IIRC, someone I knew who had been at Ft. Greely, Alaska said that it is a law the residents in N. Alaska have to either keep their houses unlocked OR a heated vestibule for travelers caught by surprise by the freezing weather.
In general, is that true? And, is it really a law?
I don’t know about that part but Alaska does have some weird laws in that spirit. I recently read a book written by a long-time Alaskan bush pilot and he mentions several times that, when he had plane trouble or weather trouble, he would just shack up in a nearby cabin for days or weeks at a time. He also said that it was the law that everyone that used such buildings in an emergency had to leave their own unused food there at the end. Almost all such remote cabins were unlocked and stocked with some food. The claim may be true.
I lived in Deadhorse, AK (Prudhoe Bay) for a couple of years and never heard of any such law, but it is certainly the custom to leave doors unlocked.
As it is almost anywhere in the world that isn’t urban.
What a strange question.
I heard something similar about the law requiring motorists to stop and help other stranded.
But I wonder will cellphones and such now, or when, if ever, a signal can be got all over Alaska they would require it.
IIRC, buses in Fairbanks stopped for anyone who flagged them down in the winter, even if they were not at a bus stop. It seemed to me to be a good policy. It’s been 30 years ago, though, so it might not be in effect any more.
I found people in Alaska were very willing to help others in trouble (car broken down, run out of food, no heat, etc.) It’s an unforgiving climate and trouble can strike fast.
Never heard of such a thing. As noted above, people in rural areas usually don’t lock their doors anyway. Hunting cabins are customarily left unsecured in case somebody is in dire need.
It’s pretty big jump from ‘backwoods hunting cabin’ to ‘my house in a city’.
I can’t imagine that’s true, if only because I’ve never heard of any massive lawsuits after Joe Law-Abiding stopped to help Bob Broken-Down and ends up getting carjacked, or hit by a car, or eaten by a moose, or whatever. I can’t find any legit cite right off, but I can’t imagine that any entity would enact a law like that.
And, FWIW, I can’t imagine people willingly living someplace where they’re required by law to keep their doors unlocked. If it’s custom, then so be it, but law…? I’m dubious.
I oppose Alaskan Good Samaritan laws, because a moose bit my shiksa, once.
But that’s true of the Metro Transit buses here in Minneapolis, Minnesota (especially during the winter), so it’s not confined to lonely stretches of Alaska.
Indeed, it’s fairly common in many places for a business to be eager to pick up a paying customer.
In the town where I live (granted, in Japan, not US) the buses often do this as well. It’s a really rural area and the “city” only has a population of 40,000 (spread out over a very large area among several small annexed villages), and so many regions of the city bus system are marked as “Free Bus,” meaning that you can ask the bus to stop at any point in between bus stops as well as flag down buses as they pass. The only rule, of course, being that the bus must be able to safely let you off/board. While only the more rural parts of the town are designated as “Free Bus,” in the more urban parts of town buses will usually wait for you to catch up to the next bus stop if you flag them. As most of the “urban” legs of the system have stops on nearly every block of the route, this isn’t a large inconvenience to anybody. The unfortunate result is that the buses are pretty regularly late, but that’s actually saved me more than it has damned me.
I also agree that a lot of it has more to do with making money than being friendly. Ridership in the area has dropped considerably leading to pretty hefty cutbacks wrt the bus fleet. Now that you can only expect a bus every hour and a half or so (save for rush hour) on most routes, most potential riders who miss the bus end up walking (costing the bus potential fare).
It was never a law in my hometown, but I remember when growing up my family’s house didn’t even have working locks on the doors, save for a simple hook-and-eye job used on a seldom-used screen door to keep it shut. Almost all locks throughout the house were the original locks installed in the 1920s after a fire damaged most of the house. None of them actually worked anymore, even if we had the keys. When we put in few french doors on the back of the house, they were almost always locked, but, like the screen door, this was only because the wind was often strong enough to throw the doors open. But my hometown is also barely an incorporated village, so I don’t think many people considered burglary a serious threat. I imagine, even without a law for it, many people in Northern Alaska would have the same mindset. I’m certain if anybody were stranded in a blizzard outside of Huntsville, Ohio, they wouldn’t have any trouble getting help from the locals. As N. Alaska is considerably more sparsely populated and more dangerous in extreme weather conditions, I am sure they would do the same. At least, my fairly optimistic view of humanity hopes to Jeebus that they would.
Picking up passengers between stops may be common in other areas, but it doesn’t happen in Nashville. That’s probably why it seemed remarkable to me.
Moose bites can be serious.
Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti…
Where I live there are only two buses per day. The cool thing is that they have Flex Route. If you call in advance (I don’t know how far in advance) they’ll pick you up at your door.