Living on a busy road can be stressful. You have to deal with noise and traffic, and just pulling out of your driveway can be a pain. Perhaps the only thing worse is living at the end of a tee junction, as one Ohio man has found out to his dismay.
John Gall lives down in Cleveland Heights, right on Fairmount Boulevard. It’s a nice spot, but there’s a problem. John’s house sits right in front of the tee junction between Fairmount and South Taylor Road. Living in this unenviable position has seen three cars crash into his home in the last decade.
As covered by News 5 Cleveland, Gall has had enough. He’s demanding the city take action to protect his home.
Gall first moved into his house in 1996. Initially, his home sat behind a guardrail, but that was removed in the early 2000s. With his home left undefended from oncoming cars, the trouble soon began.
“Well, the first crash actually took out my pickup truck that was parked in the driveway,” Gall told News 5 of a crash in 2012. Fast forward to 2021, and a police chase ended when the fleeing car went barreling into the kitchen. Gall had been asleep, just 10 to 15 feet away, according to Newsweek’s report at the time. Gall was waken by the commotion, with police approaching the home. “I stuck my head out the broken front window and said, ‘Please don’t shoot me, I am the homeowner,'” Gall told the outlet.
That horrifying incident was followed quickly by another crash in 2022, which destroyed Gall’s garage. 2023 then brought a near miss, with an errant car narrowly missing the house and coming to rest on Gall’s lawn. The incidents have continued, despite all the flashing lights and speed bumps installed by the city to make drivers aware of the intersection. Even a 35 mph speed limit hasn’t stopped cars from crashing into Gall’s property.
Beyond the repeated reconstructions and safety concerns, it’s becoming hard to insure the building. “I can’t get homeowners insurance… I currently have insurance, but they jacked the rates, and if I have one more claim I’m being dropped,” he says. “I pursued other insurance companies… nobody will touch me.”
The city has stopped short of reinstating the guardrail, citing engineering advice. “Based on the advice of our engineering firm, we could not recommend and it would not be safe to install a guardrail at that location,” then-Mayor Seren told Cleveland 19 in 2021. Still, it has taken some measures to rectify the issue. Two large granite boulders were placed on Gall’s lawn to act as a barrier, with the rocks catching two cars in a single weekend in 2023.
However, Gall didn’t accept this as a permanent solution. “My contention is that I bought a house that had a guardrail, a known safety barrier, they took it away and didn’t replace it with anything better,” he told Fox 8 Cleveland shortly after the incidents. In response, the City of Cleveland noted it was a tough situation. “We sympathize enormously with Mr. Gall,” stated Mike Thomas, the Cleveland Heights communications director. “Having the threat of cars running into your house, I mean, that has to be pretty difficult to live with.”
With state guidelines apparently preventing the reinstallation of the original guardrail, the city instead proposed an alternative solution. It would offer to buy the house from Gall. However, he found this unacceptable. “I’ve lived here for 27 years, the house is paid for, I’ve put in all kinds of improvements,” he told Fox 8 in 2023. “Suddenly it’s a hazard and I have to move and they just offer me fair value. They failed to address the actual issue and they’ve done it for years. I’m just sick of it and I’m not going to roll over,” said Gall.
Ultimately, Gall would decline the buyout from the city. “They offered fair market value… well, I don’t have a mortgage, the house is paid off,” he told News 5. “What can I buy where I won’t have to pay that’s comparable to where I’m currently living?”
In his most recent interview with News 5, Gall’s frustration is obvious. In addition to his other efforts, he’s also painting signs to try and draw attention to his plight. “They ignore the problem… I’m the only one that’s ever been hit!” he says. “I’m painting another sign… this sign’s going to go somewhere with the one that says the cowards won’t talk, because they’re chicken bleep motherfroggers!”
“Do you think these signs help?” asked Nadeen Abusada, reporter for News 5. “They help me, because I don’t know what else to do,” replies Gall. “It’s cathartic.”
