Recreational sports deaths part 4

How about confiscation of the machine and a multi-year operating ban on the individual, for serious violations, combined with occasional spot checks by way of getting the message out?

Would that help?

Or do you have any other suggestions, especially when it comes to protecting innocent victims?

See, there's no problem without a solution. We just have to work at it. In some previous threads, some people have tried hard to argue that there's no problem - just adults making informed decisions and taking risks. If that were true, then we could simply close the discussion with congratulations all round.

There used to be lots of people (almost all of us) who drove unbuckled when seat belts weren't mandatory. How many people do you know who do that now? Driving unbuckled rarely hurts anyone except the idiots themselves. Likewise for wearing hard hats in industrial workplaces or construction sites. Likewise for wearing personal flotation devices. Yet, society no longer hesitates to promulgate rules and penalize offenders in these regards. So it must be for skiing, snowmobiling, swimming, mountain climbing, and yes, every other form of risky behaviour. We need society to be our nanny, because in some ways, we never grow up.

I opened this series of threads long ago to ask those more familiar with these activities than I am what could/should be done to reduce the injuries and fatalities. What do you recommend? You keep saying there's no enforcement - does that mean you think there should be enforcement? I'm having trouble reading you here. What about severe penalties (such as I recommended) combined with very occasional enforcement? Don't you think that will get the message across? I said people wear seat belts now. Do you think that's because of large-scale enforcement of seat belt usage?

I agree with Boom Boom.  For the most part, sledding does seem to be a safe way to get around in the winter and many people enjoy it as a form of recreation or transportation.  It seems over the top to bring in a whole pile of new regulations, and incur the costs associated with enforcing them, because of the actions of a relative few.  Mostly it seems there is a handful of inexperienced over-horse-powered Albertans that come out every year thinking that by virtue of money spent at the dealers they can dominate the BC mountainsides.  Every year some of the them die in the process.  It's kind of a Darwin thing.

Yes, but handing out tickets for helmet non-wearing is not the answer.

Before I read about the accident here in Transcona in which a pedestrian was killed in a city field, I did not know that licenses were not required to operate snowmobiles (in Manitoba). There is only an age restriction: no one under 14. And $200,000 third person liability insurance. This is inadequate.

I agree the stakes change when others get hurt by reckless use of snowmobiles. That's where the regs should focus. As for the drivers themselves - the subject of Unionist's earlier threads -- I don't care that much, although I agree protective gear should be mandated  if only to minimize health care costs arising from serious accidents.

Yes, I agree it's a bloody shame that tragic accidents happen - I wish snowmobile deaths could be eliminated altogether. Here, usually when there's a snowmobile death, it results from going on thin ice, which is what we suspected happened last month to an elderly man in St. Augustine. He and his skidoo vanished without a trace, which is why we think he went through the river. There was quite a search mounted, but haven't found any trace yet.

I had a scary episode about eleven years ago - I was skidooing from Harrington Harbour to Mutton Bay, and just before I got to Whalehead I noticed that the ice I was travelling on seemed to have a lot of water on top of it. I tried to turn arund, couldn't do it (I was pulling a heavy load) so I gunned my skidoo and made a run to Whalehead at top speed, skimming over the ice and water. I decided at that point that I'd be happy to retire and just use my skidoo for local trips. The winter last year because it was so mild made skidoo travel up and down the coast impossible - there was no snow on the trails. It's slightly better this year, but the trails being so rough are really, really hard on the skidoo track and skiis.

Three skiers buried in avalanche southwest of Smithers

Skidoos are part of the lifetsyle here and maybe that's why injuries and deaths are rare here. However, some years you hear of a skidoo going through the ice.   I should add that high performance skidoos are making their appearance here, usually by teenagers and young men. I think manufacturers should be prohibited from selling high performance skidoos except when made expressly for races and not to be used on the trails.

I thought you were made of stirner stuff.

Canadian skicross racer Nik Zoricic dies after crash

One snowmobiler killed, two rescued in B.C. backcountry avalanche

Snowmobiler killed in earlier avalanche

I hate to say it because our health care system is sort of 'why' I'm online as an NDPer to begin with, but I think if you don't follow regulations like "mandatory helmets' and are in an accident, we shouldn't be responsible as a collective for paying for all of your self inflicted woes. That goes for extreme sports too like downhill skiing, or louge, or professional hockey. I'm sure there are problems with this initial thought, but I fail to see why, when people 'are' educated by our public service (I took snowmobile lessons and had a certificate to operate one at 15 years old), why we should reward when people display 'careless disregard' for their own lives.

