Being involved in an accident can be traumatic enough even if you're not injured. The experience of the accident and the expense of fixing and/or replacing your car can become a horrific experience.
Suddenly, the bills start to pile up. Car insurance increases, medical bills, car repair bills, guardrail replacement bills... guardrail replacement bills?
Yes, guardrail replacement.
The State of Oregon will start tracking down drivers who have smashed and mangled gardrails. Since 1997, ODOT has shelled out more than $700,000 replacing bent gardrails.
We'll also go through the Oregon Department of Justice and we'll get a court ordered restitution so we can recover that money. Keep in mind that any money O-DOT can’t recover, the taxpayer will have to cover,” said Joe Harwood, a spokesperson from O-DOT
ODOT says replacing the damage guardrails is top priority and that delaying such repairs places pedestrians and other drivers at risk.
4 comments:
This will give the insurance companies another reason to raise rates and include a 'guard-rail replacement clause' in policies. I wonder if it would be cheaper to let our taxes pay for it?
I thought that they did already
will the money they collect actually be used for new guard rails, or will it go into some general fund and then used to promote earth-friendly bicycling on Hwy 26?
I am not a lawyer but it seems to me that ODOT should be careful before sending bills for the mangled guard rails. It seems to me that ODOT may be part responsible for the damage that occurs because they placed the guard rails in a place that they were fairly sure would be the site of an accident. They might be partly responsible for the damage inflicted to automobiles since ODOT placed the guard rails and the guard rails caused damage during the accident. If the guard rails were not in that location, the rails would not be causing damage to the automobiles. It also occurs to me that the State of Oregon has excess money due to all the hard working people of Oregon. Do they really need to stick their hands a little deeper in our pockets for something that has always been paid for by our taxes?
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