The Autopian has contacted the city for comment regarding the matter, but ultimately, no solution to Gall’s problem is yet forthcoming. He has engaged legal representation, and as reported by Cleveland Scene, he hopes that he can convince the city to install bollards for protection. Until then, he continues to live behind two large boulders, painting his signs to draw attention to his plight.
Image credits: News 5 Cleveland via YouTube screenshot, Google Street View
He’s doing better than the people in Portland with 30 hits in a decade but the city seems every bit as obstructive.
Jersey barrier might be an answer
My sweetie grew up in that neighborhood and the instant I saw the headline I knew which house it was.
Unfortunately what will happen is that they will buy the house via Immanent Domain and give the owner a reduced price because the house and land are “Distressed” and “A Blight” due to all the cars hitting it.
A guard rail is not designed to stop a head-on collision. The city engineer is correct…that’s not a great solution.
The boulders? A fairly good solution that has been poorly implemented. Boulders are used all the time as a “landscape solution” to protect sensitive government buildings from vehicular threats. An engineered decorative knee wall would also be a good solution.
Either of those could work as well as the bollards the owner wants… and look better. But if it’s got to be a bollard? He wants a K-12 rated bollard. (Look it up. The videos are great).
Really… this seems like a situation that could be handled better with a conversation explaining why the guard rail isn’t a good option… and some flexibility on the part of both parties to review options.
I can’t believe the owner has let (and I use that term deliberately) this happen three times. Once and I would have made sure there was a permanent solution. But then I wouldn’t have bought that house to begin with…
Those videos are amazing and wow, great solution.
The bollards themselves can be painted to look a little nicer and even have some sort of matching “fencing” (non structural, purely cosmetic) installed between them to give them a little better appearance and not just a bunch of things sticking out of the ground.
Good idea
It’s really astounding to me how many people jump to “the government won’t do it because it costs money” and not “the government won’t do it because it will cost money and not work”
In fairness… I’m not suggesting the government (at all levels) doesn’t do absolutely boneheaded things. But there are a lot of good civil servants out there that know what they are doing… people shouldn’t immediately assume they don’t. Especially when the government in question has shown a willingness to work with the homeowner.
The government even offered to buy his entire house from him in cash! Which is more than they had to do.
And he rejected the offer and is somehow the victim?
I don’t know what they offered him, but it was dumb to choose that place to begin with, guardrail or not, and that’s on him. I get that it’s paid for and this certainly sucks, but he’s been there almost 30 years, what could he have possibly paid for it? Then there’s the cost of insurance he’s paying now (while he can still get it) and the stress of living like that and looking like a dumbass weirdo with a bunch of goofy signs in his impotent attempt to guilt a city that doesn’t care to bandaid a dubious fix in order to remain in an unremarkable small house (not that there’s anything wrong with small houses, just that the value isn’t high) at an intersection that—even without crashing cars—comes with light, noise, and air pollution and it’s in Cleveland?! Their fair market value offer probably isn’t great, but I imagine must be more than he had paid for it and he won’t be able to sell it to anyone else, anyway. If that doesn’t matter to him as he had plans to die there, well, he might just get his wish prematurely. Cars are also getting heavier, which not only doesn’t help his odds, but may make a fantasy returned guardrail of little help, anyway, particularly when they are designed more for glancing blows than perpendicular hits (it’s possible that a guardrail might even be worse, acting as a ramp to launch the vehicle higher). Some fights aren’t worth fighting and some can’t be won. This is both. Moreover, this seems like one of those life situations that appear terrible at first but end up working out for the best in the end (could it really be much worse?). Dude, take whatever they’re offering and leave.
I get the point about the offer was probably more than he paid for the house ~30 years ago, but the issue become finding another house for the amount paid for this one. I have no idea what houses cost in that area, but if they’re offering say $250k and replacing it will cost $275k or even $300k, he’s not being offered a reasonable replacement amount.
Also, I get that his insurance is sky high, but really the repairs should be covered by the insurance of the people doing the damage, or the city (and yeah, I get they have immunity in many cases) whose police are causing dangerous chase situations. This situations sucks for this guy.
