penalty, they really only need to agree to an amount to repay to the state that is within reason of their economic situation in regards to the monetary value of resources that they absorbed. We're not talking about the state foreclosing on homes here. Secondly, having a driver's license is an earned privilege of the issuing state. There's way too much confusion nowadays over what constitutes a Right vs need vs want vs etc., and a state issued driver's license is in no universe a Right; its a state authorized privilege. So if you have the very rare occurrence where an SAR victim (and in this case I used the term victim very loosely) is actually charged for his/her rescue, and gives the state a complete "F you, I ain't payin'," then yeah go ahead and suspend that person's state issued driver's license until the person is willing to play nice with the state that issued the license and saved his/her life.
ADKJack I'm not sure if that was sarcasm or not on # 2, but I agree.
EDIT: one more point... before everyone rags on "well maybe if NH can't afford to pay..." don't forget that unlike NY, their state didn't extort $70B+ (Billion, with a B), in taxes and an additional ~$20B in excise fees out of their residents last year just to watch their infrastructure crumble in spite of it. While the Whites get some federal funding through some special allocations and grants, unlike the ADK their hikers really are getting a free lunch.
EDIT2: Major side note here... As others have pointed out, this article sucks as do many articles from Backpacker and far too many articles that fall under the umbrella ownership of Outside Inc. One of Outside's correspondents lives in Upstate NY and has been a very opinionated voice in trying to sway NY's "green" groups into initiating a blanket permit access process for the ADK. I'm not going to name this person for the sake of shaming them but I can anecdotally say that I once made the mistake of having a conversation with this person to very politely and gingerly offer an opposing POV to what they were suggesting, and was met with complete distain when I attempted to use actual cited data, both historic and contemporary. This person wanted nothing to do with pesky facts being used to counter their narrative.
My mind was wandering like the wild geese in the west.
I couldn't agree more. I think their policy is fair and I would be fully supportive to have something similar here. One should read up about the types of rescues SAR teams deal with in NH and who actually gets charged.
the headline speaks volumes for the quality of the publication.
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