</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I think the ambulance would be required to stand by at a fiber optic cable break for when the bill is presented to the person that incorrectly flagged the dig area. $10,000 may very well be a low estimate on the cost in some areas of the country.
Farwell )</font>
Yeah, but when you think about it, it was the phone company who screwed up. They flagged the area, and we had to delay a week in our plans waiting for them to do it, and then they mess it up. The line was in a weird place.. right through the center of our front lawn.. rather than somewhere nearer the road. It was so weird that the phone company themselves didn't realize it was there.
So, let's talk about fines. The phone company delayed our construction, caused all kinds of people to be without 911 services or any phone services, the backhoe operator could have had a heart attack when he saw his bucket cut the line and wondered if he was about to be electrocuted, we were up all night because of the trucks and backhoes and flashing lights and all in our front yard, and they made an incredible mess with all their digging which pretty much ruined our front yard.
They admitted that it was totally their own fault. They didn't flag the area correctly.
I would think if anyone got fined it would be them. If they hadn't been so gracious about accepting full responsibility, I would have been tempted to sue *them*. They caused inumerous people all kinds of hassles through sheer negligence.
I still fail to see what difference it makes if it's a fiber line or a conventional one. We have expert testimony here, from a guy who's been doing this for 12 years, that a fiber cut is no more dangerous to the repair guys than a conventional line cut.
Oh, and at the end of this fiasco, it was *me* who had to go out with my tractor and fill in all the places they dug.. and of course they rold me I couldn't just push the dirt back into the holes.. I had to first pick all the rocks out of it so that it wouldn't damage their repair job! Otherwise I would have had to pay if they had needed to come back out and dig again to fix their patch.
Maybe the ambulance is to protect the phone company workers from the irate property owner and all of the neighbors who have been so inconvenienced and jeapordized by the phone company's incompetence? Someone who really needed 911 could have died as a result of their negligence. Perhaps they did, for all I know.
Sigh.
Bob
