OBG,

Granted, statistics can be manipulated to support just about any position but let's cut to the chase, the real issue here isn't how many practitioners of which type of activity cause the most rescues, it's money, who is going to pay for these rescues?

Many will try to justify legislating the mandatory carrying of MLU's as a way to save the lives and preserve the safety of the SAR personnel who answer these calls for help but you and I know that's just not true. The SAR people who respond to these call outs do so because they love what they do, it's not for money, recognition or a sense of obligation to the person being rescued.

To get into the Emergency Services Detail(ESD), on my department you have to try like hell. You have to be an EMT, dive certified, swift water trained, mountain rescue certified, in excellent physical condition and able to type 150 words per minute (ok, so I lied about that last one but I probably missed a few other requirements), and that's just to qualify! There are always many more qualified applicants than available positions and if I weren't on the downhill side of my career, I'd be going for it myself, so no, I don't buy the image of a bunch of SAR people cursing the dumb fools who cause them to put their lives at risk any more than you or I got into a black&white and put our lives at risk everyday because someone held a gun to our heads (no pun intended).

I don't want to make this political but if the real issue is our tax dollars, I would much rather spend my money rescuing a group of climbers trapped in a white out (whether or not they had MLU's), than on the food stamps the gentleman ahead of me at Von's today used to pay for his Doritos and Pepsi before getting into his new Escalade (don't get me started).