Ludington Officials Cause Accident, Ticket Victim for Their Negligence, Doctor the Evidence

[XLFD]

An accident on an intersection of two side streets in Ludington occurred between a 16 year old that cruised through a stop sign, and an officer who had no such regulatory sign directing him.  Seems like a pretty easy case of who's at fault and who should be ticketed, right?  Seems like it to the local news at least:

LUDINGTON — A 16-year-old Ludington girl was ticketed after she drove through a stop sign and was struck by a Ludington Police Department vehicle. The crash occurred at the intersection of Court and Park streets about 5 p.m. Monday. The 16-year-old was driving a Mercury Sable west on Court Street when she went through the stop sign. Ludington Police Officer Chad Skiba was traveling south on Park Street and collided broadside with the other vehicle.

Mason County Sheriff’s Office was called in to investigate. The teen driver suffered minor injuries as a result of the crash and was treated at the scene by paramedics from Life EMS ambulance. Also responding was Ludington Police Dept. and Ludington Fire Dept.

http://www.masoncountypress.com/2014/06/30/teen-driver-runs-into-po...

Back in 2010, I revisited a problem I had pointed out on two occasions in 2009, a problem in the City of Ludington where STOP and YIELD signs were partially and near-totally obscured by trees and other roadside vegetation entitled Vegetation Control for Safety: Over 100 Days Later  with two pictures of the intersection of Court and Park Streets, looking to the west, here is the first one 

 

 

and here is the second one taken around midblock.  As you can see the sign is barely noticeable for this whole time, and of course, before you get to the middle of the approach block.

As you might be able to tell, the thread was a continuation of a simple thread named Vegetation Control for Safety, which had a simple premise, and was from the Federal Highway Administration's booklet of the same name.  Among the pearls of wisdom in the guidebook:  "tree limbs blocking a STOP sign in the street right-of-way can be considered to be negligence (by roadway agencies) in failing to maintain the streets in reasonably safe condition." and "Liability for failure to correct a dangerous condition may be imposed even if the road agency did not have actual notice of the condition if they reasonably should have known about it."

This forum has regularly shown pictures of intersections made dangerous by the continued neglect of the city's administration for keeping our roadways safe.  The people most responsible for such neglect is the City Manager John Shay, a frequent visitor to the Ludington Torch and the recipient of notice of these unsafe intersections back in 2009, and who could easily put the City's DPW to this task at any time, and our City's Traffic Engineer, the person who is responsible for safe and efficient travel in our city, the Chief of Police Mark Barnett. 

In this situation a driver new to the roads, a sixteen year old unused to the utter neglect of the roadways by our city's leaders, fails to see the STOP sign as it is too obscured by the tree blocking it.  After I noticed this accident on the MCP's Facebook page last night, I went out to look at the intersection, unfortunately it was after dark and I have no photographic proof that this stop sign was even worse blocked by the tree than it was in late 2010.  I resolved to take some pictures of it in the morning to document that the city's negligence had caused an accident, not this poor young girl's driving skills. 

 

Much to my surprise, the tree had been severely trimmed since the previous night!  The pictures I took were therefore to show that the branches of this tree had been freshly cut within an hour or so before I had arrived at the scene this very morning.  Several other stop signs in the area that were at least partially obscured had not been touched, just this one.  Here is the view I seen in the morning, a lot different than the previous night when the stop sign was almost completely obscured:

 

Here's some of the cuts on the tree that were fresh, looking due north and up.  The red circles highlight these:

Here we are looking northwest, some of these cuts are duplicates of the first picture

And here are some cuts in the lower areas:

 

 

Interesting that the City of Ludington mobilized their forces so quick so as to try to once again cover up their own complicity in this crime of negligence, but now the fun begins as the Ludington Torch goes about seeking the truth of what went on here, and why our leaders continue to allow these hazards to exist years and years after they are pointed out to them, when a DPW crew could easily handle the problem within a day for the whole city. 

Real men and real city leaders do not cause accidents and then blame them on little girls learning the ropes in their driver-unfriendly city.  They admit they caused the problem and set things aright.  The City of Ludington needs to revoke the ticket, apologize for their negligence of this safety issue to this young citizen, and admit their fault in causing this needless accident.  Otherwise, this tree-doctoring is just a move to cover-up their shame.

[XLFD]

Anybody can date and time stamp a photo, with whatever date and time they want, doofus.  I could have taken a picture with the 6-30-2014 COLDNewspaper to show that the photos were taken after noon on that day and before the time I posted the story (noon the next  day), but who needs to give that rag any more exposure than necessary.  Anyone using photographic forensic skills could zoom in and see the cuts on the tree in the photos are fresh cuts made that were indeed made earlier that morning. 

If you don't like that evidence, I have before and after pictures taken by the Ludington DPW themselves-- not bad for the hardest working non-working citizen in Ludington, eh?

[AQUAMAN]

Not to worry about chicken shit posts like Doofus there X. He's jealous he can't prove any point or thesis himself, just lash out at anyone that disagrees with the frauds of COL Detroit mafia bosses. That young lady could subpoena DPW workers for evidence with her attorney. If caught lieing, esp. Shay types, it would reprove the perjury of them again, same as in the past so many times proven over and over. 

