Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The car down the hill

Someone abandoned their old, useless car at the bottom of the hill leading out of the village. The person simply parked the car on a spot of grass and left it there. The problem is, it's on private property, and therefor is the responsibility of the person who owns the land, even though he had nothing to do with the vagrant car.
The police were called and noted that the car wazs not listed as stolen. They also noted that they could not seem to locate the owner.
The farmer who owns the land (being a stubborn fellow) declared that he wasn't about to pay for having the car towed away and junked, as the police suggested he do. So, he left the car where it was. On his property, about twenty feet from the road.
Today, some kids sacked the car - wrecked it, broke it, and scattered the pieces far and wide. So now it's going to be a real pain to pick up.
Before, it would have been easy to tow. Now it's going to be necessary to put the car on the back of a truck.
What the farmer should have done:
(This I learned today after talking to the mayor about the problem)
He should have pushed the car onto the road. The car, once on public property, becomes a municipal problem. The police would have come and towed it away.
Set fire to it. (Strange but true - burnt out cars are immediatly towed away.)
So, if someone leaves a junked car on your property, the thing to do it get it Off your property (preferrably when no one is looking...)
And voila.

5 comments:

Gabriele Campbell said...

Here abandond cars are taken care of by Russian and Polish immigrants.

Some not abandoned cars, too. :)

Daisy Martin said...

I wish I had known that when my daughters broken car sat in my driveway for 2 years several years ago. Finally I paid a junked car company $50 to tow it and keep it.

I should have rolled it into the street and set fire to it. A good thing to know. Thanks for the info. (Thank the mayor too)

Unknown said...

Abandoned cars don't last five minutes in South Africa - even not abandoned cars are fair game (yep, our rate of car theft and car-jacking is HIGH). And even a totally clapped out car will find a buyer, so there's no need ever to abandon.

As for scattered parts, they likewise would be all too readily collected.

Shows the difference in our societies, doesn't it :-)

Stacia said...

Huh. That's good to know. Funny how laws work!

John Nez said...

Yes... the teenager and the car is not a good mix.

One sees the most abandoned cars out in the rural districts, where hillbillies take it as a measure of pride to keep every car they ever owned in perpetuity.

It certainly solves the disposal problem... but then I guess many problems never get solved... they only get replaced by new, even bigger problems.

:0)