And the intersecion might have been a lot calmer with less traffic 30 years ago when he bought and has evolved into this mess over time.
What he would save on insurance could likely make up for most of what a new mortgage would cost over what he’d be able to put down from the city, plus he’ll have a house with actual equity. He could also take the money and invest it while renting (worrying stock market signs aside). The other factor here that I don’t think he appreciates (unless he’s one of those empty people who like drama) is the stress he’s living with. When in a stressful situation, it’s often difficult to recognize how bad it is until the stress is removed and the relief become remarkable. Maybe the psychological angle is the real problem: the lawn signs are, well, a sign to me that this guy might be the type who’s been pushed around and stepped on a lot in life, so he could have a lot riding mentally on this relatively low-risk (nobody’s going to beat him up and he’s not going to lose his job or get his heart broken, etc. from any outcome) fight he’s choosing to make for maybe the first time in his life. That’s completely a guess and probably reading too much into it, but he has a few things here that remind me of some doormats I’ve known.
He’s probably close to retirement so if commute distance is an issue it won’t be for long, meaning he has flexibility on location that could bring the cost of the new place down.
It’s about to be worth zero the next time a car parks in the living room and insurance doesn’t cover it (which seems not too far away).
Unless the police are chasing every car that hits his house, it doesn’t seem like the city is the main cause of this problem.
I’m pretty sure lots of people wish the place they lived was the same as it was 30 years ago. It’s just not possible, and if the changes make you hate the location you need to relocate.
FWIW, Zillow says the home is worth $173 K
This hasn’t been an issue for the entirety of the house’s existence, or even when he bought it. It has only been a problem for the last decade. The problem is with driver behavior, not the location of the house.
Also, FYI for Lewin, Cleveland Heights is not the city of Cleveland.
He’s existing in the present, so past history isn’t really relevant beyond content for complaining about things being unfair when it was really that his luck ran out and he chose poorly to begin with as the house appears to always have been located on a T intersection. Driving behavior is getting worse—no argument there—and I’ll add that cars are getting more destructive with increasing weight and height, but that’s all the more reason to leave. While I’m someone who looked at extreme projected sea level rise flood maps when looking at prospective houses that weren’t even located that close to water or at lower elevations, you don’t have to be a little bit overboard to appreciate his house’s location as a violation of the cliched three rules of real estate. Even without the risk of crashes, it is not a desirable spot—headlights shining inside at night, noise from accelerating vehicles, the squeal of worn brakes, air pollution from emissions, tires, brake dust, etc. Maybe he got it especially cheap because of it, but cheap often comes with a price. That place is not appreciating in value and every additional day is risk of death or serious injury (and loss of insurance), now is the time to get out.
You seem determined to blame the homeowner, and I’m not really interested in discussing it.
It’s not the homeowner’s fault that cars hit his house.
It is his fault that he remains in a home likely to be hit by cars.
If not for his campaign, he could have just sold it for full market value. There’s no obligation to disclose that cars have hit the home to potential buyers, although they may find out when they try to get homeowners insurance.
It’s not his fault he’s been hit, but it’s his fault that he won’t take the offered lifeline, the only one he has and one that leads almost certainly to a better situation than he’s in. Instead, he’s choosing to play the victim card hoping supermom will swoop in and save him when all it’s going to get him is a worthless house he can’t insure and increased stress. Originally, yes, OK fight to get some kind of actually effective barriers installed if you don’t mind some big ugly boulders there and the city has seemingly communicated poorly with the guy about the reasons for the guardrail removal and no additional boulders (though I strongly suspect they have told him and he didn’t like or understand the reasons), but the city has obviously reached the limit of how far they’ll go and there is only one offer left on the table and it’s not a bad one, but he refuses to take it. Yes, maybe fight to see if you can get a little more from them, like moving expenses, closing costs, whatever, but that is the only fight left.
