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National Park Service Says Tech Is Enabling Stupidity
theodp writes "The National Park Service is finding technology to be a double-edged sword. While new technologies can and do save lives, the NPS is also finding that unseasoned hikers and campers are now boldly going where they never would have gone before, counting on cellphones, GPS, and SPOT devices to bail them out if they get into trouble. Last fall, a group of hikers in the Grand Canyon called in rescue helicopters three times by pressing the emergency button on their satellite location device. When rangers arrived the second time, the hikers complained that their water supply tasted salty. 'Because of having that electronic device, people have an expectation that they can do something stupid and be rescued,' said a spokeswoman for Grand Teton National Park. 'Every once in a while we get a call from someone who has gone to the top of a peak, the weather has turned and they are confused about how to get down and they want someone to personally escort them. The answer is that you are up there for the night.'"
A bill for a helicopter may not cure stupidity, but it will reduce its ability to afford to go there the next year.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I really don't get articles like this; of course tech can provide some new versions of the same old store; but the fundamentals still hold true - some people are just going to go through life stupidly, trusting that someone else will bail them out. You want an answer; hold them accountable for their actions. For the idjits with the Salty Water; fine them the Rangers time, the fuel in the vehicles, plus a 10K punitive fine.
Start charging a fee for services. Set the rates make sure they are known in advance. Outsource to a private company to provide the service (can't have emergency personnel tied up on a catering run). Done and done
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Every hiking party should leave a deposit before the hike that should be enough to cover search and rescue expenses.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
It's inevitable that geo-technology and *gasp* geo-equipped apps on cellphones, are going to make this all but even worse in the coming years or decade. IMHO, I don't think you ever get away from that battle unless you harbor legislation that gives them more than a handbook-rule judgement when to or not to help someone when stupidity has reared its ugly head into the matter.
I am all for doing exactly what was quoted in the article: telling them they should have been more prepared and leaving that person out in the bush for the night to figure it out in the morning. However, we know the outcome of that: a bear chews their face off and NFS has a pile of lawsuits on their hands for claims of being negligent in the face of danger, no matter how insignificant the event called it was. Which also means more tax dollars tied up in court on top of calling out the rescue helicopters and NFS commandos.
It's not the tech that makes people stupid, it's stupid people using it that causes problems. GPS, SPOT and etc... are all great tools for use by campers, hikers, biker's and more. When you give these tools to people who don't have a clue then you going to have a situation where helicopters and rangers are getting called. There is nothing wrong with grabbing a map and a compass and going out on a hike, but with the advancement in tools to help us navigate more effectivily, who really wants to take an old school map with them. I support GPS and all the other tools fully, I think the problem this post points out is that when stupid people are given simple tools they find away to cause problems for everyone else.
This is not a new problem. In the area I live, there are plenty of mountains that, while looking outwardly benign, kill a number of people (experienced or not) each year. Because of their proximity to a number of major cities, relatively short hikes to the summit (day trips), and extremely changeable weather (70 F and sunny to zero visibility, freezing temperatures, and gale-force winds in an hour), lots of inexperienced hikers get way in over their heads.
Their recourse? Not to plan carefully and accordingly. Not to travel with more experienced and better-equipped friends or guides. Not to heed the signs at treeline warning of the numerous weather-related dangers. Not to stick to less dangerous ascents in the region. Not to bag it when the weather turns sour. Nope, just whip out the cellphone and call in a rescue.
It's one thing if you take a fall due to dumb luck, it's another thing to get soaked, freezing, and lost due to, well, being dumb.
It did get bad enough that the state legislature passed a law a number of years back that, if you need rescue because you were stupid or inadequately prepared for the hike, you can get charged for the rescue costs. This is typically upwards of a few tens out thousands of dollars.
Situation when rescue could be easily performed (there is technology), but the issue is about the money is a significant plot component in a beloved childhood Robert Sheckley story:
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b93297/Prospectors-Special/Robert-Sheckley/?si=0
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
The leader was issued a citation for creating hazardous conditions in the parks.
Also, your reasoning that this is the 'same old story' doesn't work when this evidence is presented to you
The group’s leader had hiked the Grand Canyon once before, but the other man had little backpacking experience. Rangers reported that the leader told them that without the device, "we would have never attempted this hike."
Emphasis mine. If the National Park Service claims this is increasing their encounters with such idiots then this isn't the 'same old story.' As technology is further exacerbating the age old idiot complex.
My work here is dung.
A lot of these devices seem to prevent planning in general, even for little things. If you had to look up an address and stare at a map ahead of time to know where you were going, then you'd think of other things in the process. Now you can just hop in your car, type what you want in to your phone (e.g. bike shop), and follow its directions. Maybe you'll end up where you want, but people who do that often seem to be unprepared. And I've seen people doing that get lost in the process -- those directions aren't perfect, and if you don't have some general idea of where you're going, its still easy to make wrong turns. (Dedicated GPS devices are better, but not perfect, and I've heard that their sales are down due to smartphones).
Of course, it's not like in the old days everyone planned ahead and knew where they were and where they were going at all times. My family was big on planning routes, always having maps, and knowing how to read them. This is clearly not the case for many people I have met. I still think technology isn't helping.
Only Socialists think it is stupid to want to get something for your money. For what I am paying in taxes they should be life-flighting me filet mignon and caviar every half hour.
I blame the net for increasing the number of perverts too! Certainly it's created more pedophiles than there ever were before. I know it's made more criminals, just look at all the people getting ripped off now!
...world's gone to hell with all this technology. It wasn't like this back in the good ol' day.
Are really doing more silly things or is it just that they call in because they can. Would the same group of idiots just looked on the map for another spring, or decided that the water was only slightly salty if they had no means of contacting help. Would the people on the mountain found their way down without help? I can remember seeing idiots on mountains years ago, including a woman in high healed shoes about a mile onto a track up Snowdon. She probably gave up after another mile and walked back with wore feet, but today she might have summoned rescue services.