When is it appropriate, I suppose, for the collective to stand up for itself and say we're not paying to heal people who carry this propensity to say Fuck You to regulations (and more importantly education) designed to help them survive?

Maybe use a 'means test' to see what proportion of the health care bill they can pay?

There was a Canadian skiier killed in the US and her bills were 1/2 a million. Then her family asked other people to pay her bills. I thought, man, that takes a lot of chutzpah to ask others to pay for a self inflicted injury. And shouldn't she have had health insurance purchased by the corporations that sponsored her (e.g., Canada or whomever) - what's their role in paying that bill?

Smoking too, should be in this thread as a dangerous sport, just like Russian Roulette.

If I had to vote, I'd still vote to take care even of the Darwin Award candidates with health care. But I'm asking the question because I do resent paying for idiots who go out and wreak havoc on themselves against all the best information and fore knowledge, especially with machines that are all too often just toys for rich people. 1st nations excepted of course. A means test for fines too would be ok with me.

My reasoning is If you don't value your own life, why should I value it? Sniff, I think I smell like a Tory right now. I'm going to take a shower.

Yes, you do sound like a Tory.  I didn't realize that health care was a "reward" for carelessness.

These are the exact same arguments people use against obese people getting medical care for obesity-related illnesses, for alcoholics getting medical care for liver and other ailments caused by drink, for smokers getting cancer treatment, etc.  It's your own fault, so don't come crying to us taxpayers to pay for your medical care.

I agree. Most accidents are preventable at one point or another. And who gets to decide - geez!

Well, thank you for the critiques they make sense. And though my argument makes me smell like a Tory, there is still the uncomfortable fact that extreme sports are generally by the rich, for corporate profit, even sponsorship, they endanger regular folk and they cost the system plenty. You use punitive fines, but you don't have a fine solution that is fair - like how is $1000 fine a 'fair' fine for both a 1st nations trapper and a corporate CEO? It's not. So your ideas here have a whiff of Tory too - let's all inhale.

I would agree Unionist - take away the toys. That's a start. But if you're going to punish a rich person, please make it 'aversive' to the rich person (e.g., painful, like $10K max, determined by a judge) or don't even bother. That $100 stuff they spend on drinks at lunch. Oh and if you take away the toy from the 1st nations person that's removing what could be a means to make a living.

TP excellent point we all pay into the health care system, true enough.

Yes it is a judgement and I can see how we don't want our system to behave like was mentioned, like an insurance company.

I never said anything about fines. There have to be extremely clear regulations, safety procedures, and licencing requirements about operating snowmobiles, as for automobiles - or better in both cases. Then those who flout those regulations should be subject to suspension of their privileges and/or confiscation, depending on frequency and severity. Tell a rich dude they're not allowed to drive or snowmobile any more, and I think you'll get the message across without worrying about how big the fine needs to be in order to deter.

The need to use a vehicle for livelihood is already taken into account when it comes to applying sentences. But if someone flouts the law and endangers or injures others - or someone doesn't store or use weapons properly and someone gets injured or killed as a result - sympathy for livelihood decrease proportionally, no?

That's an incredibly irrelevant point. Health care, education, and other necessary social services are provided to all, whether they pay or not, and irrespective of how much they pay.

I get it, universality. Thank you. I stand corrected. Many folk can't pay into the system, but need health care. I have no quibble with that principle - it's a good ethical path I don't mind walking.

I just got off the phone with my contact the union rep, and he also remembers, like I do, the days when OHIP was deducted from payroll, and he didn't have too much time to talk but mentioned that their union has OHIP paid by the company. So having come from those olden days I am sure you can forgive me for thinking OHIP was something one 'paid into'. We don't treat non Canadians for free, do we, perhaps our implied social contract is the reason why. That's why the comment about everyone chipping in to the system struck a chord for me, I think reasonably so.

For example, if your OHIP card isn't up to date, you can and will be billed if you undergo procedures like CT - the implication is you're not a member of the insurance plan with an invalid card. Or if you're elderly and you use the ambulance or rely on hospital services when you can afford an old age home - hospitals can suggest adjustments to your behaviour and they very often do with the elderly. So surely we can target re-educating affluent people on snow machines on the costs of their behaviour. Or SUV users on their impacts on small car drivers. Or energy consumption. 

So paying into the system may be irrelevant, but if incredibly so, please tell me what I've missed.