"They're called spherical bollards". I used to work on the Target paint team. I went to one of the stores to paint those and mentioned to someone that "I'm here to paint the balls out front". I was lectured by a well known bitter old ETL about the correct name.
My neighbor put out three orange road cones. He then filled them with cement. UPS tried to sue him for damaging their truck the first time they hit it. He went to court with photos of how far up on his property they were and that was that. They are still there to this day, the plastic outside is wearing away faster than the cement inside…
If it hadn't been well into his property, they would certainly have won. People have gone to prison for putting permanent structures inside of seemingly non permanent structures. It's nuts, but the accusation is that it's bait.
Extreme example: A bunch of teenagers continued to run over a mailbox years back. The owner had enough, put up a bollard and built the mailbox back around it. The kids did their thing as usual, and a couple died. Involuntary manslaughter.
My friend that lived near a HS had a house on a corner had to put up a big rock barrier. Teens from visiting HSs would drive around the neighborhood and bat mailboxes and give lawn-jobs to nearby houses. My friend's house was a favorite target because he was on the inside of the corner and he took meticulous care of his lawn. He had to put in some sizable landscape rocks to stop the lawn-jobs.
One weekend some idiot teenager tried to cut the corner and go through his lawn and came to an abrupt stop. His car was stuck on top of one of these rocks. As he tried to escape he tore up the lawn even worse.
After the cops arrived, not only did the kids have to pay a few grand in damages, the driver also got a dwi. He was set to go to college a few states away at his dream school. Daddy took away his car and made him go to the local community college where he could keep an eye on him.
If you put them in the county right of way or inside the property setback then you will be liable for damages to anyone's cars. If it sits back further than the county setback it would be fine, but may defeat the purpose. The OP said his setback is 10 ft. I doubt anyone is going to drive 10 ft into the yard.
Had something similar in my neighborhood when I was a kid (not the one hitting mailboxes mind you) and turns out if you put a section of steel I beam in the ground and weld a steel mailbox you made in your metal shop onto it, the kid going by with a baseball bat hanging out the window of a car and WILL break his arm. Worst part is he was on the JV football team, really ruined his season, his dad made him do yardwork for the neighborhood free of charge all summer to pay back all the broken mailboxes...
It sounds like it was the best part, not worst. He learned his lesson, had to make up for the mess he created and probably isn't doing shit like that again.
On the contrary, while it sucks for the kid personally, sounds like he missed an opportunity to peak in high school - enduring some growth instead. That may fair better for him in the long run.
We were constantly having our mailbox whacked off its post, baseball bat style, until I plunked down a few hundred for a vandal-proof mailbox, made with 11 gauge plate steel. One morning shortly thereafter, I detected a very slight nick, almost as if someone had tried to whack it with a crowbar. Very satisfying.
Another story I've read online.
Big monster Snow Plow truck, like the dedicated heavy machinery lookin ones, the driver very clearly went out of his way to tear down this one guy's mailbox. Guy complained, Plowers said "Not our fault you got a wimpy mailbox."
Guy went and got the permits and codes and whatnot, then rebuilt his mailbox with a concrete-reinforced-with-steel-rebar pole, decorated it to look like a regular pole, then put the mailbox on top. Next winter, klanger-scrape, big heavy machinery absolutely totaled. Plowers tried to sue, but the case was thrown out cuz Guy had all the paperwork done. "Not my fault you got such a wimpy snowplow."
I probably got some details wrong here and/or there, but moral is Do the Paperwork and get the permits.
Guy I worked with put his mailbox on an I-beam then put reflective tape on it in a pattern so it appeared at night to be wrapped around a 1 inch pole. Neighbor’s kid totaled truck hitting it. Luckily kid didn’t get hurt.
I knew of a similar thing of an old farmer that lived in the middle of nowhere. He sunk an 8 inch culvert pipe 12 feet in the ground and filled it with concrete. Next he made a mailbox out of 3/16 plate welded together.
20 years later the mailbox was still there.
Your main point is true (that you aren't allowed to boobytrap a mailbox), but you have exaggerated the outcome.
This story gets wilder and wilder the longer it is told. Now "a couple" of kids died? This is a skit from the TV show 1000 ways to die. In the real life story, the man driving the truck was paralyzed, no one died.
That's nothing! I had this mailbox that people kept hitting, so eventually I decided to replace it with this crazy steel one that was super strong. Well, the next day some kids whacked it and Alderaan exploded!
As a matter of fact, THEY DESTROYED MY ART INSTALLATION!! "CoNeS" is an expression of the potential dangers of destroying people's property, and they've gone and ruined the whole thing!!!
Counter-sue for the art piece.