I was going to write a clever response to this article, but I'm having too much trouble finding the Slashdot automatic clever response generator. Can you guys send over someone from tech support to help me?
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
I don't hike, but common sense tells me that if you're hiking or camping deep into isolated territory and are depending on GPS that depends on cell towers (i.e. most cellular GPS technology), you probably haven't done your homework and are highly likely to get into trouble.
Stupid people do stupid things.
Ten years ago when I was hiking in Glacier National Park, we heard a whistle. Now back then a whistle was something you used to summon help. My friend and I hurried down the trail looking for whoever was in trouble. It turned out it was a stupid lady with her two small children making sure that the bears were scared away. Nothing has really changed with people, their whistle can just be heard at even greater distances. Park rangers have the ability to issue tickets for this sort of behavior, no reason they shouldn't.
If I had been one of the rangers, those idiots wouldn't have had the device to use a third time. "Sorry, you can't have this. We're going now."
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
One simple solution is to make it clear that if you activate an emergency beacon or request 911 assistance, you _WILL_ be taken back to park facilities. If you read TFA, you'll see that most of the complaints are regarding people requesting guides or supplies, but not wanting to cut their trip short. (The other accounts are of morons with digital cameras, who are no different than morons with film cameras, and seem to be used simply to fill out the article.)
In short, one rescue per trip. You can go out, but if we need to come get you, you can't go out again. (Exceptions could be made for animal attacks or physical injuries.)
This is a very simple problem to solve. Arrest the hikers for making false emergency calls. Fire the Rangers for getting duped the *third* time.
Stupidity is nature's way of culling the dead wood. Mountains are there for a reason, and idiot climbers are proof that the gene pool can fix itself - but they aren't there for long, so admire nature at work before they tumble down!
While technology may add to the miriad ways in which people can be stupid, there have always been accidents and deaths in wild places because people have gone there unprepared. People die in the Scottish mountains every year. I've been told a big problem is people driving a long way to get there, and despite the weather closing, deciding they really must climb Ben Nevis or whatever because they've only got the three days there, even though their expertise and kit is only good enough for fair weather. This is when the Mountain Rescue gets a call out and find people have got injured / hypothermia / died. GPS or no GPS you shouldn't go up a mountain in training shoes and the kind of clothes you go to the shops in, but people still do....
In the USA, Christopher McCandless didn't need tech to make bad decisions either. Please be careful out there folks, you can die if you are unprepared.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. - Douglas Adams (1952-2001)
load "$",8,1
Here's an idea. Require anyone who wants to go up the mountain to carry insurance sufficient to cover the cost of rescue. Then let the insurance company work out how much to charge people based on how much experience and preparedness they can demonstrate.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
GPS devices and such are just sticks in the wheels of mother nature. On one hand its good that more people discover nature and get a feel for it but somehow i dont think idiots like these people get the point.
HTTP/1.1 400
Emphasis mine. If the National Park Service claims this is increasing their encounters with such idiots then this isn't the 'same old story.' As technology is further exacerbating the age old idiot complex.
It IS still the same old story, just with slightly different actors and tech:
"Without technical climbing gear that we don't know how to use, we'd never have attempted the climb"
"Without the new railroad to get us to Glacier National Park, we'd never have attempted the climb"
"Without the invention of fire, we'd never have attempted to fight that saber toothed tiger"
Same old same old about stupid people wasting the time of the brave/helpful people.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
So they're basically dealing with the "I have winter tires so I can stop quickly on the ice" logic.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
The park service itself has put technology to good use in countering the occasional unruliness of visitors. Last summer, several men who thought they had managed to urinate undetected into the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone were surprised to be confronted by rangers shortly after their stunt. It turns out that the park had installed a 24-hour camera so people could experience Old Faithful’s majesty online. Viewers spotted the men in action and called to alert the park.
I hope (for the park's sake) that the camera was duly announced...
Personally, I'd hate becoming caught on tape slinging a banana skin on a national monument after picnic...
We rescue these morons.
Honestly, Evolution is getting reversed because we save the "stupid" from getting killed. The news covers the death of a moron as "a tragedy" instead of , "and there's at least another idiot we dont have to deal with anymore"
Our society encourages Stupidity because the risk of death is reduced or removed. Let these idiots die, leave their bodies there as a warning to others.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Clarification - citation is not the same as a fine. If I get a traffic ticket for $1000, I certainly take it more serious than a $80 one,. As for the other comment; well, I doubt that you can reasonably hang that amount of risk on a single device as indictment of technology.
With GPS and autopilots, the same sort stuff happens also at the sea. I heard of a Finnish couple misprogramming their GPS, and following its directions carefully the whole day. When it announced that they had arrived, they had no idea where they were. Turns out they had been going west all day, instead of east, so they were pretty far from their home... They also had to call rescue, tell their precise coordinated, but admit that they had no idea where they were... Even worse are those speedboats that go on gps-autopilot exactly on the middle lane of the waterway without looking for other traffic. When two such boats meet, the results can be deadly...
If I'm willing to take X amount of OVERALL risk without technology, and I have a tool that reduces my overall risk, I'm still willing to take X amount of OVERALL risk.
I'm willing to climb a 45-degree craggy rock without a rope. I'm not willing to do 50-meter sheer inclines even with good toe-holds. Give me a rope and an assistant and I'm willing to take the now-greatly-reduced risk to do sheer inclines for the payoff of the thrill and bragging rights.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm in Eastern Canada but do a lot of hiking in Maine, near Katahdin. Baxter State Park has a notice on their website specifically telling people to not use services like Tom Tom to find the park, or they will get completely lost or spend tons of time driving around for no good reason.
http://www.baxterstateparkauthority.com/
I was bitten by Google Maps a few years ago when I was trying to find a small inlet to get into a trailhead. Google Maps gave me driving directions that ultimately had me crossing a channel on a ferry to an island I really had no business going to. Well, at least the banjo sounded nice.
