SIGNS OF THE TIMES
A Small Paper With Small Articles Because It's Just Plain Small

Volume 2, Number 7

When Justice Becomes A Travisty

By: JD Hoeye

Editor's Note: The following is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the Mill City Independent Press.

Much has been written recently of driving speeds, speed limits and safe driving, but nothing to my knowledge has been written about building safe roads; in particular making safe modifications to existing roads.

Take Lyons-Mill City drive for instance. It is an older well-built road. The corners, except for one in particular, are engineered and built so that simply pointing a vehicle into the corner the auto seemingly drives itself through. This effortless cornering occurs at any speed one chooses. Even at 60, 70, or 80 MPH simply point a car into the corners and it will enter and exit in its own lane - except for one.

East bound, the road lulls a person into a feeling of false confidence. Since there is no warning I suspect that more than a few, including myself, have discovered the bad corner. There was one young driver I heard of who found it the hard way some years ago. Traveling east he entered the second half of the 'S' curve at the western end of Franks Lumber at well over 60 MPH. As he exited the corner the road no longer guided his car along the marked lane as all previous corners had!

At that location the eastbound lane is an addition, a modification, to the original roadway. Made to create room for a turn lane, the new lane is not correctly built. The super (the tilt to aid cornering) drops off too soon and/or sharply. As a vehicle exits that curve it is still under the sideways, shear, centrifugal force of cornering when the road flattens out. The result is the marked lane and natural line of travel at the exit of the corner take two different paths. IE: A car following the natural line of travel suddenly leaves the paved road. Adding to the hazard there's a power pole standing in the natural path of the car.

I'm certain the driver fell victim to;

His own inexperience;
The feeling of security the road had lulling him into; and,
The failure of those who modified the corner to properly engineer it.

Sadly, the accident resulted in the death of a passenger. Tragically, responsibility for the accident and passengers death was placed entirely on the driver who was Charged, Tried and Convicted of a Crime. (Certainly a Traffic Crime, perhaps a degree of Homicide, I don't recall the specifics)

I'm equally as certain no liability was assigned to the engineers who designed the substandard modification. I further assume no one asked if those engineers had a responsibility to build and/or modify roads in a manner that maintains the quality, drive ability, of the original road. That those who modified that corner were not;

Found to be accessories before the fact; and,
Assigned some degree of liability; is,
No small failure of our Justice system.

That under our liability laws, it's not a question of whether or not such liability exists; it does - making the whole affair a, Certifiable Travesty of Justice.