Life flashed before my eyes today..ot

LOL!! I drive truck for a living and beleave me thats normal everyday driving! Try NYC with a 250 inch wheel base Peterbilt and a 53 refrigerated trailer with a 10 foot spread axel behind you. It can get interesting beleave me!! I'm sure she was on the phone or putting on makeup and it was all your fault when you did catch up to her!!

I had my life flash before me on Dad's B. I was discing the bank(very small slope) on Dad's new pond getting braver going higher and higher and it finally felt like the rear wheel left the ground. It made a believer of me. Looking back I see their can not have been any possible danger, just the fear I must have been anticipating. Should I tell him now, 37 years later?

Since the county blacktopped our road the average speed has probably gone up15mph to about 70. At that speed you can not make the curves without Nascaring them. You meet somebody on your side every day. Yesterday it was a cattle hauler on my side of the curve,yikes!!! Everybody is in too much of a hurry these days.

Was she on her f'ing cell phone? They should be outlawed. It seems like people today (especially the younger ones) can't survive without them.

Yes Carl, the whole thing was your fault!  What were you thinking?  How dare you drive on that road when she wants to use it.  I'm assuming she did not apologize or show any remorse.  My motto these days is "Drive to Survive".  I just "try" to stay cool and get through all the trying situations (not always successful).

I have gone so far as to pull a guy out of his truck and help him see my point of view. I don't recommend that coarse of action. The police frown on it. If its a woman, I let it slide.

Brian

Maybe she was like the man that told his wife he was going to Walmart and she told him to be careful that the road was full of crazy drivers. So sure nuf it came on tv that there was someone going the wrong way on the freeway so she calls her husband to warn him and he says" that ain't nothing where I am at they're all going the wrong way. JP

Mine did too yesterday, briefly....

I called in a locate back at our previous house... all located just fine, with exception of the city moron who showed up with a pair of bent wires to 'witch' my sewer line.  18 years' prior, I had opportunity to stand alongside the road, looking down into the trench where they'd laid the sewer main, as well as into the same yard, where septic tank had been dug out, and sewer line for my house, and adjacent house had been installed.

I told the kid (he was probably 22) that his locate was wrong, to go back, get a measuring tape, transit, and the 'as built' prints.  He gave me a long line of BS about me being out-of-my-mind.

Kid came back with his supervisor, a gal in her early '50's... also hadn't been employed by the city when that line was installed.  She walked it with her wire, agreed that 'that's where it is"...  and I told her that I knew for a fact, that it was wrong.

They came back 45 minutes later, with 'as built' prints, and found the city lateral connection to be 43' to the east, going between two trees where I'd suggested.

SO...  keep in mind that no matter what the 'locate' indicates, it's always good to have a pair of vice-grips to cap off them gas pipes... and always good to have called in the locates, so it's on their wallet to fix the damage, and pay for the fire-department's call charges when something gets hit.

My company's trenching crews frequently get bad locates.  When they get a bad locate, it's the utility company's responsibility to repair.  The utility company 'settles it out' with the locate service.  Most states now have 'one call' utility locate service, with the procedure being that you call the locate within X hours of start-of-digging, and the locate is 'good' for X days afterwards... if work continues beyond the locate 'window', you must call in for a second locate... but any work done within that timeframe, as long as it doesn't occur within X inches from the locate mark, is warranted by the locate service hired by the utility company as a 'hold-harmless' condition on behalf of the excavator.

It is the locate service's responsibility to check all available resources and local and national utility services for easement across a property under locate.  It is also their responsibility to provide their employees with appropriate research resources, equipment, and training to perform the locating task, as the excavator's life, and lives of others depend upon it.  When things go wrong, they can go REALLY, REALLY WRONG, and all the 'insurance' in the world will not adequately cover the lives and property lost.

SO... if you hit fiber, and the fiber is owned by a utility company passing THROUGH or feeding the property (meaning, not privately owned by the property), and the locate service did not locate it as being there, it's on the utility/locate's dime to pay for the repair.  They are bonded to do just that.

We've had that same situation happen, and it was quickly resolved by a letter from our legal department, including photos of the dig zone before the locate, after the locate, and the 'hit' location.  We map and mark the dig path and depth FOR the locate service, so they really have no way to claim otherwise. 

It all comes out in the circle of indemnity, liability, compensation, and reparation.  You can't be held liable for doing what you indicated, when they guaranteed (and hold liability insurance for) indicating that your work area was free of public utility hazard.  In my case, had I struck the lateral, it would've been on my property.  I could repair it, then forward the bill to the City, who at that time, would have to have either eaten it, or submitted it to their locate service for compensation.  Since they used obviously poor judgement and non-scientific methodology, they would've had no leg to stand on, but rather than allow it to occur, then approach it after-the-fact, I took direct action to prevent the problem.  Fortunately, they learned a priceless lesson, which is to use proper research resources and methods, rather than walk around with a pair of wires.  I hate to offend anyone who believes in the mystical power of 'witching', but after running transmitting pigs down pipes, and using a hand-held locator wand to give me pinpoint depth, position, and angle, and then verifying those marks and scanning for non-public utilities (like underground tanks and fuel distribution lines) with GPR, I find it hard to believe that anyone would be inclined to bet their career on two pieces of bent copper, but my former municipality apparently wasn't that bright.


Edited by DaveKamp - 31 May 2010 at 2:09am