[NCNCA] medical support-a solution from San Rafael

[Tad Borek]

Ron Castia wrote:

>This is the exact reason I suggested more data and a report.
>$1,500 price tag would mean our club would not be able to put on a race.
>

I agree with Ron. Even at half that it would be the biggest personnel 
cost for a race - more than the officials I think. And it sounds like a 
solution to a problem that may not exist.

Ben, this is a USA Cycling, not NCNCA, issue really -- there are no 
longer any "NCNCA permitted" races, it's all through USAC. I don't know 
if you've worked on organizing a race, but USAC has us put together a 
medical plan, as part of the process of issuing an event permit and 
insurance certificate. You can see the form for it here, under "Event 
Forms":
http://www.usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=91

Their insurer is, believe me, fussy enough about the boilerplate wording 
on their insurance certificates that I have to believe they've thought 
this through and looked at the data. That's what insurers do. If this is 
an enormous accident waiting to happen why are they writing $1M 
insurance policies (with an additional $4 million available) on hundreds 
of races each year, without requiring more medical personnel on-site? 
Perhaps an EMT and readily-available emergency response services are 
adequate?

And I have to say, if "risk mitigation" is the topic, then alongside 
your proposal to require a $1500 ambulance at every race, I propose a 
USCF rules change so a licensee involved in 3 crashes within a 6 month 
period has a mandatory license suspension/review, and is pushed into 
some kind of skills training. Sure there's dumb luck, equipment failure, 
bad road surfaces, etc....but there's also overlap, inattention & all 
that kind of correctable stuff that seems to cause 80% of crashes. 
What's the old saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a fleet of 
ambulances at the S/F line? (cheaper, too)

-Tad