I don’t have much experience with the attractive nuisance doctrine, but for the most part I think it concerns things which (a) are potentially dangerous, and (b) have a propensity to attract children. If you have such a thing on your property, you may have a duty to put a fence around it, or take other measures to prevent kids from getting hurt (even though they may be trespassers). In the case of pools (probably the most common form of “attractice nuisance”) many places now have specific laws requiring fences around them.
On another note, if anyone’s considering putting up anti-vehicle barriers in their yard, I’d suggest consulting, in addition to local laws, any restrictive covenants that apply to your neighborhood. Concrete pillars and whatnot may be frowned upon by your neighbors.
There’s some overlap between these two concepts. At least in some states, it’s possible to have a public road built on an easement previously granted by the landowner. If the road ever gets removed (in other words, the public entity in charge of it decides that it’s no longer needed), the easement lapses, and the landowner’s sucessors get the land free and clear.
In my state (Illinois), the old common-law form of road dedications are treated as easements, with the dedicator technically still owning the road land, but burdened by the easement. Today, roads are usually dedicated in an alternative, statutorily-authorized way which does not create an easement and instead transfers fee ownership to the public entity. (There’s still a contingent interest in the road land that the landowner/dedicator retains, but it’s not an ownership interest.)
Also, the term “right of way” refers to the entire road strip that the governmental entity has rights in, including the road itself and any sidewalks, parkways etc. alongside. Sometimes the road is expanded to cover the entire width of the right of way.
I agree your description of one type of easement (and that type is the most common), but there are other kinds of easements that don’t involve the right to physically traverse or occupy the servient estate.
A few years back I ahd problems with guests of my then-sister in law driving over the flower bed adjacent to my driveway. I placed large stones (about 18-24 inches high) in the corner that was getting the most traffic. Come the next spring I made another flower bed in my front yard and bordered it with stones. Since I installed the stones, nobody has driven over my flower bed and I have received no complaints. In fact my stone border has received a few compliments from my neighbors.
Interesting–I hadn’t heard of anything like that except for easements allowing someone else’s driveway; didn’t know that public roads could be on them too.
IIRC, the logic was that the stones placed along the highway presented a hazard to motorists, as they weren’t there by nature, and that the highway way a state road, such that restrictions to traffic leaving the roadway weren’t governed by the homeowner-PennDOT held final rule. It’s a 20 year old case and when searching for it, couldn’t find a cite, sorry.
This doesn’t answer the question, but it’s a story I have to share:
Years ago my commute took me over a narrow street with a sharp turn at the bottom of a hill. The guy who lived in the house on the outside of the turn owned a large pickup truck, which he parked on the street.
This truck got hit a lot. Once every couple of weeks I would see some new damage: a pushed-in fender, a bent bumper, a broken mirror. I wondered why the guy didn’t park in his driveway.
One day, as I came around the turn, I saw something new. There was a traffic horse in front of the truck with a hand-lettered sign that read, “Over 100 sued. 2 so far this month.” The sign stayed there day after day. After a while the “2” was crossed out and replaced with a “3.” I believe it made it up to 4 in the first month before he re-started it at 0 the next month. This went on for quite a while - the lawsuit count would creep up over the month, then start again at 0.
It occurred to me that the folks down at the courthouse must have become very familiar with the truck owner. I’d guess that the judges, clerks and bailiffs would groan when they saw this guy’s name on the docket. I considered sneaking out there at night and replacing the sign with one that read, “Too stubborn to park in driveway,” but I didn’t want to get shot.
Finally one day, after many months and dozens of announced lawsuits, I came around the turn and saw the guy’s truck parked in his driveway. He also had a red curb in front of his house.
The sign was still there, but now it read, “Police made me move truck.”
It’s not directly on point, but do drivers have a right to cut across the lawn in the first place? What about setting up a surveillance camera and suing them?
Per offense, sure. But if it’s going on often enough to consider setting up a barricade, that’s $50 on $50 on $50… Further, maybe if you start creating a public stink about it with whoever is in local charge (one’s alderman in an incorporated area, or county councilman, or…) along with this campaign, then maybe whatever agency is in charge of maintaining the roads will put up a barrier, and then you cant’ be sued if someone runs into it. Add in a good dash of “what if my DAUGHTER had been playing there?” and you’re golden.
This would be especially appropriate in the case cited above with the hairpin that nobody who doesn’t live there would know about. To me, that just screams “bad design”.
I played high school football with two brothers; one was the star running back and the other was our best linebacker. This was in a blue collar neighborhood, and some kids would use their cars to “trench” the yards of other kids that they had a grudge with or of whom they were jealous. R and R’s father got tired of having his yard torn up by girls who couldn’t get a date with his sons (so said my older sister–no, she didn’t do it!), so he drove a row of steel spikes into the yard, five feet from the curb. Only a foot or so of each spike stood above the surface. The story at school was that one kid tried to trench their yard and had two tires blow out.
This was in Houston, Texas, back around 1980, an entirely different time. I almost tripped on a spike shortly after they were driven, but I’m sure that nobody sued. I’d assume that the next door neighbors sympathized with the parents. The spikes stayed there through the younger brother’s graduation. I’d guess that the police just felt that someone found a solution to a problem.
Seems like the answer is right here. Don’t put an actual dangerous obstacle at the edge of your yard — put a child-sized swingset there. Then if somebody plows through it, the “what-if” message is explicitly clear.
(Of course, if you don’t actually have kids, this might be a hard sell in small-claims court.)
Things like trampolines and stuff (including construction sites)that might draw in unauthorised persons in the UK have a specific legal term, there are called ‘allurements’.
This is the most pertinent answer to the OP I think. If there is a forseeable likelihood of a car hitting the obstacle and killing the driver, you will probably lose a lawsuit if someone does just that.
cornflakes example is probably borderline legal depending on the nature of the “spikes”. If they were sharp enough that someone falling on them could be pierced, they would be as illeagl as bear traps in your yard. If they were dull posts, they would probably be legal (IANAL.)
However, if the goal is just to keep folks out of your lawn, you can easily and legally create an obstacle that will not stop a runaway car, but will deter joyriders and careless drivers. monkeyfist’s example would likely be quite safe. A jury is not likely to be too sympathetic to a lawsuit from someone whining about the broken axle they got driving onto your yard. So the goal would be an obstacle that would go below the bumper and slow and damage the car, but not stop it fast enough to cause a safety issue.
One thing to keep in mind is that, if a car becomes disabled in your yard, it may be stuck there for hours until the driver (or you) is able to get it towed. You may not want to deal with an angry driver stuck in your yard, regardless of whether you are legally in the right.