[XLFD]

If a LPD cruiser was not the other vehicle involved, there may have been some hope for the girl to get some acknowledgment of the city's complicity in this accident by the City of Ludington (yet slim).  Now she will have to go through the courts to receive possible satisfaction, and the City of Ludington will pay good money for their defense of the indefensible act of negligence.

[Russ]

This is in reference to the 16 year old in the accident. I took my daughters car to two reputable body shops and both came to the same conclusion, that from the damage to her car it was estimated that the speed of impact was a minimum of 35 mph. The speed limit in that area is 25 mph, so everyone who wants to blame the sixteen year old, has to blame the other driver who was obviously speeding. Therefore, one can't be blamed without the other being blamed.

[XLFD]

Thanks for that info, Russ, as it may help your case.  Typically front air bags deploy in most frontal crashes when the vehicle is going over 14 mph, they may deploy at even lesser speeds.  That means the officers air bags should have deployed even if he was travelling the speed limit, 25 mph or higher.

 

What isn't universally known, however, is that when air bags deploy and often when they don't , an automobile computer records various facts, among them the speed of the vehicle in the last few seconds before the crash, and whether the brakes were deployed during that time.   If the sheriff's office had conducted a complete investigation, they would have used this data to show (or refute) Skiba's complicity with the crash. 

Yet the MCSO's report had no interest in retrieving this data-- and most likely it was because they would only find that the LPD officer was speeding and never broke for the car that was within its sight for a second or more.  If you've been around Ludington, the revving of the LPD's Tahoes is a frequent sound you hear before you see them going hastily by. 

 

I am going to specifically request the in-car crash data from both the MCSO and the LPD for the LPD Tahoe involved in the accident.  If it was never retrieved, your case is bolstered by the lack of diligence by the investigators, which I think is embarrassing.  Chad Skiba is the rookie on the LPD squad, it is well within the public interest to know what speed he was driving and whether he ever applied brakes.

[XLFD]

For all you body mechanics out there, here is a couple of pictures of the damage to the youth's vehicle:

 

And here is the limitations on the crash data retrieval systems, unless this LPD vehicle gets into a worse crash, this info should be available (this is a snippet from the Darius Vanbrook investigation, where a Mason County Correction Officer named Michael Hays got away with vehicular manslaughter after running into a boy walking lawfully on the side of the road on February 12, 2012.  Hays was speeding and accelerating at the time, but he was a policeman and so got off scot-free):

 

 

[Willy]

If the branches were cut late evening or the next morning then there would be a work order, email or other instructions given to employees unless the officer had a trimming saw in his car and removed them himself.

Doofus definately describes Johnny. Nothing to contribute

Doofus:

Synonyms

berk [British], booby, charlie (also charley) [British], cuckoo, ding-a-ling, dingbat, ding-dong, dipstick, fool [slang], featherhead, git [British], goose, half-wit, jackass, lunatic, mooncalf, nincompoop, ninny, ninnyhammer, nit [chiefly British], nitwit, nut, nutcase, simp, simpleton, turkey, yo-yo

 

[XLFD]

This photo was taken on the morning of 7-1-2014, according to the records I received, note the DPW workers to the left.  Of course the city would rather foist the blame on a teenage driver, the expenses on the teenager's parents rather than admit responsibility for not clearing tree branches so that people can see the stop signs.  I repeat, it would be so easy for a crew of DPW workers to take a day or two to clear these sight lines so that people could actually see all the regulatory signs in town rather than just leaves and branches.  But DPW workers only do this when litigation is bound to be involved. 

Did someone mention before that someone was not working?

[Johnny]

Stop sign is pretty visible, especially if the female was going the speed limit......and not texting with her head down.  If it was so invisible, why haven't there been numerous accidents at that intersection?

[XLFD]

Most locals and experienced visitors that travel through Ludington's going east or west on the north side are well aware of the east-west streets (other than on Tinkham, Bryant) yielding or stopping at every north-south four-way intersection without much reference to the signs. 

But even if they forget that fact and come to one of these intersections with an obstructed sign and proceed forth, most motorists travelling north-south are aware of the road enough to see a car coming towards the intersection (provided there is plenty of corner sight-lines, as there is here) that is not preparing to stop.  I have had this happen to me several times while I'm on my bicycle travelling north-south on the north side, and it has happened at least twice while I was riding/driving a car. 

This is why the lack of any sort of braking by Officer Skiba is perhaps the biggest incidence of distracted driving evident here.  If I was driving his vehicle and paying minimal attention to the street, I would have avoided this accident, or at least laid a lot of rubber down. 

[Pamela Bentley]

Hey Johnny until you know my daughter, don't assume her guilt. We paid the ticket because we are disabled vets on limited income. She wasn't texting so don't put her in a stereotype

[Pamela Bentley]

Please allow me to
Correct myself. We paid it because we were advised that no one would go after the city. Also, being disabled makes it challenging for public events. Anyone have a good lawyer. Just let me know. Don't know what good it will cause. Either way there were no skid marks from the officer AT ALL! So Johnny why don't you look at both sides before assuming the worst about the accident. My husband and I fought for freedom of our country to have freedom of speech so that misinformed citizens like you can run their mouths about an event your absolutely clueless about.