If this guy was living along the bottom of the cliffside of a mountain that’s been stable for decades, but has had several rockslides smash his property in the last ten years and he’d refuse to move, even with the city offering to buy it for local market value would this be a discussion? A guardrail isn’t designed to work well for this application and that’s very likely why it’s gone. More boulders? OK, you’re still living in a worthless house with only a reduced danger of being hit, but it’s not only about him—if some moron hits a boulder and dies, the city is likely looking at a major lawsuit and my guess is the only reason those two boulders are there is because someone didn’t consult legal first. When legal found out, they shut down adding more and told the city they needed to make him an offer. His choices here are to end up with an uninsurable and worthless house and maybe get killed by a flying car or take the only lifeline he’s going to get and probably end up in a better house that has actual value with less stress in his life all for maybe a few hundred bucks more a month on whatever difference in mortgage there would be after using his buyout as a downpayment. The comps they’ll use on an offer will be nearby houses that aren’t on a T-junction, so would have more value than his house would be worth if it had any value at all, but say they give him $250k and another house is $300k, that’s a $50k mortgage, that’s like what, $500/month? He’s probably paying that for his higher insurance! While I certainly understand frustration, there is no logic behind what he’s doing at this point, so I have to assume deep rooted psychological problems. He doesn’t have a housing problem, he has mental health one, and what he needs most is a therapist. And to take the damn offer.
The city probably has other T-junctions that still have guard rails. They probably don’t want to go on the record with this guy about their known danger in this application.
I’ll bet that the rail in front of this guy’s house was replaced as part of a larger project for that street or intersection that was funded with state or federal money and had to be constructed to their standards.
Any solution is going to be partial because his driveway will still be wide open for someone to drive through. It seems likely they’ll find a way.
The only foolproof solution would be to rotate the whole house and give him a long-ass driveway going the other direction.
Then put up boulders or sand barrels the full length of the property along the road.
Looking at the maps, this area is the end of a grid, with multiple streets ending up in Tees like this. Are the other houses at the end of the other Tees not getting hit as often?
The nearby streets look like they’re a bit narrower, so maybe this one gets more traffic and the others are more like side streets. Or maybe the width of the street somehow is more conducive to speeding.
That said the kinds of buildings on the other streets don’t seem to be any different.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_0DgnJ1uQ
A NotJustBikes video about why cars rarely crash into buildings in the Netherlands and how they operate differently than North America.
Such language. Can we get Adrian to teach this guy how to roast someone properly?
Also, I know what my new band name is gonna be.
How about Bird Turd Toadies?
I’m still partial to “paint-drinking thundercocks”…
That is a good one.
I will go to your concert.
My old house got hit by a drunk driver one night that took out the garage wall. That was a serious pain in the ass that took several months to take care of. I couldn’t imagine going through that 3 more times. I feel for the guy.
I’ve driven through that intersection, and area, many times. 35 is just a suggestion, it’s ridiculous.
I can’t believe the city is saying “the state says we can’t put a guardrail there,” it seems like an easy out. But since this is Ohio, the state currently run by crazy-ass people, it also doesn’t seem too far outside the realm of possibility.
Fixed. Don’t single us out. At least we can do an end-around by changing the state constitution with a simple popular vote.
The problem for the city would be, if they did an installation contrary to state guidelines and somebody was injured or killed after crashing into it, that could be used against them in court
They could put in those big crash barrels that get filled with a sand/salt mixture.
One place online will sell you 3 barrels, 2100 pound capacity each, for under $900. Sand is extra, I assume.
In a crash the impact isn’t as hard as a guardrail or boulder because the sand can deform. I suppose they could have a row of barrels filled halfway backed up with a row of barrels filled all the way. Backed up with a couple of boulders.
