Arizona Has a Stupid Motorist Law…Does It Need a Stupid Hiker Law?

Most of our readers likely know of Arizona’s first-in-the-nation “Stupid Motorist Law”, where if you disregard signs stating that a road is closed due to flooding and you get caught in the waters and need help from emergency services, you will pay for that help.But perhaps the time has come to make the same thing for stupid hikers.

Why do we say that? Last week was flooded with stories related to hikers who needed assistance due to their own ignorance related to the heat. This particular story is a particularly unfortunate one, where three kids (including two infants) were treated for heat-related issues. Obviously kids should not be held to that legal standard, but presumably there were parents that allowed that.

While this is only one story, every summer we all see the stories: people (often European tourists) attempting to climb Camelback Mountain in June or July at noon with flip-flops and half a bottle of water (or none at all). There are some locals that have their bouts of stupidity, we can’t deny that, but the worst cases often seem to be out-of-towners (not in Arizona or while hiking, but a Belgian walking in Death Valley without footwear and getting 3rd degree burns encapsulates the point).

Quite literally 100% of the people who come to the Phoenix area know of our most dominant trait: it’s hot. From England to Japan to Brazil to New Jersey, that is what we are known for. And temperatures are not exactly secrets, nor is the ability to convert from Fahrenheit to Celsius. There are no excuses for dumb behavior…so why should we pay for it?

The short answer is…we shouldn’t. We should implement some sort of stupid hiker rule. The devil will be in the details of enforcement however, because if someone is a tourist from outside the country, what mechanism could be in place to make them pay? If they are threatened with jail time for not paying, the easy solution would simply to never come by again (and frankly, after that experience they probably wouldn’t anyway). Unfortunately, I doubt this sort of citation would get Interpol’s attention.

So while there should be consequences, especially for those who live here (and especially for the parents of those kids, if they knowingly allowed this). But if we really want to avoid these situations, it would seem as though better education should play a part. We really shouldn’t have to tell people to avoid hiking when it’s 50 degrees Celsius, but at least we know that common sense isn’t just in short order in this country.