“not because I’m going to cause some annoying motorcyclist to fall down”
If it was proven it harmed motorcyclist and no one else, would you still do it or more aggressively do it?
Since when are glass clippings “garbage”? It’s grass, it’ll decompose quickly and safely. It’s not like the OP is asking if it’s okay to throw empty beer bottles into the street.
Not really. Bolding mine.
It’s illegal in my town, although a few grass clippings wouldn’t bother anyone. The real crunch comes with the guy who cleans the snow out of my driveway. He tries his damndest, but sometimes, when there is already 4 or 5 feet of snow on the lawn, to avoid getting some into the street or on the sidewalk. Eventually the town comes along and cleans the sidewalks and streets, but that can take a day or two during which you have to walk in the street.
As a motorcyclist ---- normal amounts are fine but if you let the grass go to your hips before cutting it its borderline an issue for me.
Now shovel snow out into an otherwise dry road and you should be stabbed, shot, drawn, quartered and have your remains fed to rats.
Just about everyone in my neighborhood blows their clippings into the street, including me. It all disappears in a day or so and as far as I can tell it’s never caused problems with drainage. Granted, I blow clippings from my driveway into the nearest grass or the street, whichever is closer, so it’s not like I blow everything out there. After a few cars drive by you can hardly see it anymore.
Where I live everyone does it and about once a week a big truck comes through and sucks it all up.
I had no idea that this happened until I’d lived here two years and had bagged leaves dozens of times. They prefer you not leave bags, but just leave the trash out where they can come by and suck it up.
Tacky and kinda lazy, but that doesn’t necessarily make you a grade A jerk.
Yes, it’s jerkish. And around here, neighbors would come by and explain that to you.
Where do you think they go from the street? They don not just ‘disappear’.
Here, they go about 2 blocks to end up in the lake or the creek. Contributing to the overgrowth of algae and fish kill, that leads to the swimming beach being closed several times each summer when the water is too bacteria-laden to swim in.
Same here. When I cut right by the road, it goes in the street. No one can avoid it, unless they bag the clippings. Most yards here are too large for bagging, so out in the street it goes. Most of us also shovel the snow into the yard across form the end of the driveway. It’s just what everyone does.
Around here, it never rains. So, if you don’t sweep them up, they either sit there until the street sweeper comes, or they blow away. If it did rain, they end up in the retention basin, which is grass.
Which doesn’t mean it still isn’t existentially lazy, but it’s no ecological disaster.
" it goes in the street. No one can avoid it," Really? I mow about an acre with about 300’ of road frontage. Very little gets on the road simply by making the first few passes blowing back into my yard. The first 3 rounds are actually backwards so I can get right up to the edge without the damned chute being in the way.
" Most of us also shovel the snow into the yard across form the end of the driveway. It’s just what everyone does." for people like you in this case the title query is answered yes.
Our neighborhood has sloped curbs (so no cutouts needed for driveways); when I run my mulching mower along the edge of the street, I have two wheels on the street and two wheels in the grass, and this puts a good bit of grass on the street. Afterwards I use a blower to get it off of the street and onto the lawn. This is not for motorcyclists; there’s not that much grass in the street. I clean up because I think it looks like crap, and I try to keep my property looking decent. There aren’t any militant lawn-care fanatics in our neighborhood, but when I look up and down the street, the general standard of care involves not leaving clippings in the street.
When I ride my motorcycle through residential areas like mine I don’t operate at the limits of traction, and I’m pretty sure anybody who rides so hard that they slide out on a little bit of grass clippings would be the only one receiving a citation from the police.
I usually would cut it just enough that the grass clippings are small enough to act as a mulch, never blew it into the street. I typically would leave it alone. Seen plenty of neighbors do it though, I don’t really see the issue. Except maybe clogging up a sewer, seems like a small risk though, unless your grass is a foot tall.
Honestly, the real jerks are the people who use those sprinklers that spray all of the sidewalk and freshly cleaned and waxed parked cars. Unless its super hot out, nobody wants to pause until it oscillates to the other direction. Nobody wants water spots on their cleaned cars either.
I’m another who thinks it’s jerkish. Just blow the clippings into your own yard and that will help give your grass nutrients instead of the grass going into the nearest waterway.
I think it’s illegal in my neck of the woods.
- My cities yard waste collection rules
Jesus, that’s a lot of unsmoked grass blowin’ in the wind, man.
I work for a municipal government and frequently have to deal with these sorts of complaints. To be clear, the biggest problem associated with depositing grass clippings along the curb/gutters or using a blower to blow them into the streets is that the clippings end up clogging the storm water drains and can cause streets to flood whenever it rains. I suspect most folks just don’t realize the flooding of their roads is often connected with the accumulation of leaf and grass debris.
For things like this, I find it helpful to think of it this way: If you’re wondering if something is OK for you to do, would it also be OK if *everyone *did it?
If the answer is no, then it’s probably not a good idea to do it.
I can see how it could be problematic, but not how it could be jerkish. You aren’t intentionally trying to hurt people, and there is no one directly affected. It just may cause undesirable effects. (And, no, I don’t buy the motorcycle one. Why are you driving so close to the side of the road, anyways?)
What I’ve done when I’ve blown it in the street is to just come back around and run the mower on the street, with the blade rather high up (just in case). This blows it back into my yard somewhat. Granted, on a push mower, it’s easier to correct the direction, so this usually happens with a riding mower.
I guess I could actually go with a big broom and fix it, but that always seemed overkill. Especially when all my neighbors have done it at one point or another.