Boy Dies After Slipping Under Ice

[richelles]

[quote=starlite9;13178603]... The paddle tracks act just like the old sternwheelers pushing river boats, just a lot faster....

I've seen people do a lot of dumb things in my life and up to now the dumbest thing I had ever seen was the dude who walked across a rope between the Twin Towers before the really dumb ones ran airplanes into them. But to race machines on water that aren't designed to float and have no safety features takes first place in the contest to see who can find the most idiotic way to commit suicide, I don't know how much it cost taxpayers when the joker did the rope walk between the Twin Towers but from my vantage point sitting in a convertible on a street a dozen blocks from where it happened I saw hundreds of cops and other first responders heading that way. The dude that got his machine to the bank and got off should be locked up for his own safety. I admit it is hard to legislate against being dumb but there has to be some limits on what people are allowed to do.

[akvarmit]

Originally Posted by richelles

But to race machines on water that aren't designed to float and have no safety features takes first place in the contest to see who can find the most idiotic way to commit suicide.

Somewhere in Alaska, probably everyday, someone is water skipping their snow machine. It's just something we do up here.. Not sure how we get from a young man accidentally hitting open water and falling in and drowning to water skipping being suicide?

I admit it is hard to legislate against being dumb but there has to be some limits on what people are allowed to do.

That explains a lot about the reasoning behind your posts. Why do you feel the need to set limits or legislate what other people choose to do?

With that said and I am taking a big leap here but, you don't live in Alaska do you?

I just noticed my wife has once again not signed out on my laptop.. So, for the 100's time.. This is Crossfire600

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by akvarmit

With that said and I am taking a big leap here but, you don't live in Alaska do you?

Yeah, he is here, we had coffee in Anchorage a few weeks back, pretty nice guy.

Most people that come here or live elsewhere for the matter seem to think or have been conditioned to think that government should take care of us and ban us from doing stupid things.

You really can't ban "stupid", and people are going to keep applying to be kicked out of the Gene Pool on a regular basis.

Personally, I feel that the more Government gets involved in our lives, the worse it becomes.

The child drowned because the parents let him ride the machine and the child driving it was do so illegally to start with. You are suppose to be 16 and have a driver's license, which isn't enforced much unless you have an accident like this was. It was a sad event, and there is no going back and reversing the damage. The point is there already is a law that banned them from being on the river, and it was ignored......

Making new laws won't make people smarter, it will just Pi$$ off the ones that are....

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by richelles

I've seen people do a lot of dumb things in my life and up to now the dumbest thing I had ever seen was the dude who walked across a rope between the Twin Towers before the really dumb ones ran airplanes into them. But to race machines on water that aren't designed to float and have no safety features takes first place in the contest to see who can find the most idiotic way to commit suicide, I don't know how much it cost taxpayers when the joker did the rope walk between the Twin Towers but from my vantage point sitting in a convertible on a street a dozen blocks from where it happened I saw hundreds of cops and other first responders heading that way. The dude that got his machine to the bank and got off should be locked up for his own safety. I admit it is hard to legislate against being dumb but there has to be some limits on what people are allowed to do.

Well the guy doing the wire walking wasn't playing with a full box of rocks by most normal standards, but he saw and end to his means and went for it.

The guys that flew into the twin towers were warped, but not crazy, just of a mindset that most of us can't understand killing innocent people to get to their version of heaven. But in my own book, they were full tilt Bozo...

As for running across open water, I have done it a couple of times that wasn't planned, and others that were. In the video's, you will see those guys were wearing dry suits or life jackets, so if they did fall in the water, they would be just fine until they were picked up.

In winter travel, there is nothing like running down a river or crossing what you think is a frozen lake only to find that the snow is on a very thin sheet of ice. The older machines pretty much were a certain fate, you were going to go a few dozen feet at best before you sank. The newer machines can actually accelerate from almost a dead stop on water, so by their design they don't float, but they may get you out of a real bind.

You may be traveling down a frozen river at subzero temps and find that there is overflow on the ice, but you can't see it under the snow until you run onto it and that is pretty much like running on open water. The older machines had steel skis which would allow the water to freeze into large chunks of ice to insure that you won't go far. The new machines now have plastic skis that don't allow the ice to stick and cause you to be dragged to a halt, you can pretty much punch the throttle and get safely to the beach/river bank, but there is always exceptions.

Today I was out driving down the Tanana River on my snow machine, there is open water areas that you can't see until you almost are on them. Not fun if you don't pay attention to such details, but fatal if you are lax. The kids in Fairbanks were driving along the open water where there is an ice shelf...

[*gw]

Unfortunately, this isn't isolated to Alaska. I used to work at a campground in Missouri and I can't tell you how many kids as young as 5 years old were allowed to drive ATV's and golf carts unattended. They never wore helmets, they never obeyed the speed limit and they never paid attention to other things on the roads - like campers, trucks and cars. No one has died, yet, but many injuries and many totaled machines. These were the same kids who used the pool (no life guards) unattended. The parents used the pool, ATV's and golf carts as baby sitters. They wanted time to drink or sleep so they let their kids do whatever.

[tigre79]

Originally Posted by richelles

I admit it is hard to legislate against being dumb but there has to be some limits on what people are allowed to do.

Yeah, who are they to decide what kinds of risks they're willing to take with their own lives? Surely there's some benevolent leader somewhere who will make those decisions for them. We can all just sit around being safe, wondering what humans could be capable of if we were willing to take risks. Or, we could agree that adults own their own lives and can risk their own safety if they want to. Legislating adult behavior is a far cry from requiring parental supervision of young children.