As the ref stated to me in a PM - he can be held LIABLE in a court of law if a kid/coach request a timeout and he makes a judgement call such as, "NAH, your kid is doing just fine..." And, then two seconds later the kid passes out.

Unnecessary risk on the ref's part. If they ask, grant it. It his its limits (time and frequency). And, as Cokely stated, "its on the honor system." Some of us have more honor than others. Some of us like to bend the rules fairly to whatever advantage we like to tweak out of it.

Some great bike racers have actually STOPPED and WAITED when they have seen that their opponent has crashed. Armstrong has done this before. He still won. His main competitor from Germany (Jan Ulrich) did this once. He lost. However, he did get "Sportsman of the Year" from many publications/organizations.