Are people lazy, don’t know how to help or scared of liability.

[ultrarunner]

Your point is mute, my point is sh/t happens

This is to jst

The idea is avoid stepping in it…

 

[ultrarunner]

This needs to be part of any discussion on helping strangers.

Happens here and maybe where you are… a motorist… mostly female flags down a passerby waving arms from a car… generally early morning or slightly off the beaten path… motorists stops to offer aid and gets robbed and/or carjacked…

I’m more than glad to make a 911 call but these days at 3:15am on the way to work I’m not stopping on the streets of Oakland as contrary to my nature as this is…

I’ve been to court as a witness to a extremely high profile car jacking and the purpotrators had already shot an 11 year old bystander and wounded others in a crime spree…

 

[ddbackhoe]

What happens if the guy down the street with a hoe is asked to take out a stump and it would take no time at all and no money or barter occurs…?

The backhoe isn’t a contractor or paid to perform and relies on the homeowner’s assurances and there is a line mixed in with the roots? The homeowner says you did it.

Why would you trust them to know anything about underground utilities?

 

[ultrarunner]

Why would you trust them to know anything about underground utilities?

Better yet why would they think I would know their property?

Avoiding trouble goes a long way to staying out of trouble…

Even the best will tell you there are surprises encountered digging…

Like driving over a long abandoned redwood septic tank no one alive knows about until it collapses under the weight of the traversing tractor…

 

[MattB4]

I have found in the vast majority of cases people simply are too wrapped up in their own concerns and it never occurs to them to voluntarily do anything that might help others (and themselves). So No they are not lazy, nor not know how to help or even scared of liability. They are oblivious. Rural or Urban it makes no difference.

There exists those that have a higher degree of seeing problems and desiring to solve them. They are likely only 1% of humanity. The rest you first need to get their attention.

 

[ddbackhoe]

Even the best will tell you there are surprises encountered digging…

Really two different animals, surprises do happen. No one really knows what was randomly buried where. Knowingly digging without checking for utilities is not a surprise.

 

[Yander]

Common misconception with digsafe is they mark everything. Really they only mark the public owned lines.

Yes, and the local utilities who tell you to call them before you dig, only mark if they have utilities buried in your area. If someone else buried it or they're not aware they don't even come out.

The point here is, you cannot just rely on those call 1 866 before you dig #s.

 

[lilranch2001]

Just to be clear, I do not advocate not to call….. I call every time it is required, I also call while in the planning stage to know wherever things may be.

My only point is out in the real world things can happen, some people seem to think that if you call, you will not hit anything.

That simply is not so!

 

[ddbackhoe]

Just to be clear, I do not advocate not to call….. I call every time it is required, I also call while in the planning stage to know wherever things may be.

My only point is out in the real world things can happen, some people seem to think that if you call, you will not hit anything.

That simply is not so!

One of my jobs was for a residential sewer line. The customer had the line snaked out several times but it still ran very slow (shower would back up while using). Camera showed something funky about 75 feet from house. Miss utility came out to mark for us. First thing we found outside the marks was an abandoned (whew) power feeder line. Right under the mark was the brand new verizon line. They used a directional boring rig and put the verizon line through the sewer line. Second thing we found, sewer line was never connected to the tap. It was teed into the neighbors.

Worst thing we found at another site, someone used the property as a vehicle scrapyard and pushed everything into a gulley then added dirt to level.

You never know what you’ll find when you start digging.

 

[lilranch2001]

Last year I was upgrading to fiber, and going to quit my copper land line afterwards.

The entire 6 acres had been flagged 4 times because the contractor was backed up.

Finally the contractor showed up, ignored one of the flags and cut my working land line.

He sent his son!out the next day to dig it up and repair it so I still had dsl.

Like I said SH/T happens