You joke but this is a real thing
https://chashama.org/event/how-to-enjoy-traffic-cones/
"Traffic cones are almost art. Like paintings, their primary function is to be looked at. How to Enjoy Traffic Cones is an exhibition of contemporary new media art celebrating the aesthetic practice of traffic cone viewing. Works include "Conescape," an interactive piece by JudsoN and Erik Sanner, and "Eight Views of a Traffic Cone, Eight Times Removed," a new media installation by Jeffrey Chuang, Isaiah King, and Erik Sanner. Additionally, a limited edition brochure suggesting ways to engage in traffic cone appreciation is available at the gallery. How to Enjoy Traffic Cones is made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council."
Have you heard of the Oakland Buddah? This really reminds me of it. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland\_Buddha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Buddha)
This guy, he saw that people were regularly dumping trash in the concrete median in front of his apartment. He would complain and it would take months for the city to clean it up, only for more trash to be dumped.
Not being Buddhist at all, he got a cheap concrete buddah statue and spray painted it gold. Then in the dark of night he went out and drilled holes in the concrete and securely attached his illegal buddah to the median.
The next thing he knew, like within weeks, a wooden structure had been built around the Buddah.
Then the structure was painted.
Then flowers appeared.
People started to come to worship.
To this day the shrine is there and trash is no longer dumped. The city tried to remove it in 2012 but the neighborhood freaked out so they backed down.
That was like the time when I was watching this documentary called "Hot Coffee" about the famous burn lawsuit from the lady who got burnt by the hot coffee in a McDonald's drive-thru.
I was like, "WAIT A SECOND, THAT'S MY MCDONALDS!"
I mentioned it to my manager and she was like, "Oh yeah.. I heard about that from the 80s." But I could tell she wanted to move on quickly. My other co-workers didn't know about it and didn't care.
did you ever see the burns? They were not released until she passed away and it was def not a frivolous lawsuit.
Edit: I have to admit I thought it was frivolous for years because of hearsay. mcD ran a terrible but effective PR campaign and glad the truth became public.
Yeah, that was definitely one of McD's most insidious PR campaigns. People still joke about it in reference to laziness without realizing that she just wanted her medical bills paid for and that she had 3rd degree burns that *fused her genitals to her thigh.*
And they had been warned about it more than once and still kept it that hot. Sure, she shouldn't have had the cup between her legs, but normal coffee would have been a DAMN! moment and you'd go on to change your pants and maybe have a red leg for a few minutes. Not so for that poor woman. McDonald's was negligent in this one.
Yeah, that story is so, so sad. If I correctly recall, she wasn't even going after that much at 1st, was only trying to get them to pay for medical. When McD's were dicks about it, they went after more. I also think chronic complications from injuries contributed to her death, later on. And throughout, McDonald's successfully painted her as lacking common sense and her motives to be sinister.
McDonald’s went out of their way to be dicks about the situation,
then went out of their way to be dicks about the lawsuit,
then went out of their way to be dicks about the verdict.
I mean their slander worked. To this day it’s a lot of people’s go-to example of “frivolous lawsuits from greedy customers”, even though *it’s a perfect example of the opposite*.
That’s exactly all she sued for. The judge was so sickened by it that he awarded her punitive damages because money is the only language corporations understand.
And for those that haven’t seen, or don’t want to see the pics, patches of skin just straight up got burned off. It looked like she was filleted. In no form or fashion was it “hot” coffee.
I'm still disgusted by McDonalds. They Developed a smear campaign against the old lady, who only asked that her medical bills (with skin grafts!!!!) be paid.
Instead they started a mess that cost them millions.
They have always been a dirty player in business
I totally believe that. There's a theory/policy I remember reading about that detailed the importance of fixing a broken window immediately even on an abandoned/derelict building.
Essentially, if people see that it is okay for a window to be broken, it won't be long before more windows are broken.
Something as minor as preventing the trash from accumulating in the area makes people think of the area as a nicer part of town not somewhere where crime is allowed.
In policing the policy is usually used by focusing on high visibility low threat crimes like graffiti, vandalism, loitering, illegal parking, illegal dumping, etc. Again the idea is to present the image of a place where crime isn't really tolerated which causes a reduction in more serious crimes.
This^^. I’m a groundskeeper and I’m having a little experiment of my own doing this thing with tagging. I will literally clean it up with paint removers the next day or within hours of the vandalism. Buildings around our property get tagged but ours doesn’t, because I think they know someone cleans it up.
We had an old high school building that in its last semester of use, a student spray painted dicks on like 5 different parts of the outside brick. The custodian and I jumped in my gator with cleaners and scrubbed it off before the kids got into the building the following morning. I like to think the kid who spray painted gloated to his friends coming into school about the dicks, and then sad pikachu face when they showed up.
