These days if you invoke an emergency response through the Police then it triggers a whole new system where you'll almost certainly not pay... whether it's because ACC's footing the bill for an accident or because it's absorbed by some other part of the government, although you also leave it to the Police to make a decision as to whether it's an emergency based on the info they have -- if you press an EPIRB button it'll probably be considered an emergency unless there's clear reason not to do so. Police have discretion to charge but they almost never do (possibly never have) because of the flip-side argument that it might discourage people in genuine need requesting a rescue. People can also be prosecuted after the event for wasting police time. I've heard people say that if you're calling in about an accident they you should avoid explicitly asking for a helicopter and leave it to the Police on the other end to make that decision, but I'm not sure how much of that is paranoia.
The Wimpy Media Trio fiasco at Barker Hut a few years ago demonstrated the first case really well. Three people were stuck in Barker Hut behind a flooded, trying to radio for a helicopter which wasn't sent because of the zoning. Then they started claiming it was an emergency because they'd eaten all their food and they'd still be happy to pay for the chopper, but DoC and the police refused to agree and so still refused to send one, despite the real-time media coverage of The Press at the time, which was fanned by the radio operator who gave them interviews with the stranded people and was initially very sensationally negative against the lack of emergency response. You can read Graeme Kates' comprehensive write-up about this at http://www.softrock.co.nz/mg/index.php?page=99 (I put together a bunch of links to the media stories at the time at http://www.windy.gen.nz/?p=86 )
If a rescue response is invoked independently without the Police being involved, someone can apparently still try to charge you but I think it's a gray area. There was a case in late 2009 where some kayakers were "rescued" from a flooded river by a helicopter urgently sent up to look for them by the harbourmaster of the Queenstown Lakes District Council, after an empty kayak was seen floating down the river. They claimed they hadn't need rescuing, but were offered a ride and took it, but were later presented with a bill from the council which they staunchly refused to pay. (I wrote it up with some more links at http://www.windy.gen.nz/?p=424 ) The initial media was very one-sided and really only quoted the council's public relations people, but I can sympathise. According to a comment from one of their partners if you scroll to the end of that page, it was going into small claims court in early 2010, but I never heard how it came out. I'd be surprised if they'd have been forced to pay.
(I'll bring the discussion from http://tramper.co.nz/?view=topic&id=1693 back over to this thread... seems to fit here more.)
It's hit the media again after someone else got lost in the Kapakapanui Triangle: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/6308663/Police-see-risks-in-charging-for-rescues
** Police see risks in charging for rescues **
"Police have no plans to bill trampers for the cost of search and rescue callouts because they do not want to deter them from calling for help."
[...]
It seems to be at least the second time since December 20th that journalists have asked if rescues should be charged for.
if they keep asking it will come
I think we need to "educate" some reporters
Yep, it seems to be some populist knee-jerk way of thinking which probably sells newspapers.
The idea that reporters today are very well educated is a silly one. Even simple things like spelling and grammar long went out the window. Many today can't even string together a proper sentence. I think today they are being encouraged to speak before thinking.
reflects a general lowering of the standard of education,
a lot of university graduates have substandard grammar and spelling.
perhaps growing up with spelling and grammar checkers and not bothering to double check it yourself...
people navigation skills are also deteriorating, a gps can do it all for you... until the batteries run out...
mate of mine was sailing back from singapore. no one was plotting the course because the gps took care of it all.
if anything happened to the little dome at the back of the boat no one would have a clue where they were, he started plotting his position on a map
The spelling and grammar things are in part because many of the news corps have done away with many of their sub editors in recent times, and also now publish more urgently to try and compete with more immediately available internet sources. Something else that's changed is the presence of a journalism major culture. It used to be that many journalists would have already been established experts in a field or two before changing their career to writing. Now it's more common to have people coming straight out of a journalism degree of one form our another.
The linked Herald article that started this thread has been annoying me for ages, with Sergeant Lindsay Turner's claim that Police have "the power to bill people" for cost recovery over SAR operations.
So I asked Police HQ about his claim. At first I received the template response that was all about how Police would never charge by their policy, and also that overseas tourists only account for about 10% of SAR incidents each year. (I never mentioned tourists, but I guess they get recurring correspondence about that one.) Nice reassurance of what I already knew but unfortunately it didn't really answer the question about how Police *could* recover costs if they wanted to (as per Sergeant Turner's claim).
After clarifying the query I was pointed to the Summary Offences Act, where Section 24 is basically the wasting-police-time section. You can read it at http://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1981/0113/latest/DLM53580.html. Sub-section (b)(ii) was the specific part quoted back to me.
As written, Police would *only* be able to use this if you had clearly gone out of your way to provoke a wasteful deployment of resources, or intentionally been reckless, and knowing that a search would be 'groundless'. This is a criminal offence, so it's not exactly a clear-cut issue-an-invoice mechanism for speedy SAR cost recovery as the Sergeant implied, even if you've been kind'a dumb.
It's also specifically for Police, so it won't do anything about recovering costs for whatever other organisations dedicated resources besides Police, unless Police paid them to do it. (In my mind if there's *ever* going to be a charging mechanism for search and rescue, which I think would be really really bad, it should take into account all components of the SAR operation and not just Police through a technical glitch that causes them to be able to get money out of someone through another mechanism.)
It'd have to go through courts, the maximum fine is $2000 though maybe there's some other mechanism for Police to recover extra costs beyond the court fine.. would anyone happen to know this? It's also possible to get a 3 month jail term.
I'm really not surprised, but it's nice to have a better idea of how cost recovery can (or can't) work. None of this means that there isn't some other wacky part of the law that even Police don't know about which might allow for cost recovery, but supposedly there's nothing more clearly written into law than this. If anyone's ever told otherwise, try asking the person how costs would be legally recovered, because I'd like to know.
