They might, but they might not. In some jurisdictions in the US the plot extends to the center of the road, and the town or state exercises a right-of-way on the landowners property.
Just because something is not specifically outlined as illegal, doesn’t make it okay. Laws on roadways and property use are HIGHLY fragmented, but for shits and giggles here’s one law against it. Just because a given area doesn’t have a specific policy doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t. And it doesn’t absolve citizens of civil liability.
This point has been made over and over, yet you keep coming back to it.
If that brick wall is in a totally unreasonable location and the likelihood of a car hitting it is high, then you should probably brace yourself for a eventual lawsuit. You may win, you may lose…but if I’m on the jury I know how I voting.
I’ll second this, at least everywhere I have owned property (I am not saying this is universal), the property line has actually gone to the middle of the roadway, where it meets the property line of the adjacent landowner. The roads and sidewalks are thus actually on private property, but on permanent public easements (i.e the property owner has no real agency over the easement area, but technically owns it–in some jurisdictions the owner actually has maintenance obligations on the easement.)
nit pick - it was a television show where the useful mailbox was taken off and replaced with the useless cement block.
Which led to a criminal complaint on the show.
Now, was that L&O episode based upon a IRL case?
Actually, the guy in the civil case should be rewarded, not punished. If it weren’t for his mailbox, then the guy who lost control would have slid even further, until he hit a tree, which would have killed him instead of merely paralyzing him. His prudent and responsible mailbox saved that poor driver’s life.
This is probably why quite a number of areas specifically prohibit such structures to be on the roadway easement.
It’s actually not your property. It is not yours to do with as you wish.
It probably would be a good idea for more places to adopt such rules, as people placing hazardous objects near the roadway where they can injure or kill others would be one of those things that you would think that people wouldn’t want to do, but they do because just they can.
Then, rather than debating whether you were clever enough to pretend that you didn’t know or intend to cause harm to someone vandalizing a $50 mailbox, you simply are not allowed to put that stuff where it can cause a hazard to the people on the road.
Hey, what’s a few maimings when it comes to cracking down on those dastardly mailbox vandals.
How would you define “a totally unreasonable location” just like the mailbox there are only certain locations where a fence is useful typically on the edge of your property.
I was going to talk about my fence today too but I fenced in part of my yard last year to keep elk out. In order to deter large bull elk I’ve set 6" pipe posts every 8’ sunk in 3’ of concrete to get below the frost line. A friend backed into my fence shortly after I built it a put a huge dent in his bumper but didn’t do anything to the fence. If a car comes off the road way (and misses my trees) it most likely won’t make it through the fence unless they are going 45 mph+ and I doubt the driver will survive the trip through. My fence is 10’ from the road today because I didn’t want to deal with a larger yard but is that totally unreasonable. What if I liked mowing grass and built it on the edge of the right away? Is there a moral requirement to build a breakaway fence?
Sorting out those questions is what town halls and court cases are for. I never said perfect answers exist. Everyone keeps playing the slippery slope game, but these mailbox traps are especially egregious examples.
Ask yourself, are you going to feel any guilt if a family in a SUV hits some ice, or maybe swerves to avoid those elk, and ends up wrapping their truck around one of those poles? I figure you’re gonna be first on the scene, so you’ll be calling 911 and seeing the aftermath so you won’t have much chance to stay ignorant of the gory details. If you chose to build it 10 feet, but could have built it 15 feet from the road, would that have made a difference? Was that bull elk really causing THAT much of a problem? Would it have been THAT hard to fix the occasional bent or broken post? Only you will be able to answer those questions, I hope you don’t have to.
Personally, I have questions for anyone that feels the need to fence in a front yard, but I know some rural lots will be an exception there.
I think it was the comic strip Crankshaft (about the cranky school bus driver) which had a running gag about him backing his bus into the neighbour’s mailbox regularly while turning around. Reinforcing the mailbox in that scenario would not be “hazardous” because the anticipated collision was at 3mph.
My solution was to use two posts and a cross member so that the mailbox sat on the crossbar of an H shape. The posts just came up to the top of the mailbox on either side so that you couldn’t get a good swing at the box unless you stopped the car and had at it. Nobody ever did.
Not even a little bit. I also won’t feel bad if they wrap around my mailbox.
I agree anyone can sue for anything but I personally would feel better if the loser paid the winners court costs. If the family that hits my fence sues me for the death of their child after I win in court I should be made whole for my costs as well as the time I spent dealing with their silliness.