No. Stupidity enables Stupidity.
blaming tech for stupid people doing stupid things is well......stupid
Ever since the advent of the cell phone this problem has been around. As a volunteer firefighter we are called out quite often for false alarms because people don't take the time to think before they dial. A couple of examples: Call for jumper on overpass on the highway turned out to be a photographer on the train tracks. (Another death of curosity effect) and smoke coming from a dry cleaners building in the winter (AKA Steam)
Isn't the obvious solution just to stop rescuing people?
If rescue services for people who can't handle the wilderness are too much of a drain on public reasorces, maybe we should stop going to such grate lengths to recue people.
When I was in Boy Scouts as a kid, we had to learn to read topographical maps and use a compass. Maybe we had a cell phone, maybe not. hand-held GPS was kind of expensive and not particularly advanced. Besides, GPS needs batteries and adds weight.
Hiking with a map and compass and no "please, come get me!" beacon is like programming in C or Assembler. You're closer to the metal and have to have a deeper understanding of what you're actually doing. Going out with GPS is like jumping right in with a language like Ruby which makes things really easy at first... until the first time you forget to properly define a base case for a recursive function and hit a stack error message.
The tools are great, but are always going to work way better for people who understand the basic principles of what's being automated for them, and have some "old school" experience to fall back on when necessary. Easy tools that take all the hard work out of a lot of necessary tasks lead to a false sense of security.
As with programming, where high-level, dynamic languages make it much easier for people who might otherwise not take the time to learn to program do so, going "here's a GPS... and this rescue beacon!" encourages people who probably don't really want to learn how to tie proper knots go out in the woods, get themselves in way over their head, and then basically hit that stack error. But, never having had to address memory by hand, they don't really know what that means or what to do about it.
I go hiking fairly regularly, and I don't even own any of that stuff. You can get USGS topo quads easily enough, and a good compass. Sturdy boots, balanced pack, and my leatherman. Carry enough water and some spare granola bars in case I get out farther than I had really planned. If I'm in the woods, its 'cause I don't want to be attached to the computer anymore. But maybe thats because I work surrounded by them all day.
Having a 4x4 simply means being able to get stuck further from the pavement.
Or even worse.
"I have anti-lock brakes so I can travel closer to the vehicle in front of me because I can stop faster", logic.
The truth is, anti-lock brakes typically provide longer braking distance than capable by really good drivers and good road surfaces. Of course, that means for the average driver its better; especially when you consider most drivers are inattentive.
This, of course, ignores that anti-lock brakes require proper use (maximum pressure) to obtain maximum braking potential and that the majority of Americans still don't know how to use their brakes properly.
Making this all worse, all too often SUV/truck owners incorrectly believe that their anti-lock brakes dramatically reduce their braking distance, far below what would otherwise be possible, an so now travel closer than they would otherwise. Meaning, they are causing more accidents and because they are driving SUV/trucks, the accidents are more serious.
But I digress...
Seriously. By frivolously calling because your water tastes bad, you're potentially drawing rescue personnel away from a real rescue. Somebody could _die_ either rescuing your sorry ass, or somebody in a real emergency could die because the rescue crews were dealing with you. Maybe a few days in jail would help you think about it.
DISCLAIMER: I sometimes go to remote places and I take my son with me. But I always assess the risk, I'll always be prepared with food and for bad weather and I will always have my options ready for leaving the operation.
A higher frequency of people paying for being rescued means a growing economy and possibly lower prices on the whole. Good for the mountain people I'd say.
But by God, I think couldn't stand the embarrassment of being rescued for frivolity on my part. I mean, what example would I set for my son? Son, as long as you have money it's OK to be an idiot.
The possibly huge amounts of money changing hands would be a lesser issue.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Believe it or not, the answer to this is MORE technology. Once we have the ability to make (cheap, easy) phone calls from these remote places, the morons can talk to rescue personnel, whom can then tell them to just deal with the salty water - and not waste any time on the actual rescue.
>When rangers arrived the second time, the hikers complained that their water supply tasted salty.
Isn't there a law about abusing emergency services?
These people should have been given a helicopter ride to the nearest police station and booked.
If they didn't have the technology they still would have climbed the mountain. But perhaps instead of dialing for help they would have tried to travel back themselves and died or injured themselves. They would be found four days later after reported missing costing more than the personal guide to escort them down.
I've never camped but I'd never trust GPS as the only means of navigation. I'd at least learn how to read a map & compass and bring those as a backup. You never know if it'll get dunked in water, batteries will run out, or just plain drop and crack it on some hard surface.
Well, must be some pretty big news.
Beyond costs, should they also be liable for manslaughter or something similar if their needs are frivolous and others with more genuine needs can't access the services?
would to be to let the case of a few idiots render the devices useless. Or to make out that helicopter rides cost $10MM when they really cost a few 1000s.
The stories of brave rangers rescuing people from ugly conditions are undoubtedly true in some cases, but not in the case of a balmy day when someone has brackish water.
Nullius in verba
Well, you can;t commercialize resue actions or you have to open up that market. Then a smart outfit will hand out free sattelite phones for rent during the hike and resue for much less. The cost of public funded rescue are bloated, makes no sense to ues that as a deterrent, and once you start doing that where is the moral line (poor hikers die?)
I am 50ish and pilot. I learned to fly when I was 17 flew for a bit (10 years ish), then had a family. I then decided to return to flying. I went back for some more training. The differences.
1st time: My instructor was an OLD WWII vet. A mean cuss that ALWAYS was trying to get me lost. I live in Central Alberta where land marks are few, its flat, and water lines can vary greatly from the charts. We used a map covered in wax paper, a pencil with 1" marks cut in to it and a watch. I never did get lost.