Oh, there’s other options, they just don’t want to do it. Even the boulders that are there now are considered to be “temporary” by the city, presumably because they expect to acquire the house and clear the lot in the near future, eliminating the need for any crash barrier
Just a note: Those barrels will not stop a vehicle. I say this after coming upon an accident where the driver fell asleep and blew through about a dozen of them. He still ended up 100 yards off the road at the bottom of a hill on the wrong side of the road. I didn’t even see the vehicle until I got to the blown up barrels and sand and looked way off the road for the cause. I think their only purpose is to absorb some of the impact before you hit something more solid (he caught the ones on the end of a divided highway but going away from the divider – impressive aim for someone who was asleep at the time).
He probably had cruise control on so it didn’t slow down. And no braking.
That’s why they might want to put some boulders or hard obstacles after the barrels. Barrels to give the driver a chance to save themself. Boulders to have a chance of saving the home’s inhabitants.
Agreed that our state is run by crazy-ass people, but the elected officials tend not to get this far down into the engineering weeds on these sorts of issues. And frankly, if they did, they’d probably be in favor of old guard rails that decapitate bad drivers.
That is something I can get behind, at a safe distance.
Personally I would just ask the city to add another couple of boulders just to make it look even. They did say that the two boulders already did successfully stop a couple of cars from crashing into the house, no?
Note to self.. Do not buy a house that needs a guardrail in front of it. Or at the business end of a T intersection. That’s also bad Feng Shei (invites bad energy into the house.. in the automotive sense in this case).
Came here to say this.
It’s VERY bad Feng Shui – for obvious reasons.
The cures, if you’re going to keep living there, are big trees & several large boulders to block that bad energy (and vehicles coming at your front door) – Which I’d rather have than an unsightly guardrail.
Better thing would be to take the buyout – but some people are stubborn and would rather have some drama (and lots of signs) in their life than take the sensible solutions offered.
Yes, the buyout would have been the wise choice to cut your losses, but this guy seems like one of those guys who’s picked the hill he wants to die on. (Hopefully he doesn’t actually die on this one).
His first mistake was living in Ohio and leaving Ohio seems like a reasonable enough solution to me, as it usually is. I might get this if his home was prime real estate or an architectural marvel or something along those lines…but it’s a relatively anonymous single family home in an incredibly bleak place. Take the money and run, amigo. Run like the wind!
As a resident of Ohio I can say your comment is spot on.
I went to college in Ohio and have spent time in every corner of the state/all of the big cities at one point or another. I left a severely depressed alcoholic and have vowed never to return.
Lived in Ohio most of my life. Lived lots of other places in many corners of the country and abroad. Rural and urban settings. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that your experience in any of those places is largely up to you. You can find a way to be happy or you can be miserable. It’s your choice, not your environment’s.
Yeah as a mental health professional (mandatory “nothing I say here constitutes therapy or professional advice for the commentariat”) I’m going to go ahead and say I don’t agree with the “happiness or misery are a choice” take. Your environment, nervous system, genetics, experiences, etc. play a massive role in shaping who you are and your emotions.
I’ve only been through Ohio on a number of occasions, but even that brief experience there makes me agree with you. Ohio avoidance is preferable.
My wife has a story about my overwhelmingly British brother in law being on a road trip that involved driving through Ohio, a state he knew nothing about. Apparently he asked where they were, was silent for an hour or two, and simply uttered “I think I hate Ohio” unprompted.
I find this hilarious. My father in law whose dad was from Ohio is less amused whenever it’s repeated, although he’s a good sport about it.
I live in PA and every time I have to travel west there is at least one incident that causes me to (usually loudly) make the same statement.
I feel for the guy but when i see a bunch of painted signs declaring outrage in front of somebody’s house, I automatically assume theyre a bit nuts.
Same with cars completely plastered in bumper stickers. Even if there’s maybe a few I agree with mixed in there somewhere, I really don’t want anything to do with that person and do not want to get into a conversation
It’s been said if your worldview can be condensed into something the fits on a bumper sticker, you’re probably missing some of the essential complexity of reality.
