Daredevils, Rescues, Bonds, and Economics
Jack sent me the link to this YouTube video, showing a guy snowboarding down an amazingly steep mountain face after having been heli-lifted to the peak.
Terje's First Descent
I can't believe the guy actually made it down that slope without severely injuring himself. After watching the video, I began to wonder what would have happened if the snowboarder had needed to be rescued.
Are heli-skiers and snowboarders required to purchase rescue insurance or post a rescue bond? They should be. As members of a caring society, we would not likely leave an injured skier/snowboarder on the slopes because s/he didn't have enough money to pay for a rescue, so it makes sense to require that they buy insurance in advance; otherwise they have an incentive to externalize the rescue costs onto the rest of society.
I can't believe the guy actually made it down that slope without severely injuring himself. After watching the video, I began to wonder what would have happened if the snowboarder had needed to be rescued.
- How much would a rescue of an injured snowboarder cost?
- Are rescued heli-skiers/snowboarders required to indemnify their rescuers for all the costs?
- How are these costs determined?
- Are just direct/marginal costs calculated, or are rescuees expect to contribute toward the overhead costs as well?
Are heli-skiers and snowboarders required to purchase rescue insurance or post a rescue bond? They should be. As members of a caring society, we would not likely leave an injured skier/snowboarder on the slopes because s/he didn't have enough money to pay for a rescue, so it makes sense to require that they buy insurance in advance; otherwise they have an incentive to externalize the rescue costs onto the rest of society.
Category: Disasters, Economics, Sports Posted on
Thursday, December 7, 2006 at 11:11pm
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Coasties, cops, etc., die every year due to the reckless disregard some people have for pragmatic rules of safety, and the expectation that, when things go wrong, our best and bravest will be there to bail them out from the results of their stupidity.
My sis-in-law's suggestion is a very public "no heroic rescue" release form required by anybody who takes such unnecessary risks... To hell with dollar values of lives. Have them come back on their own, or not at all. Make it a real life-risking act.
(Sorry this is so long, but I've grown to like my SIL's perspective enough to promote it.)
When you buy a lift ticket at a small local hill like Boler Mountain, and compare it to the price of a ticket at a hill 7 times the size like blue mountain, the prices are not proportional. One could point to economies of scale, but i think likley it is the insurance policies these resorts take out. I doubt somehow that insurance companies care how long the hill is, the risk is likely very similar. The seemingly high price at a small hill is a reflection (i think) of insurance costs to that business. IT is also worth noting that these businesses have their own (paid in-kind) basic rescue and medical services in the form of ski patrol. So when riding at a private resort, i think your ticket price covers the external costs.
On public land, as many individuals requiring ambluance transportation due to their own foolishness have realized, you are often given a bill of $50 for your ride, depending on medical coverage. I expect that a ride in a rescue chopper has a similar deterrant. I would expect heli-skiing/snowboarding prices might include the costs of rescue transportation at least,since you pay noone to use the mountain, but pay for the transportation service to the top, the helicopter business might realize they are first in line for a law suit and therefore force insurance upon patrons.
In my 5 months out of school, i have been at the forefront and witnessed severe abuse of emergency services here in London Canada, as well as large private externalities to our buisness. They routinely go unpunished.
But perhaps we could look at emergency services as a large insurance policy themselves, into which we all pay with our tax dollars. In this case an injured snowboarder is merely making a claim against this insurance. Do we then need to post a bond? this would be a difficult question to answer as there is no signature bearing policy when you pay your taxes, telling you what coverage your taxes have afforded you. Perhaps there should be a national policy drafted on what "insurance" the crown gives you for your taxes. I think that if indiviudals were required to post a bond every time they went snowboarding, there would be a problem of over-deterance. On the extreme, would we find people too scared to leave their homes for fear of the costs of emergency service? Purchase of seperate insurance for snowboarding might lead to overdeterrence of the sport, which would be unfortunate and inefficient. Also i think that it would be impractical and unsuccessfull to try and inforce insurance upon someone snowboarding random mountains by private hellicopter. Who has the property right to that mountain? Surely only they can inforce the mandatory insurance if the helicopter and pilot are owned by the snowboarder/their employer or sponsors themselves
This leads me to another interesting thought. In the construciton business in Canada, when you do work on a property you have 45 days to lein that property for the value of your work and materials. If an injured snowboarder does not pay their air-ambulance bill, does the air-ambulance company, or the crown for that matter, have the right to lein the person? How could you lein a person? Is this the same thing as jail time?
That being said Snowboarders are fairly laid back and derive a great amount of disutility from having to argue things and make a big deal out of them. My guess is that most would simply pay a bill given to them.