it would seem to me that going kayaking in swift water would mean you assume the risks associated with it, and not blame someone else for your bad judgement.
This was a fair judgement. The signage was a HUGE issue. If you don’t clear the weeds and maintain the signage, then close the river down until you can. If people go around a closure, then yeah, “bad judgement”. Their expectation that conditions were safe was reasoable. Bad signage was not. Muncipality excercised poor judgement.
It’s interesting to me that people are so quick to judge and cite “poor judgement” in these cases. Yet, if these were your loved ones, I doubt that you’d be saying that.
As inspexpert says, the signage was not visable, which was a huge contributing factor. When you’re on a river, sometimes you have no idea what’s ahead and signs are a big help. This couple probably would have exercised good judgement if they had been properly made aware of the hazards.
Negligence is negligence. I worked for a municipality in N. Utah. The city knew that the river was dangerous and that improvements the city and made were not compliant with river / FEMA / or safety standards. Later a child was killed in the river right where the poorly planned improvements were installed. Everyone in the city knew it was the fault of the city. The family chose not to sue most likely because they figured it was a river. They never knew there was many hidden dangers under the surface that were installed by the city.
it would seem to me that going kayaking in swift water would mean you assume the risks associated with it, and not blame someone else for your bad judgement.
I believe we assume the risks associated with all that we choose to do, even if we do not like the final results.
It’s all fun and gams ’til sumbody dies.
This was a fair judgement. The signage was a HUGE issue. If you don’t clear the weeds and maintain the signage, then close the river down until you can. If people go around a closure, then yeah, “bad judgement”. Their expectation that conditions were safe was reasoable. Bad signage was not. Muncipality excercised poor judgement.
Proving once again you can’t have your kayak and eat it, too!
It’s interesting to me that people are so quick to judge and cite “poor judgement” in these cases. Yet, if these were your loved ones, I doubt that you’d be saying that.
As inspexpert says, the signage was not visable, which was a huge contributing factor. When you’re on a river, sometimes you have no idea what’s ahead and signs are a big help. This couple probably would have exercised good judgement if they had been properly made aware of the hazards.
Negligence is negligence. I worked for a municipality in N. Utah. The city knew that the river was dangerous and that improvements the city and made were not compliant with river / FEMA / or safety standards. Later a child was killed in the river right where the poorly planned improvements were installed. Everyone in the city knew it was the fault of the city. The family chose not to sue most likely because they figured it was a river. They never knew there was many hidden dangers under the surface that were installed by the city.