(AUTOPIAN or Torch licks likes your taillights excluded from this, of course)
I’ve thought of pranking bumper sticker cars and trucks. For example, put a ‘meat is murder’ sticker on a gun lover’s truck, or a ‘guns and God’ sticker on a car covered in liberal stickers
Never did it, but thought about it
I think that’s a good way to get yourself cut. Even leaving a color-in-the-lines parking turtle on somebody’s windshield is kind of a risk
I never heard of the turtle, so I looked it up. Thank you. I have to tell you, I’m tempted to print some out to leave them around. I won’t, but I am tempted!
People who use them are doing the Lord’s work
LMAO!
There used to be a guy in a town where I lived who drove a Tempo or Escort with “This car is a Ford lemon” plastered all over it in big letters with accompanying pictures of lemons. Might have even had a large lemon strapped to the roof, but that could be my mind embellishing it. Anyway, he drove that damn thing for years, which kind of invalidated his claim. His daughter was a few years behind me in HS and I learned that the whole family was weird and not in an interesting way. That’s the first memory that popped into my head when I saw this guy and his signs.
It was a ford Taurus (white, I think) and did have a roof lemon.
The city really has some gall to think that their solution is to place a bunch of granite on the sidewalk. Imagine the stones you’d have to have to blow off this homeowner.
Bollocks! this calls for bollards!
This situation sucks, but it would seem nothing prevented him from putting his own wall on his own property to prevent this.
A lot of municipalities don’t allow new walls or fences in front of a house, or, if they do, they have to be a lower, more ornamental style
Maybe he could build a moat in front instead!
Build a REALLY big ramp and make it the next street over’s problem.
3 hits? Peanuts: https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2023/08/09/highland-park-woman-is-in-need-of-assistance-as-drivers-continue-to-plow-through-her-privacy-fence/
Granted, these are hits on her fence, not her house.
I raise you with 30 car in 30 years
https://www.thedrive.com/news/this-portland-home-has-been-hit-by-30-cars-in-30-years-neighbors-demand-a-change
Hmm, maybe Mr. Gall has suddenly developed an interest in WWII history and decided to adorn his lawn with some Czech Hedgehogs.
At least, that would be my
solutionnew hobby.Well, I was going to comment that he should do what my neighbor has done to keep cars from sliding into his house in the winter months (I live midway down a steep hill) and put down some huge, decorative boulders, but that looks like that option has been done (albeit in an ugly fashion, unlike how my neighbor did it). It wouldn’t take much effort to make that boulder setup more attractive and more functional than a guard rail, well aside from actually moving the boulders.
The Gall of these drivers!
This is certainly an unfortunate situation, but it seems to me the city has been more than reasonable in offering solutions and at this point the homeowner is the one being unreasonable. If it has been determined that a guard rail is unsafe, it is unreasonable to put others at risk to protect the property. I understand his frustration and might feel the same way in his shoes, but it seems to me that he just needs to take the buyout. He is lucky the city does not take his property using immanent domain.
Sorry but no. How in the world are two large boulders safer than an engineered barrier designed to absorb the impact of a crash?? A traffic barrier is a much safer resolution for all parties here but I’m willing to bet that they don’t want to have to continually replace it since it’s a known hot spot.
The city is being completely unreasonable in their solutions. If they want him to move then they should offer to front the cost of the replacement home. He owns his house free and clear and property values are nothing short of absurd right now.
My understanding is that the guard rails protect from the broad side, and are a risk the other direction.
The fair market value they are offering him is the replacement cost of his home. That is what fair market value means.
I’m aware of what fair market value means.
It may be the fair market value but it’s not fair to the individual who purchased a home under the pretense of a guardrail being there as a barrier which was then removed without his input or consent.
And just to be clear, you’d be completely ok with your city paying you fair market value for your home and then leaving you to find and move to a new home? Uprooting your entire life of almost 30 years?
Um, sometimes people have to contribute to solving their own problems. If it were me, I’d jump on the city’s offer. No one else is ever going to want to buy the place.
I bet he never argues that the city should raise their assessed value of his home at tax time.
Current property values would be taken into consideration in the buyout offer.
