The ordinance is meant to help pay the cost of responding to car accidents that spike during the summer months when tourists and visitors flock to the beach city and cause an estimated 300 traffic accidents each year. City officials say fees that could total several thousand dollars per accident will help defray the burden on city finances.
“We have a city that grows in population during the summer by anywhere between 10 and 13 million people, “ said Huntington Beach Mayor Cathy Green. “So this is really about people who are impacting our services so much paying the costs.”
Huntington Beach residents pay property taxes to help pay for emergency responders, but visitors do not, Green explained. The fees are a way to make nonresidents who are at fault in accidents chip in. She added that insurance companies would be on the hook for the fees as long as the driver is insured.
Starting next month, the city will charge nonresidents $595 for a car accident with spilled gas or oil, $750 if the vehicle is on fire and $1,995 if someone has to be extricated from the vehicle.
What if an accident was bad enough that a fire truck had to be sent? That will cost $505 an hour.
If the chief shows up, he’ll ask for $210 an hour.
Residents would not have to pay.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/a-collision-in-surf-city-could-cost-you.html
The buzz is that several other cities will follow suit to try to get visitors to pay for what the California citizens or residents since they're not all citizens, have done to the state's economy.
BTW, I know Huntington Beach well. It's not what you think. Don't bother. Your biggest problem won't be the cars. It'll be the teen boneheads who wander stoned, into the streets. Peace Out Dude. Lol.
Just one more reason to visit the not so Golden State anymore.
“We have a city that grows in population during the summer by anywhere between 10 and 13 million people, “ said Huntington Beach Mayor Cathy Green. “So this is really about people who are impacting our services so much paying the costs.”
Huntington Beach residents pay property taxes to help pay for emergency responders, but visitors do not, Green explained. The fees are a way to make nonresidents who are at fault in accidents chip in. She added that insurance companies would be on the hook for the fees as long as the driver is insured.
Starting next month, the city will charge nonresidents $595 for a car accident with spilled gas or oil, $750 if the vehicle is on fire and $1,995 if someone has to be extricated from the vehicle.
What if an accident was bad enough that a fire truck had to be sent? That will cost $505 an hour.
If the chief shows up, he’ll ask for $210 an hour.
Residents would not have to pay.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/a-collision-in-surf-city-could-cost-you.html
The buzz is that several other cities will follow suit to try to get visitors to pay for what the California citizens or residents since they're not all citizens, have done to the state's economy.
BTW, I know Huntington Beach well. It's not what you think. Don't bother. Your biggest problem won't be the cars. It'll be the teen boneheads who wander stoned, into the streets. Peace Out Dude. Lol.
Just one more reason to visit the not so Golden State anymore.