2nd time (25 yrs later): Modern aircraft, Cessna 172 instead of the 1947 fleet canuck. GPS as well as compass. Instruct must have been all of 6 or 7 (really about 25ish). Nice young kid, good skilled pilot. We went up for a refresher check out flight. Did a stall, spin, slow flight etc. (Oh yeah, he did smile at my knee board with the wax paper and pencil). At the end of the flight he said lets head for home and I banked the aircraft while he punched in the coords on the GPS. By the time he was done, I was already on the heading. He was mildly impressed.
We went for coffee and discussed the differences in our training. We both admitted that I could use some more training using the GPS. However he offered his time in trade get some more experience with my flight computer (plastic slide rule for headings and wind for the non pilots) and knee board. He recognized that if he ever did loose his GPS for what ever reason, a manual system might be good to know.
I look at all of the technology available to today's hikers, boaters (I have my skippers papers too), and pilots that forget about the mark I computer sitting on our shoulders. It provides a false sense of security. Everything is fine in the perfect scenario, but for many of these adventures, emergencies arise, not because of a real act of god but a lack of planning. When diving we say "Plan the dive, dive the plan". This should be applied to all "adventures" but we live in a society where the quick adventure is what we are after and fewer a learning how to plan and be prepared. We are quick to pass on the responsibility to technology or experts, knowing that we can sue if they fail.
The only answer I can see is passing on the expenses of rescues to the rescuees. Legit or otherwise. Might be a good thing to take out adventure insurance... The more training you have, the less the insurance would be...
A bill for a helicopter may not cure stupidity, but it will reduce its ability to afford to go there the next year.
The bill for a helicopter ride may not cure stupidity, but it will reduce its ability to cause another helicopter rescue trip far away from home... ...if the stupid person has no funds to go on vacation somewhere else, they will still manage to get themselves in the same trouble in a nearby park / hiking 'facility' / inadvertent stupidity proving grounds...
No matter how broke the poor idiot may be - you cannot take away his means to hike about (unless he loses the use of his legs in one of his stupid episodes).
Hell, I watch Survivorman. I can do it with just a multi-tool. Beat that.
Actually, the NPS has dealt with this before. A lot. For a series of examples of REALLY stupid people, go check out Death in Yellowstone. Here's the oblig Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Death-Yellowstone-Accidents-Foolhardiness-National/dp/1570980217
My wife picked this up when we were there on our Honeymoon (there, Grand Teton, and RMNP). There are countless examples of reeeeeally stupid people. The lady who fed a black bear and got her t*ts ripped off when the bear used her as an accidental scratching post? Check. The guy who jumped into the boiling hot geothermal pool to save his dog and his skin fell off after he got out? Check. The countless people who go hiking through grizzly country, forget to wear bear bells, don't take pepper spray with them, don't walk and talk loudly with a partner, and keep their smelly food in an unsealed cooler inside their tent not only get themselves et, but get bears killed too, whose only crime was responding to instinct (okay, okay... there are plenty of examples of bears gone wild who attacked when people did everything right, and just have to be put down).
Accidents happen, and the tech is there for a reason. There are also plenty of cases where natural selection does its job. The NPS isn't going to stop every case of natural selection, simply because it can't. They'll try, because the park rangers do NOT want anyone to die on their watch. They deal with stupidity a lot, but they're not going to let someone die just because they didn't know what they were doing. It's exasperating to them, I'm sure, but they are dedicated to saving lives and preventing injuries.
I see a lot of knee jerk responses about charging EVERYONE for using emergency services or making it some type of crime to be calling emergency services.
We all pay for the park service to be alert in case something goes wrong. It's their job to provide help. Just, because some people abuse the service, doesn't mean you should mess it up for everyone.
It doesn't matter what technology you provide or don't provide, stupid people will do stupid things and end up being a cost to society. If we didn't have SPOT, someone idiot will bring flares and "accidentally" set a forest fire while signaling for help. You simply have to allocate for stupidity. If you try to make the world idiot proof, then we'll all be living in misery.
Rational thinking people would consider the effects of kinetic energy and conservation of energy. I.e. if you get that big ass SUV up to 60 km/h its going to take quite a bit longer to go back to rest than a little Toyota at the same speed. It does not take an educated person to understand this, as it should be learned from day to day experiences.Try stopping a shopping cart full of groceries and then an empty shopping cart when someone pushes it at you. Which one is harder to stop?
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
I don't think that most drivers even know they have ABS and I doubt that it much affects their driving. Which is to say that 20 or 30% of them drive like idiots whether they have ABS or not.
But you are correct. Ever since these expensive, ineffective, systems first started appearing on cars, insurance companies have been telling us that accident statistics for ABS equipped vehicles are virtually identical with similar/identical cars without ABS. Doesn't matter. It sounds good and people -- even those who should know better -- just assume that ABS prevents or moderates accidents. Whereas for the most part all it actually does is increase vehicle purchase and maintenance costs.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
I'm guess that, at least with national parks, you have to get some sort of permit to even get inside. During the application process let people know in no uncertain terms that doing patently stupid things or frivolously calling for help will get them a stiff fine.
If it works great.
If not, the park service has nothing to cry about, they just found a new revenue source like the municipalities that station cops to give tickets to people going 30 mph on a 25 mph side street.
All studies and research on the matter show you're completely wrong!
ABS is frequently (less so today) pushed as a selling point. To suggest people don't know about something which is frequently pushed as a selling point is ignorance to say the least. Not to mention, is completely contrary to just about all research on the subject.
Rational thinking
While I agree your thinking is rational, unfortunately, its pure fiction. All studies I've read about the subject, and there have been many, support exactly what I told you. People are worse drivers because they believe their safety features allow them to drive more recklessly and still remain safer. Completely irrational and dumb, yet completely true.
Statistically, the accident rate *should* be something like half or less what it is. Yet despite that, the accident rate continues to rise because humans, being dumb, irrational, beings, find ways to cancel out risk adverse features. The reality is, humans are dumb, ignorant, and highly irrational. Anyone who says otherwise, is contradicting just about all science on the subject and likely falls within one or more of the classifications I provided.
