Vegetation Control for Safety

[XLFD]

Vegetation Control for Safety

A Guide for Local Highway and Street Maintenance Personnel

May 2007

III. Keeping Traffic Control Devices Visible

Drivers need an unobstructed line of sight to any roadside signs or roadway hazards far enough ahead to allow them to react safely to each situation. The suggested maintenance steps are:

·                     When on routine maintenance patrol, look for signs and other traffic control devices (including chevron signs in curves) blocked by brush, trees, grass, or weeds.

Often, a small branch from an overhanging tree or bush near the sign is all that needs to be trimmed. If vegetation along the ditch or shoulder blocks a driver's view of a sign, then cut enough to allow a driver sufficient time to see the sign and respond to its message. If your agency has a policy on how far from a sign vegetation has to be cleared for a safe view, follow that policy. If you do not have such a policy, Table 1 provides a suggested guideline that considers two groups of signs: critical signs, such as STOP, YIELD, ONE WAY, DO NOT ENTER, WRONG WAY or any sign that might require the motorist to stop, and all other signs. The distances for the critical signs are based on stopping sight distance (see Table 2); the distances for the other signs are based on allowing 4 seconds to detect, read, and respond to the sign. These are to be considered minimum distances; longer distances are preferred.

Table 1. Clear Distance to See Sign

Speed Limit (mph)	Critical Signs (feet)	Noncritical Signs (feet)
30	250	150
40	350	200
50	450	250
60	600	300

 

 

Pictures:  Intersection of Monona and Seminole, looking N and W.  Mayor Henderson and City Manager Shay live just a little ways down Seminole from here.  Pass by it regularly.

 

Tort Liability—tort law applies to lawsuits in which the plaintiff seeks to recover money to compensate for personal injuries or property damage that they claim was caused by the defendant. In order to recover money damages from a roadway agency in a negligence case, the plaintiff must prove the following four things:

1.               that the roadway agency owed them a duty;

2.               that the roadway agency breached that duty;

3.               that the roadway agency's conduct was the proximate cause of the harm; and

4.               and that the plaintiff was actually injured or damaged.

In general, the law imposes on anyone carrying out an activity that may cause harm to others the duty to exercise ordinary care to avoid that harm. The law requires that we act reasonably under the circumstances. Failure to do so is negligence.

In most states, as part of their duty, roadway agencies must keep streets open for travel and free from obstructions. The failure to do so is negligent road/street maintenance. So for example, shrubbery obstructing an intersection or tree limbs blocking a STOP sign in the street right-of-way can be considered to be negligence in failing to maintain the streets in reasonably safe condition.

Roadway agencies should have a risk management program with goals of reducing accidental injuries on streets and sidewalks and to increase their ability to produce evidence that they acted reasonably. Good records, such as when brush was trimmed, can be very helpful in defending against a lawsuit. The maintenance department should create a system that will document (1) the information coming into the department regarding street and sidewalk conditions; (2) the procedure used to prioritize the repair work according to the risk presented and (3) the action taken in making the repairs.

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 is called "constructive notice." The better and more complete the information regarding road and street condition, the less likely the issue of constructive notice is to arise. Routine inspection for the purpose of gathering information and identifying dangerous conditions can complement the records system mentioned earlier. A program of regular inspections should be designed and implemented; the inspections should be done as often as is reasonable under the circumstances.

 

 

The above is from the Federal Highway Administration’s Vegetation Control for Safety.  A recent survey of Ludington’s streets (June 6-8) found not only the 52 intersections pictured below as being deficient for sight lines to regulatory signs (Stop, Yield, et. al.), as regards these guidelines, but also many others negligently tended by our local DPW.  This was pointed out last June and September, in this forum and other outlets and unbelievably, nothing has been noticeably trimmed in that time. 

 

City taxpayers should wonder why the DPW can set up and take down so many summer events that we have here in Ludington, but they cannot take a day off and trim the trees and shrubbery in the street right-of-way to alleviate the City (and by extension, the taxpayers) of costly tort liability issues, and potential deaths due to their negligence of this basic duty.  By the way, once you get out of the city limits, you don’t find obscured stop and yield signs; good job, Mason County Road Commission!

 

The city has gotten used to my squeak; let's have some other people make some stink about this so that they know the citizens mean business.

[AQUAMAN]

Year in, year out, nothing changes, except the wearing out of the DPW trucks that patrol G-park all summer looking at bikinis, while licking ice cream cones.

[XLFD]

And of course those trucks wear out so much quicker when they have to travel over 2 miles to get from their $2.5 million (in 2004 $) building to the beach. I do seem to see them moving from one place to another a lot more often than doing work.

[AQUAMAN]

One nice day last summer I was eating lunch and saw the same DPW truck go thru G-park 4 times in less than 30 minutes. Another day I saw at least 3 different DPW trucks go past me in the same time frame. They were NOT doing any work in the park either. If I see it again this year I intend to try to catch them and get the employees names that are doing this and report to Joe Taibl.