On June 13, 67 Shanghai travel friends were trapped due to heavy rain while visiting the mountainous area at the junction of Ninghai, Zhejiang and Tiantai. After receiving the police, the local fire rescue team and the three rescue teams of Flying Wolf, Seal and Blue Sky quickly launched a search, and finally successfully moved the trapped persons to a safe area.

In recent years, there have been frequent occurrences of travellers entering the mountains and losing contact. To sum up the reasons, in addition to sudden meteorological and geological disasters, most of them cannot escape the word “willfulness”. In the pursuit of novelty and excitement, some travel friends always like to challenge some unexplored and unopened “hidden corners”, climbing wild mountains, swimming in wild lakes, and illegally crossing the restricted area. The more they are prohibited, the more excited they are; some tourist groups also want to attract members and customers. Will deliberately choose some “unpopular routes” with complex terrain and harsh living environment, as if the more difficult and dangerous, the more unknown, the more attractive. Take the above incident as an example. According to a search and rescue team, the area where the accident occurred was a tourist route developed by the travel friends. The scenery is good, but it is also a high-risk area with steep mountain roads.

Frequent dangers have reminded us time and time again that wild adventure is a high-risk extreme sport, ignoring the rules and taking it for a while, treating self-willedness as bravery will only lead to danger in the end. More critically, capricious crime is not only irresponsible to oneself, but also increases the difficulty of rescue, greatly depleting public resources, and may also expose rescuers to greater risks.

“Life comes first, safety first”. Some people need rescue if they are trapped in distress, and the relevant departments are duty-bound. However, it is not reasonable that public resources have repeatedly paid for the willfulness of individuals. What is the nature of the relevant behavior and what responsibilities should it bear? Who will pay for the social cost of wastage? These questions should not remain so vague.

In fact, emergency rescue and accountability are not contradictory. It is necessary to rescue travel companions who are in distress. Investigating their actions and delineating powers and responsibilities cannot be absent. In this regard, in recent years, experts have been calling for “clear and paid assistance by legislation.” At the same time, many scenic spots have begun to try. For example, Huangshan City recently drafted the “Guiding Opinions on Compensated Rescue for Mountain Scenic Spots in Huangshan City.” Implement paid rescue. Of course, the provision of legislation to stipulate that “allies” should pay for rescue expenses is not for “business”, but to draw a red line for irresponsible expeditions, and form a deterrent to wayward people.

However, in reality, there are still many questions to be solved whether the paid rescue can be rolled out. On the one hand, it is necessary to distinguish clearly and in detail the nature of “tourist in distress” to prevent the abuse of paid rescue, so that the trapped people hesitate or even dare not send rescue signals; on the other hand, it is necessary to determine more standardized cost calculation methods and corresponding policies , So that paid assistance is truly refined, standardized, and legalized.

For the majority of travellers, safety is the first priority at all times. Observing the rules and knowing awe are the most beautiful scenery on the road.

Source: Beijing Daily Client