I am not sure specifically which easement you are talking about, but that is not what “easement” means. An easement on your property actually is your property. The easement gives other parties the right to access it for specific purposes. You can do with it was you wish if not prohibited by law or the easement deed.
For example, I have a public utilities easement across my property for gas, sewer, and telephone lines. I can do anything I want if it does not interfere with those lines. I own it.
If you are talking about jurisdictions where the property extends onto the traveled portion of the road and there is a public access easement for the roadway, I would expect the deed to be extremely restrictive. But not necessarily for easements in general.
OK, so here’s the edge of the city’s land, where they put the road. I put up a wall right next to that, on my land. But then we decide that that’s too close: There should be a buffer space, where construction isn’t allowed.
So now the road is five feet wider. I build a new wall right up against that new line, on my land. But now I have a wall right up against the road, and we decide that that’s too close: There should be a buffer space.
So now the road is ten feet wider…
When the road was built in the first place, it should have already taken into account all reasonable needs for its width. Therefore, I should be able to build right up to the edge, if I want. If someone then runs into something on my property, that might be a condemnation of the civil engineer who decided how wide the road needed to be, but it’s not a condemnation of me for building on my own land.
Everyone loves the slippery slope.
Some of the arguments remind me of arguments about behaviour on SDMB.
In the end there is an overriding rule - don’t be a dick.
If you are charged with manslaughter, you may find that your 12 peers decide your fate using the same rule.
In the end it is part of the reason why we have jury trials.
When it comes to regulating safety the law trails death. There is no real difference from safety standards in any area. The standards are almost always written in the blood of people that have been killed. As legions of people have been killed as their vehicles are dissected by roadside poles and barriers, standards evolved to enforce breakaway designs. Now we enjoy the added safety of roads where if we do crash into a utility pole we are much less likely to die. Standards on roadside obstructions are no different to standards on bridges or electricity supply. They are there to stop additional deaths.
In the end there is a reasonableness test. Your jury will apply that to decide if you are going to be enjoying a lot of free time soon.
This is so typical to blame the victim.
If the moron bats swingers had not decided to have some “fun” destroying someone else’s property this discussion would never come up.
Depends who you think the victim is. The person who once had a mailbox destroyed or the dead teenager. The law tends to look upon the situation in terms of the outcomes. A dead person is generally considered to be carry a lot more weight than a busted mailbox. It isn’t just a matter of who was at fault for initiating the exact situation. That starts to become the blame the young girl dressing up for less than pleasant outcomes. One person was setting out to do significant harm by intent, the other was not.
I bet nobody here can claim to have been pure as the driven snow innocent during their teen years. Never got a bit drunk and done something silly? Ever? Everyone has done something that they know was stupid, dangerous or a bit bad. We live in societies that assume commensurate penalties for bad actions. We do not condone or allow vigilante actions. Indeed they are taken very seriously. Nobody has any right impose their own version of justice. Nor do people have any right to reckless action that endangers others. If you know your action, whatever it is, is likely to endanger another, even if that other person is engaging in an illegal act, the law it pretty clear. You are at fault, and if there is a bad outcome you will pay the penalty. You enjoy that protection from idiotic reckless actions by your peers, and they reasonably expect that protection from you.
There is a lot of “get off my lawn” in the arguments. I bet not many from people with teenage children. Such parents know that their kids get up to stupid and occasionally bad things. Its life. Welded into or genes. Mostly not of the level as mailbox destroying, but a lot goes on. (When I was a teenager I did know of a couple of others who blew up mailboxes. It is not exactly uncommon. There was a spate of such destruction a decade odd ago, and my brother’s lovely handcrafted wooden box was destroyed. We did not consider setting a mantrap for the next time.) Parents will not be exactly amused at arguments from their neighbours that it is OK to set mantraps capable of killing their offspring if they engage in some antisocial prank.
If you have kids, you expect that the law protects them from idiotic vigilante actions. Concrete mailboxes, someone setting up a shotgun trap in an empty house. And so on. Nobody gets to kill someone else because they did something stupid.
I wonder if you can make a mailbox out of the same material they use for those rubber traffic poles. Those things are great - whack them, run them over, and they just pop back into place.
Very interesting, informative and comprehensive reply but you missed the start of the story. The part where the moron hooligan sets out to destroy someone else’s property.
The mailbox smasher knows his actions will cause distress, not only will the owner be upset by wanton senseless destruction of his property but also faced with the the financial cost of replacing the mailbox.
The mailbox smasher is fully aware of that his actions will cause distress upset and financial loss to the victim, so can’t plead it’s only a bit of fun. I don’t see him smashing his own mailbox.