Saturday, Nov 01, 2014 at 09:56
On the subject of bridges.
Another issue is where the road surface has been built up due to re surfacing and no one has remembered to replace the sign with the new dimensions.
Does not happen, I hear you say. Think again.
There is one famous
bridge down near
Melbourne which has caught many an unwary traveler heading for the Tasmanian ferry.
A chap I came across tried to take his 5th wheeler under it and shaved the top off the fifth wheeler. Yes his mind was elsewhere at the time, however a fellow whose position shall remain nameless said that a few weeks previously a brand new
police communications unit had done exactly the same thing writing off about $300 dollars worth.
The chap said that it seems the road had been resurfaced many times but no one thought to make up a new sign indicating the new reduced height.
The thing that annoys me a lot of the time is that an important road sign has been erected but a bush has been allowed to grow in front of it and so it obscures the sign.
I see it all the time when traveling the Pacific highway from Coffs south to
Newcastle.
The simple, inexpensive fix does not seem to be of any importance. In such cases why bother to put up the signage in the first place.
I was once fined (1973) for going through a
stop sign which was obscured by a branch of a tree. I could have gotten off I think but it would have cost me more to attend the court in
Newcastle as I lived in
Sydney. The copper was hiding in the park opposite the offending
stop sign so he was more than
well aware of the problem but used it to his advantage. It was a rainy night with street lights reflecting off the wet road and also reflecting off the leaves on the branches, making visibility of that sign and road markings virtually impossible.
I did not see the
stop sign until the white bar painted on the road went under the front of the car. I was looking for road signage at the time and therefore would have seen it were it visible.
I started to explain to the copper and then thought and said "Ah what's the use". He was obviously getting his quota for the night otherwise he would have strolled over and broken the branch off and the community would have been done a valuable service.
It would have taken many months if not a year for that branch to obscure that sign so there was plenty of time for someone to fix the problem. Why didn't the
police make the council fix it, is my question.
Cheers, Bruce.
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