USFS in Oregon

The Seattle evening news just reported that, re the Kim incident, the USFS, which had originally reported that the road they drove had been closed, and that vandals had cut the lock, now states that the gate had never been closed and locked. Sounds like there was some CYA going on...

When they first reported that the gate had been opened by vandals, I remember thinking that it sounded like a CYA excuse. If this turns out to be true, it will not surprise me.

Smitty

CYA?

Cover Your bAckside

My thoughts exactly. Everyone is checking their six.

hehe. We have a in house written backup program at work that's called CYA = Copy Your Assets <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

My parents live on a famr in WV, they are 7 miles from the nearest town and 15 miles from a town big enough to have a stop light. They have a gated road near their house which goes straight of the side of the mountian to where the rest of the farm is on top that mountain. That gate has been closed and posted private, no trespassing and people will drive right up to it and open it and drive up there. Half the time they get stick because the road is so steep. So even a marked and gated road is nothing to people anymore, it wouldn't surpirse me if someone such as the Kims would come upon a closed gate and open it and drive on through.

I doubt it. In your case, it was people who wanted to get to the top of the mountain. Their destination was beyond the gate, and that was likely the only way up.

In the Kim's instance, however, I doubt that they were going sighseeing in the dark up poorly-maintained roads. It is more likely that they thought that the route was a short-cut. Had the roads been closed, they would have probably just gone around.

It wasn't to get to their destination, this road isn't on any maps and ends on the top of the mountain.
Its usually a certian religious group looking for houses to witness to. But they compeltely ignore the sign that says private drive no trespassing so even though this road is closed. I could see the same thing happening in a situation such as this, someone thinks they need to go through a gate that says road closed so they ignore the sign/warning and go through.

I find it mildly annoying that there is even a need for anyone to CYA in this situation. It's not like the Forest Service forced the Kim's to drive up that road. I'll bet some lawyer is already dialing their number. Too bad.

There are legal precidents to situations such as this. Much like the person who slips and falls in the store/resturaunt and sue's the owner of the property. My wife slipped on spilled water in a resturaunt once while we were being led to our table. We got a visit from the manager who waived our bill even though we said she wss ok, which I feel was basically to make nice with us so we didn't drive to a law firm as soon as we left. Thats the situation my parents worry about with their farm, people tresapss and get sutck/hurt and they can afford a better lawyer. So the owners of the road probably want to cya to show thet the gate ws not neglected which could lead to legal fault. We get various notices each winter from the city/county/state governments about road conditions and such to inform us that they are only at fault if a hazardous road condition caused your accident/damage due to their neglect and have published times to clearing snow, repairing potholes, etc from the time of notification. So if you see a hole in the road for a couple days driving to work then hit that hole and damage your car and you try to sue them for neglect and you can't proove that they were notfied then your on your own.

Josephine County, OR....

Where those in authority forget to lock gates, then lie about vandals; where they're told to clear roads before locking gates, and lock the gates without checking to see if anyone is on the road; where search authorities ignore information; where areas are said to have been cleared and haven't; "We have had people die up there before.''

Kind of makes you want to rush to Josephine County for your summer vacation, doesn't it?

Of course, maybe you would want to move there, and get the county named CoverYourA$$ County, instead.

Sue

Like the time someone's adult daughter fell into a crevasse in Tuckermans Ravine on Mount Washington (New Hampshire) and died - her father sued the USFS for allowing such unsafe features to exist in the mountains!

Plenty of CYA. But a beautiful place and friendly folks.

You would be supprised how often locks are cut off forest servcie gates. We were working an event in northen AZ a few years ago, one of the local forest service guys gave us a key that would get us through all the gates just in case we needed access for a rescue. Well, every gate we had come to had the locks cut from them... not the chains the freaking locks...

Plus no sales tax, and they pump your gas for you!!!

I like when the gas station attendants come out and tell people to get back in their cars, that pumping your own gas is against the law.

Usually their facial expressions progress like this: <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Only other state I'm aware of that is similar would be New Jersey.