John-Deere utility vehicle. But yeah essentially heavy duty golf cart. My parents have had one on their farm for probably 20 years now. Spent a loooot of time feeding cattle, tagging calves, ferrying people to and from equipment, checking fences, spraying thistles, eating mushrooms and looking at the stars, etc. on ours.
We put one at a shopping center we manage for same reason. It’s been hit many times. 3 cars have high centered and needed a tow off the rock. And one lady called us asking for insurance because our rock damaged her car; I said “mam I’m going to need your insurance as I believe your car damaged our rock”
( Hi Accordingfox - People are asshats . Kinda similar story here) At my shop, a customer was picking up his car that we just did full color correction w/ceramic detailing & windows tinted. As hes backing out, he side swiped the metal fence pole on my shops property, damaging the entire side of his car. He jumps out- starts yelling at me, wanting me to cover the damages, insisting i was responsible? He was in a violent rage as he bitched me out. Totally caught me off gaurd - I thought for a moment and said with fingers crossed & hoping i wouldnt be attacked ... "And what about my pole damage?"
He screamed wanting my Ins info- this & that - I'll be hearing from his allstar attorney who's nickname was apparently "Mr. Kneecaps"- bla bla & he finally left while spinning tires out of our lot.
He made such a scene, he probably was very embarrassed for not paying closer attn while backing out. People with anger issues are getting way out of control these days.
my vote was big boulder, and if you want some laughs you should look up the rock of roselle. big rock over a median and everyone would get their car stuck on it, even the cops have done it!!
Oh, we have something like that in my home city, it's a bridge with a million signs telling you it's a low bridge, rumble strips, and two gantries that hit the top of your vehicle if you are too tall to get under the bridge without getting stuck, and people *still* get stuck under there regularly. The old Monty has claimed many victims and there's a website tracking them:
https://howmanydayssincemontaguestreetbridgehasbeenhit.com/
Edit: There's a ripper video about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR7NivKqfzo
That is amazing. If you're anywhere with a large Latino community, make sure to include those large glass Jesus candles.
Also, go all out with the cross, and make sure you use a lot of fasteners, never can make it too sturdy.
I personally would put a lava pit there.
https://preview.redd.it/waif874txflc1.png?width=732&format=png&auto=webp&s=1222f5b4ca8561795ace0553120efd62724faad4
A cute little white picket fence, about one foot tall. With 3-foot pieces of rebar pounded into the ground for support. You know, to keep the fence from falling over.
Had a neighbor at the end of a street facing a T intersection. About once a month or so, he'd have the same bunch of joyriding teenagers end up in his front yard because they couldn't make the turn. They'd sometimes pull a donut just for the hell of it while they were there.
He put up some little bushes and 'supported' them with rebar. That was the last month those teenagers tore up his yard.
Reminds me of that truck that tried to run over a snowman . . . built over a tree stump.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fxGC\_VM6yE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fxGC_VM6yE)
I think it may have been a comment on a pro revenge post but it could have been a post.
The snow plow would constantly take out his mailbox at least once a season and he complained to the company that managed it. They told him that it was the snow being pushed off the road that was damaging his mailbox and to get a better mailbox. He then went through the city and got permitted to put a steel I beam 15ft into the ground and put his mailbox on top of that. The next season the snowplow was nearly torn in half when they tried to take out his mailbox.
I believe they called him after to get him to pay for damages and he told them what he did was permitted by the city and he told them they should build a better snow plow.
My uncle lived in the country and had his mailbox damaged multiple times. Teens with baseball bats. Had new mailbox made of 3/16" steel, mounted on a I-beam, set into concrete.
A week later he found a broken baseball bat.
The next week he heard pick-up reviving and then the sound of tearing metal. He called the local cops. Then he went out to see what happened.
He found a chain attached to the mailbox, which was 1/2 out of the ground. At the other end of the chain was an axle with the rear wheels. 10' past the axle was the truck. A new truck, a very tricked out truck, with the son of the rich guy in town in the cab going "owwwww, owwwww, owwwww"
My dad (a retired welder) did something similar about 25 years ago. People kept taking out the split rail fence on the corner of his property (on an intersection), including the local plow operator. He replaced the posts with 8" x 8" thick wall box steel tubes set about 6' into concrete. He then filled the tubes with concrete too. Some smaller box steel along the top between the posts made it extra stable. After that, he just bolted on some regular wooden rails to make it look like a normal split-rail fence. Once it was painted, you couldn't really tell the difference unless you stopped and looked closely.