There is a truth about the old cliche, "When you create something idiot-proof, nature will create a better idiot."
How many truely "poor" people have a GPS+cellphone or a SPOT device. I could see possibly the cellphone because it's fairly useful/important for job-seekers, etc, but a SPOT (device cost+yearly subscription) or a GPS?
Nah, these are just pampered idiots with too many fancy toys and not enough common sense. Up here in Canada they do charge you the cost of dispatching emergency services if you use your SPOT etc without a real emergency.
Here in Arizona, there is no fee to those that we rescue. We're all volunteers with the exception of DPS Ranger. SPOT beacons have saved several people's lives in the last couple of years. The first in the county was a guy who slipped off the edge of a steep trail and broke both ankles. Luke AFB got the first ping in 45 minutes. That's a damn sight better than waiting an unknown number of hours before someone notices that the subject is missing. Cellphones also help us direct ground units to the subject. That being said, SAR teams do not rescue peoples' vehicles and we have gotten into shouting matches with people from Phoenix who got stuck in the snow and are stunned that we will take them to safety but they're going to have to arrange for a paid tow service to get their vehicle out.
That being said, the NPS is somewhat hypocritical about things. First off, in Yellowstone, there is no cellphone service in most of the park despite what the movie 2012 would have you believe. Second, I have witnessed the ancient diesel noisy belching shuttle buses at the Grand Canyon blow right past people on the side of the road who may be injured or in trouble simply because they weren't standing at a designated pick up point.
Furthermore, technology isn't the only thing that can get people into trouble. The US Forest Service often doesn't maintain roads that appear on published maps and GPS databases as good roads so people end up in trouble. And then there are the outdoor magazines. We had a rescue here of a man who read an article that said you should hike up one trail and bushwhack over to another trail to come out. Really really bad idea if you don't know what you're doing.
How many times in the past had someone said "Damn, I wish there was a way to call for help out here" when they're stranded in the wilderness? Now that we have Sat phones, they _can_ call. Sure, there might be a few more people venturing places they shouldn't because they think the phone is an Aegis, but if they're in over their heads, it's your job to help them, Ranger. You don't just get to contemplate your navel in a watch tower. Every new electronic device we add to our lives gives us a new way to burn our houses down, but you don't hear Firemen whining.
It's unfortunate how people can apparently avoid a Darwin Award thanks to technology. The gene pool is unfortunately and obviously affected by this issue. I fear for the future...
Darwin awards are not for garden variety stupidity, but rather for the extraordinary "my god that was absolutely moronic" variety that can ONLY end in death or self-castration.
Yeah, the most common one here is I have 4wd so I can drive like an idiot even when the road is an ice rink. My last ski trip last year, i70 was a complete mess. I watched 4 separate cars speed by the line of cars driving safely in the slow lane. All 4 of those cars ended up in snow banks off the side of the road. One almost hit me as he lost control and slid across my lane of traffic and off the road into a snow bank. Fun times!
This argument (backcountry communications causes more problems than it will solve) was hashed out many times (with me as one of the participants) in rec.backcountry 20 years ago. I still feel strongly that I'd rather have universal communications over the globe for everyone at reasonable cost and we will sort out downsides later. When you or a friend/family member are the one with a difficult to treat medical condition in the backcountry, you will most likely want it too. Satellite bandwidth is expensive and high bit rates to satellites take a lot of power, so for me, I'd rather have small handsets that can send ~1 kpbs packet messages and use text and (perhaps a few pictures if there is a medical situation).
The story references people who press a single button asking for a rescue. Well anyone can see this is never going to work well. Rescuers need to be able to communicate with the backcountry party to determine if a rescue situation is really necessary, or if simply giving directions (for a small fee perhaps) will suffice. They can even give the price of the rescue over the device if they are trying to discourage the particular rescue. I personally feel that if a party does nothing stupid, and gets hit by something unexpected in the backcountry that a rescue should just be part of the overall expense of universal health care, but I understand many people will feel differently. But it really bugged me in the past to have people argue against technology in the first place. Given this is Slashdot, I don't expect to see that much of this type of argument. For sure, we need better technology than one button rescue devices.
I'm a long time back country camper and hiker (meaning I carry my own tent/bag etc on my back). One of my favorite routes in Yosemite is to take a route in which I camp at the base of halfdome and then finish in the valley. The best part is that I don't encounter the crowds until I'm 75% done.
The last 25% is along the main tail between half-dome and the valley. This passes by the major water falls which people do a simple day hike to. While most people doing a day hike to half dome start at dark, I've seen more than my share of "dumb hikers" who are dressed in jeans/doc martins/sneakers or other non-hiking apparel and in their hand was a bottle of water (the kind you get for a few bucks at the supermarket, not a camelbak and ample supplies). I think they only see the pictures of the cables and forget that it's 14miles miles round trip and 5k feet of elevation gain.
I've had more than one occasion where some unprepared day hiker has asked me for water/food/help. I had one woman ask me for water and I when I told her that the water that I had in my camelbak was filtered (I have a portable pump/filter) from a local stream, she refused to take it.
I agree with the article, GPS and electronics haven't made people more stupid, the devices have enabled more stupid people to do things whereby they are critically dependent on the device. I never hike without a paper map. Why? Maps don't need batteries, and still work when wet and dirty.
On a side note, people that leave food in their cars in Yosemite should not only be fined, but they themselves should be fed to the bears.
Every hiking party should leave a deposit before the hike that should be enough to cover search and rescue expenses.
In Colorado you can get a http://dola.colorado.gov/dlg/fa/sar/sar_purchase.html>CORSAR card, which is very cheap but covers the cost of search and rescue if you need it (not medical transport). So basically, when you buy said card you are putting down a deposit...
