I don't know about anywhere else, but the old
saying about weather in Texas is true. If you don't like it, wait a few
minutes and it will change! You cannot always know what's going to
happen to your trail. Even if you check it a day or two before the
ride, things can still happen. Shoot, I know of things happening to the
trail DURING the ride (flash flooding). There's nothing you can do
about it.
Another thing -- I haven't managed a ride, but have seriously
been contemplating doing so and am furthering my "ride manager education"
every chance I get. However, I can tell you this in all honesty -- if
you're going to post all these warnings, etc. in writing and have references
made to them in the waiver, there goes pre-entries. Also, who is going
to prepare this? THERE ARE NEVER ENOUGH VOLUNTEERS!!! People
don't realize that you have to have volunteers BEFORE the ride and AFTER
it. For example, trail neither clears nor marks itself and ofttimes, it
must be UNMARKED after the ride. Endurance is just like anything else
-- a certain group of people show up to do the work while everyone else comes
up to ride. It is amazing to see the epiphany folks undergo when they
can't ride but decide to stay and volunteer during the ride. No, I'm
not talking about crewing for someone else.
Not only do people not
listen at ride meeting, a lot of times, they don't even attend. Whose
fault is that if they're sitting in their camp shooting the bull and drinking
a coldbeer?
You also said: "It's interesting to note that the legal
issue with the skiing case was not liability, but the parent's right to sign
a waiver on behalf of a minor." Was that the legal issue? That
point of law would stretch to everything parents do with regard to their
children, including consenting to invasive medical treatment. I don't
think parent's signing the waiver is the issue. It seems to be a
question of negligence on the part of the property owner and/or
coach.
Let's face it folks, we are a "litigation-happy" society and full
of people who don't think they're responsible for their own stupidity.
Period! Hanging all the lawyers won't solve the problem (although I'd donate
the rope to hang a few of them I know). The problem is that the court
(whether a judgment comes from the bench or a jury of your peers) makes stuff
like this a lucrative business. Lawyers don't award damages, they only
seek them.
Milinda Ellis Jewett,
Texas
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