Wow! Did my short statement fuel all of that?
I think if I owned a rental company in this type of business, I would, after hearing about this situation, take it upon myself to make sure that any renters understood the risk potential and how to react to it.
I am not advcating that the government get involved in any way.
I just think it would a smart move for anyone in the business.
But it is not impossible that this type of action was taken and just not followed.

Skater,

My post wasn't directly a response to you. There were others in this thread suggesting regulation and I have seen similar threads about gov't responsability vs private responsability in relation to SAR and PLB's on this forum and others. Just something I have been thinking about and brewing a response to for a while.

My apologies to the forum for side-tracking to an off-topic political rant.

No problem with me.
You are certainly closer to the issue than I am; your experiences with people who do not look out for themselves are much greater than mine, you being a paramedic/EMT - Sorry, I don't remember which.
And I agree the last thing we need is more government involvement that makes us pay to protect those people who do not exercise common sense.
A lively discussion for sure, but I personally don't consider your comments to be offensive.

Sometime we should discuss spilling boiling coffee in your lap while in your car and then bringing a law suit against the people who sold you the coffee......and winning.

Just kidding!

Got to agree with minime...

I once worked with a fellow hwo was fond of saying " Stupidity should hurt... it doesn't take too many lessons to realize that you don't touch a hot stove." I couldn't help but agree then, and I can't help but aqree now.

Troy

Evolution in action.
gino

All else being equal, I think killing your customers is bad for business.

>>Sometime we should discuss spilling boiling coffee in your
>>lap while in your car and then bringing a law suit against
>>the people who sold you the coffee......and winning.

Fwiw, that case was not as cut and dried as everyone thinks. As Snopes.com puts it,

"[McDonald's] knew, thanks to a string of similar scaldings it had quietly been paying off, that its coffee was not just hot, but dangerously hot."
http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp#coffee

which is a link to

http://www.atlanet.org/ConsumerMediaReso...Coffeecase.aspx

"Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonald's refused.
.....
"During discovery, McDonald's produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebeck's. This history documented McDonald's knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard.

McDonald's also said during discovery that, based on a consultant's advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees.

Further, McDonald's quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonald's coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into Styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonald's had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee.

Plaintiff's expert, a scholar in thermodynamics as applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebeck's spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn."

As Mamabear has indicated, we do not have enough details to assess his individual decision, so I will not comment on his particular case.

[Rant on]

What does scare me is the paternalism running rampant in society today. No one is responsible for the consequences of his own decisions and actions or omissions. It is always the fault of someone else. Thus we conclude the rental car company might be at fault in failing to warn.
Should it have given him a printed list of warnings and recommendations? Then should it have further concluded that anyone actually needing such information would also be so stupid, careless, or incapable of reading and comprehending that it need to emphatically summarize them for him orally (assuming such a person would also listen)? We assume that the vehicle was inextricably stuck in an area where it might reasonably be found or noticed.

I have no doubt that travelers could overlook a 1.3 cubic feet water container, one weeks supply of food, a tent, and possibly other tools and supplies. Furthermore it is also possible one might not look at a map before leaving his well-provisioned vehicle, or even conclude that he could walk several hundred kilometers through a wild/desert region in 100 degree Fahrenheit temperature. But somehow such behavior does not seem very foreseeable or reasonable.

It is the paternalist regulation of business and life that has given us unnecessary and ridiculous warnings. Thus we have owners manuals for cars that are hundreds of pages long inflated with safety recommendations, pictures, and diagrams of every potential hazard. Match boxes are emblazoned "KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN," and "CAUTION: CLOSE BOX BEFORE STRIKING." If you buy a Ruger firearm, it comes with a warning engraved on the barrel to read the owners manual before use.

ENOUGH ALREADY. Does anybody really believe that these warnings do any good?

Justice Hand said it best nearly a century ago: The business of life is better carried on through the use of dangerous machinery than not. We cannot make life foolproof. Somebody will always find a way to hurt or kill himself. We need to demand that people behave reasonably or else suffer the consequences. We cannot so dumb-down and restrict life to fit the lowest common denominator without sacrificing many of the things that make life fun and productive.

[Rant off}

John

I agree with most of your points.
I think that the rental car company should have given a list to the customer and they should have shown the supplies (I do not assume that they didn´t). The company should be able to offer explanations. I consider this reasonable service.
But from that point on the person is reponsible for himself. There should be no need for new regulations.


Actually they are good for a laugh and a who-finds-the-dumbest-warning contest. My favorite is "warning sharp blade" on a knife.

Hmmm...gotta go with mamabear2 on this one (whom as usual) made a good observation and raised a valid point.

While we could kick this "Monday Morning Football" all over the place with speculation, the reality in this case (at least to my current knowledge) is that hard and fast facts are few and far inbetween and based uopn the dearth of information <img src="images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> , I find more questions than immediate answers.

Yes, while one has to wonder about leaving the vehicle & resources as he is purported to have done, I suspect that none of us would want to be second guessed / judged based upon such sketchy facts.

FWIW, like many others, my initial gut reaction falls along the line of "Darwin Award candidate", "evolution" "if you're gonna be dumb, then you've gotta be tough". It is very easy to prejudge baed upon incomplete data.

Loss of life is not a laughing matter. About the best that we can hope for is to find the truth and learn from history.

I find it both a sad commmentary and regrettable that our society has come to labeling knives as sharp, and having to label coffee cups with warning that the contents sold will be hot etc. The road to hell is alleged to be paved with many great intentions.

Not a rant, just my before morning cup of coffee musing...

Regards,
Comanche7