Thus serious (or even semi-serious) hikers can be covered for costs, while you just bill anyone else who needs them - I think that plan works out pretty well as it will keep the people making novice mistakes from making them again if they have to pay.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is no way you are going to tell that story wrong and let it pass.
The costs of search and rescue are shared by nations with large coasts. American Coast Guard rescues any and all in our waters for the same treatment most places in the world. Now, how much do you and I pay? My estimation is you spend way, way more on Starbucks and/or Soda in the course of a year than you do on funding marine search and rescue.
Woefully unprepared? "day with winds up to 60 knots and seas 20-25 feet." I don't care who you are, no one is "prepared" to deal with that situation.
Woefully unprepared? She survived 60 knot winds and 20-25 foot swells on her own, BOAT MOSTLY INTACT. I'd say that's prepared.
Woefully unprepared? "Abby has all of the equipment on board to survive a crisis situation like this. She has a dry suit, survival suit, life raft, and ditch bag with emergency supplies. If she can keep warm and hang on, help will be there as soon as possible. Wild Eyes is designed for travel in the Southern Ocean and is equipped with 5 air-tight bulkheads to keep her buoyant in the event of major hull damage. It is built to Category 0 standards and is designed to self-right in the event of capsize."
Woefully unprepared? No way. As much as slashdotters complain about the kids on their lawn and "lost generations" here's TWO (her brother too) that are out learning, doing and dealing with the outcome.
Your heckling from the cheap (uninformed) seats is not welcome.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I live in Colorado where there are SAR incidents all the time. Most of the SAR organizations oppose mandatory rescue charges, because people will call in too late then. They will more likely to be injured and rescuing may be more difficult and costly.
Generally the only time a victim may be charged if there is a criminal aspect to the incident. For example its a crime ot ski out out of bounds (and this is well signed). Some ski resort workers did so a couple of winters ago, caused an avalanche, the hid out in the backcountry for a couple days to evade authorities. In the meant SAR spent sigificant resources looking for victims witnesses thought they saw. The judge slapped full SAR costs on these people as a part of their fine.
We didn't get from some stupid ape-like creatures to where we are today by putting great effort into saving the stupid so they can reproduce. If you believe science has the best answers on where we come from then you can't deny that the smart reproducing in larger numbers was important and should to some degree be respected today. As opposed to the other extreme where we save everybody from themselves to the point where a terminally ill person can't pull their own plug.
If people DIE from doing stupid things then others hear about it and become more careful; those that do not have the "common sense" end up dead either way.
Perhaps the impact of such social policies are becoming noticeable in that common sense seems less common today?? (or maybe just in the media where these people get too much airtime. Stupid seems to be more entertaining... and to be informative is less profitable.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Put them on Youtube and let Dennis Miller do voice over to explain how stupid they are. The ranger station can have a "Best Of" section for climbers to view before hand.
Technology can provide excellent Darwinian assistance to our species.
I recommend that someone contact the "Darwin Awards" folks and ask them why ain't there an annual "Darwin Technology Award" for the technology that helps the mentally and emotionally few give their lives, so that many of their species may survive.
"Darwin Awards" for the heroes' that give their life to purify the human gnome.
I remember a KKK youth in the 1950's was putting percussion caps on a loaded civil war revolver resting with the barrel down in his lap and inducing eunuch-syndrome. He should have gotten a "Darwin Awards" and the "Darwin Technology Award" would have gone to the handguns, specifically the civil war revolver for using percussion-caps.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
When they came out - the Map and Compass made explorers much bolder than they where before. How bold of an explorer would you be without them? There are an unknown number of people using the new technology without needing rescue. Take away all the tools and many people would only explore the lint in their belly bottons. (some of those can still get lost)
If that argument works why shouldn't we also let other even stupider species go extinct? There are quite a number of species we are trying to save whose extinction would have very little impact on our long term survival. Why bother then? Why not "Let them die" as you say?
Say it turns out you are stupider than I am, should I bother helping you if you are ever in trouble due to your stupidity? If we take such view on things, would the resulting civilisation itself be worth much? Would it even be considered a civilisation?
A strong and fit civilisation can afford to be gentle and generous to many. A weak and ailing one cannot.
"Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong."- Leo Buscaglia
Maybe if someone does something really stupid/reckless, they lose their right to vote for 4 years (it gets automatically restored after that). If they keep doing stuff like that, they keep losing their right to vote. Would that be an acceptable compromise? Slippery slope to an oligarchy? Lesser evil in the long term?
Sounds like the emergency beacons have a major design flaw. When you can force something as expensive and dangerous as a SAR operation at the push of a button you can be 100% guaranteed that it will be misused. Even the simplest of two-way communications ability would allow rescuers to determine if SAR is actually needed.
I never wrote that maps are better than GPS -- I wrote that they _required_ some amount of planning, and that planning is good. If you use GPS and you plan ahead (and carry a map as a backup) then you're probably better off than someone who just uses maps and plans ahead. Likewise, someone with a map who plans ahead is quite possibly better off than someone who has GPS and doesn't plan ahead (which is easy to do, because GPS doesn't require planning ahead).
Also, how exactly does a map lock you in to one route? I'm not talking preprinted direction from google; I'm talking about real maps. If you think a map locks you in to one route, then you don't know how to read one.
I was doing some lite day hiking in the RMNP just west of Loveland, CO a few weeks ago. There's a nice hike that is labeled as 0.9 mi to Alberta Falls. Sounds easy enough - less than 20 minutes of walking .... er ... no. My group arrived at the parking lot at 7am and started our hike - we went to Jewel Lake and had lunch - 3 miles further. Anyway, on the way back down, I saw the masses just starting out around noon and 95 degF. Most of them were the normal fat Americans - like I am. I can't get the image of the sumo wrestler looking guy headed up the mtn carrying 2 cans of Coke. I drank over 48 oz of water that day, in the morning. In the higher temps of the afternoon, I would have drank 2x that, easily.
