Many parks I’ve been to have low barriers around the parking lots and public spaces to contain cars.
Not a fence exactly, just a row of 4x4 posts, often cut to a point on the top with a 45degree cut. Make it 4 feet buried, 2-3 feet above, and 3 feet apart and I wouldn’t drive through it.
Check with an attorney. I’d be surprised if there isn’t any legal protection for your property. City/county employees and cops are notoriously foggy on many aspects of the law.
At least tell us where people are driving. Just left of the Stop sign? Between the Stop sign and large pole next to it? Between the large pole and the tree?
Do you mean a straight line from the tree through the large light pole? Or do you mean a straight line from the tree to the road you were standing on when you took the picture?
I assume you mean a straight line between the tree and large pole, and that people are driving to the right of that large large pole, but it really isn’t clear from what you’ve written. You’ll get better advice if people are clear about what your situation really is.
In the picture the second car could turn right if it cut a little of the grass verge, so I think that’s what the OP is talking about. I imagine around those parts you don’t get long lines of traffic. It looks as though vehicles are traveling too close to the grass approaching the stop sign but keeping left of the sign itself. If this is the case I would do absolutely nothing except reconsider if it was worth my time worrying about it.
Ok, it would be best if the OP could clarify, but it seems as though he is talking about the area between the tree and the light pole (“My property line is a straight line from the tree in the right hand of the picture to the end of the grass.”) and that people are cutting through that area, into his driveway(“people will cut right across my lawn and driveway to make a right turn”), and then making a right.
So, no, I don’t think his problem is with cars driving on the left of the stop sign.
To clarify, my property line is to the right of the stop sign and concrete pole, and yes, people do cut across my property by going to the right of the concrete pole.
:eek: That’s just rude, I tell ya. They’re not cutting the corner they’re using your front lawn for off-road driving practice. I’d start with a taught piece of twine/rope, about 3 foot off the ground between the tree and concrete pole, with bright sticky tape, milk bottle tops etc hanging from it so it’s obviously there. You could also stick some gardening poles (the ones made from bamboo) with empty bottles over the top (this is a good way to get rid of moles) which would be visible.
Unless that’s against the law.
I’ll repeat - a mound high enough to be an obstacle to anything except a monster truck, from the tree to the pole. grass it nicely, put flowers on top. If that does not stop then, use bricks to put a 1-foot wall/curb on the driveway side so there’s a drop-off.
Alternatively, park a wheel-barrow full of big rocks in the gap beside your driveway so they can’t get by it…
Bollards. Specifically designed for this problem, and they don’t block vision.
I’m surprised there appears to be no ditch along either of the roads. I don’t see any obvious drains either. Do you guys not get a lot of rain, or is the soil really porous, or something?
Thank you all for the suggestions. As a stopgap measure, I’ll probably buy a couple bags of mulch tomorrow to barricade my driveway. After all, bags of much are only 2-3 dollars each. I figure it’ll only take about 20-30 dollars. After that, I’ll figure out something. Maybe a laundry line?
How about a big “No Trespassing!” sign on a post right in the middle of that zone between the tree and the light pole?
I have similar problem. So I actively rake & plant grass seed often. Use straw , "donot walk on grass "Add small statue in area ie. bird feeder.small stakes out of wire with construction ribbon does wonders. As long as people can drive over in case of emergency vehicles. Good luck this worked for me.
Large rocks should do the trick. About 1 foot in diameter. Space them about 2 to 4 feet apart on your property line. I would try to make them visible so that the idiots cutting across your property at least have a chance to change their mind before trying.
Why do the drivers need to be able to see? They will be able to see just fine once they reach the stop sign, no matter which way they are turning. Right? I mean…that’s what these people are supposed to be doing…staying on the paved surface, waiting their turn to go.
Wow. I thought you meant people were squeezing in between the stop sign and the pole. What a bunch of dicks doing that shit! Just be fucking patient and wait your damn turn!
After viewing the picture more carefully I wish to retract this statement. The fence would have to run too close to the stop sign to do anything and would, in fact, block vision in that direction.
This might be helpful: it all hinges on what is and isn’t a “structure” in your community.
Simply put, you want something that has a legitimate reason to be there, that it would be perfectly legal to put there, that is reasonably visable, and that will do horrible damage to a car that encounters it.
My first thought is to put your mailbox out near the end of your driveway. If, like where I grew up, you can get your newspaper delivered into a box like a mailbox, you could get one of those too. Most people put them right by their mailbox, but I don’t see why you couldn’t put it closer to the stop sign.
And give each of those roadside boxes an unconventional post.
See, my father had a problem with the snow plow hitting our mailbox, which they were obliged to pay for so of course they denied they did it; they claimed any damage was due to thrown snow, which wasn’t their problem. They bent the sturdy metal post, so dad replaced that with a limb that fell off our apple tree in a storm - over a foot in diameter, set into concrete. It snapped off at the ground.
So he used some cinder blocks he had left from a renovation and built a double-wide tower of them, with the mailbox mounted to a board with two 2x4s running down through the blocks. This bent the plow, and got them complaining about his illegal structure.
Turns out, since they weren’t mortared together, the blocks didn’t count as a “permanent structure”, and were perfectly legal.
So from then on the road would get a couple of feet narrower by the end of our driveway in the winter, as the plows would swerve out to the middle of the road to avoid hitting our mailbox. And often we did have to go searching in the snowbanks down the road because the thrown snow would knock the mailbox off its post and send it flying.
The big sedans are usually RWD. Not sure about the SUVs.
Perhaps his driveway is out of frame to the right, and intersects the street with the stop sign, and the driveway seen on the main road after the turn is someone else’s. So the people are starting their departure of the road at/near his driveway, then continuing with 2 wheels (or more) on the lawn down to the stop sign, then making a normal right turn, as if the road split into two lanes for the intersection.
I must admit I was once one of those dicks: a line of cars in the left-turn only lane backed up past where the road split into right-turn only and left-turn only, so I used a business’ driveway to get two wheels up on the sidewalk so I could zip to the right turn only lane and turn right on red.
Edit: I see now he has confirmed that people are even bigger dicks than I imagined. My point still holds that while it was unclear, someone could assume (as I did) that it was something else.
A lot of folks are suggesting things that are high-visability, so as to warn people that you don’t want them driving through there anymore. I say you want stealth, as anybody who’s a big enough dick to drive through there needs to pay a few hundred in car repairs.
But perhaps something more passive is in order, like a webcam. Decent all-weather cameras are cheapish, a bare-bones computer to record, make sure you get an angle that will capture their license plates. If the cops won’t do anything armed with that, post a big sign on the wall that says “Right turn shortcut, $500 per use” and send out bills. 