When you crash your car on Arthur, do you sue the residents?
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 10:11 am
I don't know if anyone has formally brought this up with the City Council yet, but I imagine that soon they'll be hearing about it from the police and fire departments, if they haven't already.
When you drive down Arthur, because of the height of the new lamp posts, and the intensity of the bulbs, you can't see. The problem is-- specifically-- when you look down the road in front of you, the lights from the new lamps appear to be only about six inches above the headlights of any oncoming car. So the lamp posts actually disguise the lights of an oncoming car until it's right up on you. This is happening to the other driver as well, at the same time. You suddenly come upon each other. So far, everyone has stayed on their side of the road when I've been driving, but that gets more difficult in the winter, or when there is something or someone in the road.
And there's no way you can see pedestrians, on the sidewalk, or the street.
It is ironic that the lights have made the sidewalk darker, when one of the reasons given for why the lights were a "Necessity" (the name on the legislation making this possible) was that Arthur was so dark it was "dangerous to walk there at night." Now it's much more dangerous. (If you think that Arthur is dangerous, you should move out of Lakewood.)
As there are many families with children on the street, I'm assuming that some of them have alerted SOMEONE about this. But who? The committee who proposed the new lights?
This situation has to be fixed, but who has to pay for it? If someone gets in a car accident, do they sue the residents who unilaterally decided to "fix up" their street? It's so charming now. It looks like a freeway or an airstrip. Did no one check on this? Was this the first time these lights have ever been used on the planet Earth?
Since the City Council had to approve of this-- one would assume that they had vetted the idea itself, if not to the degree that they could legitimately prove ANY necessity, at least to the degree that they would make sure that it wasn't dangerous for the citizens of Lakewood.
So I guess it's on them.
Who will pay for the enormous cost of buying new bulbs and changing them-- which I assume is what they will do very soon? What they should really do is make the lampposts taller. That would be ridiculously expensive. It's not like they stretch.
Shouldn't the residents pay for this? This was their great idea after all. (What of the ones that stridently opposed it and were shunned and ridiculed? Merry Christmas, by the way. Should they have to pay too?) They should probably be assessed more money on their city taxes to pay for the upgrade.
One can only hope that those that are planning to extend this contagion down the street-- yes, next is the next stretch of Arthur, since it's so successful on the first part-- are paying attention, and if they are able to coerce and bully the residents on the next stretch to pay for it themselves, they do a better job choosing the lights.
Don't drive on Arthur Avenue, from Detroit to Franklin.
Betsy Voinovich
When you drive down Arthur, because of the height of the new lamp posts, and the intensity of the bulbs, you can't see. The problem is-- specifically-- when you look down the road in front of you, the lights from the new lamps appear to be only about six inches above the headlights of any oncoming car. So the lamp posts actually disguise the lights of an oncoming car until it's right up on you. This is happening to the other driver as well, at the same time. You suddenly come upon each other. So far, everyone has stayed on their side of the road when I've been driving, but that gets more difficult in the winter, or when there is something or someone in the road.
And there's no way you can see pedestrians, on the sidewalk, or the street.
It is ironic that the lights have made the sidewalk darker, when one of the reasons given for why the lights were a "Necessity" (the name on the legislation making this possible) was that Arthur was so dark it was "dangerous to walk there at night." Now it's much more dangerous. (If you think that Arthur is dangerous, you should move out of Lakewood.)
As there are many families with children on the street, I'm assuming that some of them have alerted SOMEONE about this. But who? The committee who proposed the new lights?
This situation has to be fixed, but who has to pay for it? If someone gets in a car accident, do they sue the residents who unilaterally decided to "fix up" their street? It's so charming now. It looks like a freeway or an airstrip. Did no one check on this? Was this the first time these lights have ever been used on the planet Earth?
Since the City Council had to approve of this-- one would assume that they had vetted the idea itself, if not to the degree that they could legitimately prove ANY necessity, at least to the degree that they would make sure that it wasn't dangerous for the citizens of Lakewood.
So I guess it's on them.
Who will pay for the enormous cost of buying new bulbs and changing them-- which I assume is what they will do very soon? What they should really do is make the lampposts taller. That would be ridiculously expensive. It's not like they stretch.
Shouldn't the residents pay for this? This was their great idea after all. (What of the ones that stridently opposed it and were shunned and ridiculed? Merry Christmas, by the way. Should they have to pay too?) They should probably be assessed more money on their city taxes to pay for the upgrade.
One can only hope that those that are planning to extend this contagion down the street-- yes, next is the next stretch of Arthur, since it's so successful on the first part-- are paying attention, and if they are able to coerce and bully the residents on the next stretch to pay for it themselves, they do a better job choosing the lights.
Don't drive on Arthur Avenue, from Detroit to Franklin.
Betsy Voinovich