Anyway, the 0.9 mi hike takes about an hour each way and is rather strenuous for most non-hikers. Walking a mile on flat land is very different than hiking up the side of a mountain for a mile.
...very simple. He upholds the basic principles of his country. Compassion is not one of them: "Give us your poor, your sick and your weak, and we'll charge hell out of them before sending them back to certain death."
Health care should not be "affordable", whatever that means. It should be obtainable when necessary -equally to anyoneand everyone. Basic human rights etc, etc. Getting economic principles involved in a good with no price elasticity -one cannot say "no" to necessary medical treatment or shop around- constitutes a crime against humanity, imho. But all I ever say is IMHO, IMHO.
I must be stupid. Aren't the Rangers and National Park Service in general rather underfunded? So they got $10,000 beyond their normal day they wouldn't get. To talk and scold some stupid hikers that can't tell the difference between water and water with sweat from their faces mixed in.
And this stupidity seems to happen with spaced regularity.
Good for them. What's the park service complaining about? They were pulled away from hauling a barrel of diesel to the transmitter tower in preparation for winter?
Or are they shocked they have to deal with dumb people?
The only problem I see is if they diverted them from a real emergency, and I'm not seeing that here. Even then, the service probably has discretion and little liability if they don't help too, so again, not see why they are complaining.
Or have park rangers gone the way of the community police officer, pissed he got pulled away from his powdered donut because you were speeding 8mph over the limit?
At the current price of a rescue, we should just make people that want a timely rescue purchase (or rent) a satellite phone.
The technology exists today, it's (relatively) cheap when compared to the price of a remote mountain rescue. If you think a rental business is out of the question, just look at the airport kiosk where you rent a dvd player to watch on a plane (they have you credit card number of course). Handsets are curently run about $1000 and the airtime costs about $3/min. You can already rent them for about $50/month. So you could probably make a day-trip rental business at the mouth of the grand canyon out of it for say $20 if you wanted to about the same price as the DVD player airport rental market.
Why isn't this a viable business today?
Well, it's because "tech is enabling stupidity". The same people you'd think should rent the phone to keep them out of trouple are actually too stupid to rent the phone because they don't understand how technology works.
So the answer is definitely NOT more tech. We already have enough tech to get stupid people into trouble, why add more tech to the mix?
We can't accurately assess so many things in life, how are we going to accurately assess hiking risk?
The answer is we aren't going to accurately assess hiking risk, insurance will milk the experienced, conscientious hikers for higher premiums to cover the ones that forget to check their water bottles prior to the hike.
The worst bit about this is that the bears are often NOT responding to instinct.
They are often responding to YEARS of abusive treatment by ignorant park visitors, who have carelessly TRAINED the bears that. . . people have food. Go hang out around people, they'll feed you to get a good photo (because a bag of pretzels is cheaper than a good telephoto lens). Or if you terrorize people, they'll give you food to leave them alone. Or, if you just head down to the trailhead at night, where the cars are parked, there's often food inside the cars, just rip em open and eat!
Nowhere (it seems) is this more readily apparent than at Yosemite, where they have a special squad of horseback rangers, whose job it is to find bears in areas frequented by humans, and chase them off with paintball guns loaded with pepper balls, or shotguns with beanbag rounds.
It's incredibly unfortunate - that the California Grizzly, depicted on the State Flag, is actually extinct, due to human hunting and habitat degradation. Black bears remain. But a few more California Grizzly attacks would probably dispel the "rumor" that bears are friendly and safe if you bribe them with food, and maybe park visitors would stop being douchebags.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
To the many suggesting the full costs of the rescue should be charged to anyone who calls, does that mean the caller has a right to expect a PROPORTIONAL response? If someone says they're lost and need to be guided out and the park service responds with 2 helos and a full paramedic crew, should they be allowed to protest that one guide on a dirtbike is all they should have to pay for?
At the same time, I can sympathize with wanting some cut-off point. For example, using a rescue device to ring for "room service" is clearly out of bounds to any reasonable person.
A huge benefit to ABS is being able to steer while braking. Without it, you can steer or you can slow down, but if you try both in low enough traction conditions you're looking at a spin.
What about rethinking how visitors experience a park, determining the right places to put casual visitor's areas, where to put easy 1-3 mile walks for sightseeing, and then perhaps putting a ranger station near the start of the most rugged sections and asking those continuing on to demonstrate that they have the necessary supplies.
Been hiking, backpacking for 20+ years and still don't have a GPS and leave my phone at home. I'd like to get a GPS soon though. Seems like it would be a great tool for somebody who already knows how to use a compass and maps. Overall people should be confident they can rely on themselves. It's a great feeling to overcome obstacles and know you did it.
If they trigger their SPOT device on purpose, they get extracted NO MATTER WHAT THE CALL WAS FOR. This avoids repeat calls, and reinforces the gravity of triggering the alarm.
And send them the bill for a non-emergency extraction. They probably get one anyways, but make good and sure.
Coddling is what we are doing when we let the morons misuse technology. A better lesson to chopper them off the trail and waste their vacation than to let them run the rangers out a few times while someone is actually in danger.
Gits.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
While you're at it get 'Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite', I read it during my stay there over the summer and it will give you chills.
Mostly about people falling off the cliffs or going over the falls trying to get that 'perfect photo'.
http://www.amazon.com/Off-Wall-Yosemite-Michael-Ghiglieri/dp/0970097360/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282587916&sr=1-1
Some of the ones that got me were when the woman was taking a picture of her boyfriend by the Nevada Falls and he slipped on the rocks falling into the river, the girlfriend not knowing any better jumps in to try to get him and they both end up going over the Nevada Falls (600ft to the bottom).
The young guys who think they can tough it out in the weather and try to go for Half Dome in a thunderstorm, only to try to seek shelter on the side rocks and than be struck and killed by lightning.
Most people are completely unprepared with respect to the amount of water needed.
