First response to accident scenes now charging for their services?!?

In spite of all the discussion about books, nothing else changes.

Accidents involve:
1) local residents
2) a mix of local and extra-local residents
3) extra-local residents

Regardless of the "mix", crews respond to an incident:
- Local's pay taxes and thus have covered the local respondent's salaries.
- Extra-local have not paid taxes into the local salaries

Here's another one for you....

Newport Beach, (or was it Huntington? can't remember) California has implemented this.

Driver "A", me from Corona, CA has an accident with Driver "B" from ... umm, no license. Two things are important here: 1- who has insurance; 2- who is at fault.

Then what?

If I'm at fault, so be it, my insurance covers costs, no? SO why should I have to pay for costs ABOVE COSTS?
If I'm not at fault, why should I pay anything? That's what insurance is for, right?
And if the other driver... nevermind; he was prolly in Texas buying guns when the accident occured.

reply to post by abecedarian


if driver B doesnt have a license, regardless of the accident, its their fault. They had no eligibility to be on the road. Thats how the courts would play it. The accident wouldnt occur if Driver B without a license, wasnt driving.

I live in a very rural area in the boondocks.
ALL of our emergency services like Fire,
Ambulance are performed by a Volunteer
Dept. This volunteer dept. is staffed by
folks who have training for their specific
job.

However with that being said, if you call
911 from here and request an ambulance
to your residence. Just for them to show
up will cost you $250.00. If they transport
someone to the hospital, you can add
another $100.00 on top of that for a whopping
total of $350.00.

And if you request a Fire truck, just to show up
and put out a fire in your garbage can, it's
$300.00.

All of these services are performed by VOLUNTEERS
who DO NOT get paid a salary of any kind.

Now fast forward to the end of the year county
taxes that have to be paid. There is a $350.00
Fire/Rescue tax included on everyone's property
tax whether you use the service or not.

This is double taxation
on a volunteer system.

You also have to pay a public water tax every year
and about 25% of county residents do not
even have county water pipes on their road.
So you have to pay this tax whether you get
the water or not. If you do not pay this tax,
they will foreclose your property.

Quite a nice lil corrupt system I live in huh ????

1) Growing unemployment = Shrinking tax base
2) More social spending = Growing taxpayer money burden
3) More demand for taxpayer money with a shrinking pot of money = less money goes out to each program
4) Program expenses don't decrease because there's less money available, so where do these programs get the rest of the money required to operate?
5) Charge those who use their services.

Simple.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

reply to post by boondock-saint


How much does it cost per year to keep the fire dept and all it's equipment ready to respond at a moments notice to your garbage can fire?

[edit on 9/5/10 by Ferris.Bueller.II]

Originally posted by Ferris.Bueller.II
How much does it cost per year to keep the fire dept and all it's equipment ready to respond at a moments notice to your garbage can fire?
[edit on 9/5/10 by Ferris.Bueller.II]

How much of your property taxes go to those services? That's how much it costs.

/Q

Originally posted by Quaght

How much of your property taxes go to those services? That's how much it costs.

/Q

And how much is the property tax income going down with the growing foreclosure rate, and small businesses closing?

[edit on 9/5/10 by Ferris.Bueller.II]