Sometimes The Law’s An Ass: Cul-De-Sac Edition

Trees are being trimmed, probably on behalf of the power company.

When I woke up Helaine asked me to take a look at something she thought funny. The tree trimmers have unfurled a large orange sign.

WORK AREA AHEAD

Ahead? It’s twenty five feet from the end of the road!

We live on a cul-de-sac. That’s just a fancy way of saying “dead end.” The advantage, of course–no through traffic.

When Stef was first learning to drive her instinct was to exit our driveway without stopping! Why bother? I set her straight.

Most days you could lay down in the middle of my street for hours and live to talk about it! Which brings us to today.

There is a large bucket truck at the lollipop end of the cul-de-sac. Trees are being trimmed, probably on behalf of the power company.

When I woke up, Helaine asked me to take a look at something she thought funny. The tree trimmers had unfurled a large orange sign.

WORK AREA AHEAD

Ahead? It’s twenty five feet from the end of the road!

The sign, I suppose, is there to comply with state law.

If common sense was the law there would be no sign… nor would there be a police officer, equipped with safety vest and police car, to direct traffic for the three driveways at the end of the cul-de-sac.

It’s probably not good for my blood pressure to think about the officer’s hourly rate is for this exercise in futility. Maybe not directly, but I’m sure we’re all on the hook for the cost.

It’s not the officer’s fault, nor the fault of the utility workers. Sometimes the law is an ass!

12 thoughts on “Sometimes The Law’s An Ass: Cul-De-Sac Edition”

  1. Deb,

    While the officer does get his paycheck from the town, including the hours he works as described in the post, the company that is doing the work must pay the town for his services. In some cases the town can actually make money from this kind of what is known as an “extra duty job”.

    I guess Geoff is correct that in one way or another we do pay for it, be it from our electrical rates or what the tree company charges. The charge for the officer is “built in” to the cost.

  2. My pet peeve is when they repave a road and then 2 weeks later someone comes along and digs it up! You would think one hand would talk to the other and arrange it so digging comes before paving, but apparently not. Quinnipiac Avenue in New Haven is a classic example of this. Maybe they should just install zippers instead!

    1. They just did this in Bristol. Paved a major road and ten days later were digging up parts of it. Yet on another road they paved half of it (one layer of asphalt) and left it unfinished for the past 4 months.
      Go figure….

  3. I grew up on a dead-end that had a total of 6 houses on it. People would park on whatever side was convenient when they drove in and it didn’t bother anyone. 10 years of this anarchy and one day, Mom was given a ticket for parking on the wrong side of the road.

  4. This summer they put up a sign by my house, which is at the bottom of a hill, “HILL BLOCKS VIEW”. I would think this would be obvious enough without a sign!

  5. If the work they were doing was an all day project they could have been moving from location to location and the cop, being assigned to go along, had to follow even if it was only on a dead end street. I’m sure he thought it was as absurd as you did, but hey, he was geeting paid for it.

  6. Geoff – you hit on a hot button of mine…namely the terrrible job the state, towns, utilities, etc do with signing! Can’t tell you how many times I have encountered a “Flag Man Ahead” sign in Southington and no flag man is in site…or he’s busy talking on the side of the road…or there is absolutley no construction activity whatsoever. And the “One Lane Road Ahead” signs are most always wrong…what they mean to say is “Lane Shift” – Combine that sign with the Flag Man sign and you can sit and wait forever for someone to direct you thru the maze!

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