I feel like they’re dealing with a man who think every repair in the past three decades has raised his home value, which is not the case. Your home is worth less without heat, but it’s not necessarily worth more because it has a recent furnace.
Given there were no problems while there was a guardrail there that the city removed, they certainly are not being reasonable. How can giant granite boulders be less safe than a properly engineered guardrail? This makes no sense at all – other than boulders are lots cheaper.
He would be better off having the city take the house (the term is Eminent Domain)- they have to pay “just compensation”. Nobody is going to pay anything for that house as it is. Though as it happens, Ohio is one of the states that restricts it’s use, so may not be an option.
Fair value is what he would get from his insurance company if the home was destroyed (and presumably with imminent domain).
The legal term is “just compensation”. Which may or may not be market value.
That’s right, because the actual market value of his specific house is virtually nill, were he to try and sell it, since it’s virtually uninsurable, any buyer would struggle to get a mortage on it. Just compensation would ideally look at what the house would be worth if the hazard didn’t exist, based on recent sales of otherwise comparable properties in the immediate area
Exactly. This house is unsellable currently, so it’s market value is about the same as a six-pack of Natties.
You get “just compensated” with whatever we think
(not to exceed a Natty 30pk)
It would be the full fair market value of the property, building and land, not just the replacement cost of the structure, the city is buying the whole thing, whereas an insurance company would, at most, be paying to build a new house on the same lot
I’d probably take the buyout myself and maybe try to negotiate a little extra for moving expenses and general hassle, but I do get where he’s coming from (the city created a hazard that didn’t exist when he moved in, and is capable of removing the hazard, but won’t), and, also, it seems like houses in the neighborhood sell for $160k-$200k in varying conditions, if he’s done improvements and fixed his up exactly the way he wants it, he might actually struggle to find a truly equivalent house for that price that won’t have him starting over again with renovations and updates
Taking the fair market value and moving is the best answer. I’m sure he can negotiate a value towards the upper end of the value range, but he isn’t entitled to any more that what the comps are.
There was a house in my home town that was also frequently hit by cars. The homeowner took the buyout and moved. That house was torn down and now it’s an empty lot.
The city just needs to offer him a comparable (or better) house free and clear, in a comparable (not at the end of a “T”) neighborhood, and pay his moving costs. Of course that might cost the city a few bucks more than the “fair value” of his current house (which given its history is probably nil).
He should buy a bulldozer and park it on his lawn. Every time it gets hit, add some more armor plating. When the armor plating is complete, visit city hall.
Yep just watch out for the basements. That got the original Killdozer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tread_(film)
A guardrail is “not safe” but a a giant granite boulder is?
My assumption would be it is an impalement hazard for cars traveling on the road perpendicular to his property, but I am not an engineer.
This is my understanding from a friend who is a traffic engineer. The guard rail is just some flimsy metal to deflect parallel bumps, but the poles are the real stopping force and create the risk of shearing off suspension parts and impaling into the cabin if the vehicle gets airborne. Boulders and solid concrete dividers at least provide the opportunity for the vehicle’s crumple zones to reduce the impact energy.
I’ve seen a few guard rails installed parallel to the direction of travel. Maybe most of them, in fact.
This was my immediate thought too.
Guardrails are designed to stop cars without bludgeoning the occupants of cars. Giant boulders are not.
Can’t help but think that the “safety” concerns were brought up in a hope to stop the conversation, when the real reason is likely cost. Dropping off a couple boulders only costs you the hourly wage of the city staff to retrieve them and drop them off. Guardrails? Environmental assessments, townhall meetings, design and construction… It would probably be $100’s of thousands.
My guess is that the standards for guard rail installations have changed over time and the current best practices make this solution no longer viable.
There probably isn’t any standard for the boulders, so they’re OK even if equally or more dangerous
Remember in The Old Site there was an article about crash barriers outside military and infrastructure facilities against terrorist attacks. I recall one of the lines in the engineering report like it was yesterday (paraphrased):
“Survival of the driver is not a design concern.”
You people have NO idea how refreshing it is to read this.