Watch out for “Crash Tax”
In some states the practice of levying a fee for emergency response is illegal but in many places you could be hit with a “Crash Tax.”After your accident, you could receive a bill from the local police or fire department. Police, Fire and medical response historically has been free and covered by local taxes collected but as budgets shrink, many agencies are looking at how to recover costs for responding to accidents. This new idea of cost recovery has spread to 24 states and will probaly come to an area you will visit sometime soon.
Even if you are not at fault or are not injured, you might still find a bill in the mail for an agency that responds to your car or motorcycle accident. Currently Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Tennessee have stopped the crash fee.
A sampling of fees from across Florida:
- $28 an hour for a police officer.
- $200 an hour for a fire chief.
- $435 for a fire/rescue response to no-injury accident.
- $1,000 for complex accident extrication.
What could hit most bikers is that many departments are only charging people involved in accidents that are not from the area. Under the belief that the local citizens have already paid for the service and that out of towners have not. Unfortunely for bikers, alot of time we are the “out of towners” and could be hit with the accident fee. If you are traveling through an area that has the fee you may be un-aware until after you need their services.
While I doubt that many people will ask the 911 operator if there will be a fee involved, it may mean that bikers will be less likely to call 911 to respond to an accident if they think they might be charged.
If you want to know more check out the article below, it goes into greater details about this new type of fee recovery.
Source Article “‘Crash taxes’ add hefty fees for aid”
Source: articles.moneycentral.msn.com
