Stop Signs

Stop Sign

When I lived in Carlstadt NJ, I heard that a man was suing the city
for an accident he caused by running a stop Sign.
The man claimed that a tree blocked his view of the Stop Sign.
I lived near that corner, so I drove up to it myself and looked.
The tree was not really blocking the view,
rather the Stop Sign was so high in the sky
that only someone looking for airplanes would see it.

Several years later there was another accident at the Stop Sign
in front of my house in Surfside Beach (see the photo above).
Same problem: look where the drivers head in the car would be
and look where the Stop Sign is positioned !
Nice height for tractor-trailer drivers, but not for cars;
even my neighbors big SUV was shorter than the bottom of the Stop Sign,
I measured both (and lost the measurements).

When you are driving, you see the pot holes in the road and try to avoid them;
you also try to avoid hitting dogs that run in front of your car;
which means that you are looking DOWN at the road,
not UP at the sky, which is why you did not see this stop Sign.

The city of Surfside Beach could not understand this,
or some superior government has a rule (that I cannot find) regarding the height of Stop Signs.
If there is a rule, how old is it ?   Was it made for horses or Model T cars ?
There is now a 4-way stop at this corner;   that is the government way,
do not examine the actual problem,   just put a bandaid on it !


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