That's because it depends on where you hike. Often in the UK the problem is not lack of water but rather too much, coming at you horizontally, as you stroll across the Pennines trying to avoid sinking up to your neck in a peat bog. I grew up in Yorkshire and it was amazing the number of times you'd hear about school trips, mainly form the south, having to be rescued from the tops of the Pennines because they had brought clothes more appropriate for a stroll along a beach.
So I never understood why all the info I'd heard about US hiking went on and on about taking enough water until I went on a truly spectacular day hike in Yosemite and realized that the heat and low humidity make a huge difference. The problem is filtering out the sensible advice from all the insanely over cautious "now you can't sue me" type of advice that you are bombarded with. Even the NPS is guilty of this - go to Carlsbad caverns and you'll be given a severe talking to and several warnings if you try to walk down - in the event it is a smooth, tarmac path a few km long presenting absolutely zero challenge other than low levels of illumination...but to hear them talk you'd have thought we'd signed up to scale Everest.
Don't get me wrong, I honestly think ABS is awesome!
Its just that so many people incorrectly believe that ABS always makes them super human. The reality is, in some niche conditions, ABS is far, far more dangerous than a competent, attentive driver. ABS can actually place you into a spin in the right conditions. Likewise, expert drivers can frequently brake in shorter distances, even in turns. But honestly, how many expert drivers do you know? I consider myself to be an advanced driver. I'm hard pressed to match ABS performance in a sports car, but have occasionally done so. I personally know no expert drivers. Using my self as an example, either though I can occasionally beat high end ABS w/traction control, consistency is not there. I fully expect an expert can do a lot better. And of course, there are certainly no end of conditions where ABS can do far better then even an expert driver.
Now lets look at the other end of the spectrum; bad to average drivers. For these people, assuming they can even use such a powerful and simple feature, it can make a huge difference, especially when applying heavy brakes in a turn.
Again, its not that I dislike ABS, its just most people don't understand them and contrary to popular myth, you're not superhuman just because your vehicle is equipped.
A lot of these devices seem to prevent planning in general, even for little things.
They do not prevent they just reduce the amount required. This is typical of most technology. A hundred years ago taking a transatlantic trip required a huge amount of planning and was a month or longer proposition. Now you can book a flight online and catch it the following day (usually at a premium price though!) to just about anywhere in the world.
I still think technology isn't helping.
I disagree. Stupid people will always do stupid things with or without technology...it is just that technology affords them the chance to find new, innovative ways to be stupid. If these people are being stupid in a National Park then they are not being stupid somewhere else so while the problem may have shifted to the NPS rangers presumably the police are dealing with fewer daft emergency calls.
Agreed - and like other posts have mentioned, give people ABS and they just drive faster/closer.
The conversation was just focused on stopping distances so I thought I'd try to get steering on the radar. Having tried to both maneuver around an obstacle while slowing down on a skid pad with and without ABS, it's amazing the difference it makes in terms of being able to maintain control of the vehicle.
They do not prevent they just reduce the amount required...
Agreed, but I see the amount of planning decreasing disproportionately -- some planning is still required but often none is done. That why it "seem to prevent planning".
I disagree. Stupid people will always do stupid things with or without technology...it is just that technology affords them the chance to find new, innovative ways to be stupid.
Truth be told, I'm less concerned about stupid people than the otherwise smart people I see doing stupid things. GPSs aren't the only example. Before we had cell phones, if you wanted to meet up with friends somewhere in the city, you named a place and a time, and if someone wasn't there, nothing could be done. So smart people found ways to make it happen. Nowadays, cell phones allow you to wing-it, which often means a drawn out process of rounding everyone up. Because winging-it has a lower up front cost, a lot of people prefer it -- even otherwise smart ones. I just ends up in a mess half the time.
The _perceived_ change in up front costs is what makes these types of technology different.
Well, my point was not that people are rational, its that they are not rational. Hence the reason I say that rational thinking people WOULD do what I said in opposition to what the original post said about people in cars (which I do believe is more common). Just today, it rained in Houston, and because people fail to anticipate that they need more room to stop due to less traction there were already several accidents near my house. Unfortunately I firmly believe you are right. It seems that people get lazier both in their thought processes and activities the further that technology progresses. Im sure I am guilty of irrational behavior as well, but it tends to be more on the side of over-cautiousness.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
My error. You ARE the original poster. Basically I agree with you.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
It's not stupidity. It's ability. Technology is enabling people to do things that weren't safe before. Stupidity would be doing those things before said technology.
So, if I ever do so, I better pull the plug and sink my own boat and let the insurance pay?
Given that even in hunting season, there aren't enough fish and game officers to check more than a small fraction of the deer tags, just how would you enforce this?
I've taken groups into Northern Saskatchewan on canoe trips for over 30 years, and have NEVER met any kind of Lands officer outside of an office, This included a trip where we spent two weeks dodging forest fires, changing our route 3 times. (Not a serious problem -- the Churchill river country has a lOT of lakes.) Every couple of days we would phone into the local forestry office (gotta love sat phones) reported our present position, got threat estimates of the 14 fires in the area, and let them know where we were going. They were agreeable with our strategy.
The only interested incident was when a large fire jumped the line. We were having lunch at Grand Marais rapids when the sky got a lot darker, and ash began to fall. We cut lunch short, finished the portage, and got on the water. The portage burned 3 hours later.
I suppose you could enforce like they do vehicle insurance. Loss of vehicle and 10,000 fines for being found without insurance. (By contrast having an unregistered vehicle is a $150 fine.)
Since the vast majority of people in the back country take care of themselves a better system would be something like this:
The first time you need rescue you pay $xx dollars per month until the cost of rescue is paid off, or forever. If it happens again, you are billed the full amount up front, driving you into bankruptcy if needed.
Third Career: Tree Farmer Second Career: Computer Geek First Career: Teacher, Outdoor Instructor, Photographer.