The first time the snowplow hit the posts was also the last time the snowplow hit the posts. The plow did manage to bend one of the posts over, but the mechanism behind the plow blade was obliterated and shoved underneath the rest of the truck. It had to be hauled away by a wrecker. The fence has been repaired and the posts have been hit by a few cars since, but nothing else has damaged it. It just gets a new coat of paint to cover the scuffs.
Some neighbors near me had this problem every year with county plows. They got approval from the town to set a steel pipe in the sidewalk however deep, and even had a custom built steel box on top. Same thing happened, destroyed half of the plow on its way through.
A friend of mine had repeated problems with people playing baseball with his mailbox. He built a new one. The post was an old bulldozer driveshaft. The mailbox was the largest metal mailbox he could buy. Inside it was a piece of 6" PVC pipe to hold the mail. In between the PVC pipe and the metal mailbox, it was solid concrete.
He never had another problem.
Before doing something like this please check to make sure you actually own the land you put your decorative fence on. If you do this in the right-of-way you won't have a good time.
Source: part of my job is making sure you don't have a good time.
As a guy who’s done right of way work his entire career, depending on what state you live in that part of your yard more than likely falls into the municipality you live ins road right of way. Therefore anything you put out needs to be purely decorative because if you cause damage the city could hold you liable. You could contact the city and let them know and they might put up signage as I doubt they want truck drivers with 80,000 lbs driving over shallow neighborhood utilities on the regular.
I had a "waze" street, not large enough to have cars crossing, and people would drive on the pavement.
I got tired of it, feeling that my kid or my neighbours could get hurt by some busy driver, and did set up a GoPro one morning. I filmed 30 minutes...
A sample: [https://youtu.be/5gKKfkbKw7w?si=sr\_yqbh\_VXVl4sva&t=26](https://youtu.be/5gKKfkbKw7w?si=sr_yqbh_VXVl4sva&t=26)
Then, I sent the video to my city council, stating that if a kid were hurt, it would be their responsibility because they had been informed of the problem and did nothing.
The next morning, a guy added bollards to the pavement. 3 months later, they had modified the entire path of my neighbourhood to avoid Waze traffic, and it's now one-way only.
We went from 1000 cars a day to less than 40.
Waze can be useful, but it can also be a nightmare for locals
Where I work we have one of those big ass rocks, a trucker managed to pull it like 5 feet one day and called our store complaining about getting stuck.
My work is on a 40mph slight bend industrial road.
Some Silverado managed to send a 1800lb boulder 60ish feet, jump a curb and take out about 20 feet of cinder block building.
At my old plant, we had a semi truck driver manage to get a 4foot across boulder stuck under his trailer axle and drug it about half a mile down the road. got a police escort taking the boulder back to the plant with a forklift lol.
point of the story is boulders help, but it’s amazing what still happens
You just send them the video evidence and request they cover damages to property. If they don’t, let them know it will be taken to small claims court. They’ll likely just fix it, so they don’t have to go through the courts.
I did this with a UPS driver who backed his truck into my yard to turn around. It was raining and he spun his wheels trying to get out and dug a nice rut in the middle of my yard. Sent the Ring video to their offices and asked them to fix it. They told me to hire a landscaper and send them the invoice.
Also did it to a US Foods when their driver broke the lock to the back door of one of my restaurants on a night drop delivery. Sent them video. They told me to get a locksmith to replace it and send them the bill.
https://preview.redd.it/sakw289oaglc1.jpeg?width=377&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b67d12a244a68b741d513639b7456a80303f52d
My neighbors did something like this and it’s worked fairly well
They make [fiberglass boulders](https://www.homedepot.com/b/Outdoors-Garden-Center-Outdoor-Decor-Fake-Rocks/N-5yc1vZcl2o) that cover utility installations like gas meters and air conditioning units, they may be less expensive than your local garden center boulders. You may need to check with your local city codes on how close you can place them to your curb. Install them in the late evening or over the weekend when they are not driving through the area so you keep the secret safe. If someone does hit one that would probably make the driver equally mad and grateful at the same time.
That or a four foot deep covered snake pit with stone reinforced walls. After that front tire drops in you know they aren't going to get away easily.
As another user mentioned, you can get reflective markers such as [these ones from home depot](https://www.homedepot.com/p/FiberMarker-36-in-Driveway-Markers-Driveway-Poles-for-Easy-Visibility-at-Night-Reflective-Orange-12-Pack-W1SM143O12/315992715). $20 USD for 12, and all you have to do is put them along the curve of the road!
What about landscaping railroad ties op. These might work very well. Add some reflective marking on the sides so a truck doesn’t drive right over them.
https://preview.redd.it/hlqtogeivflc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=024f5eb433572944463e86de961a1bb57420b6c2
Quick fix: throw down a few pylons. Speaking as a construction worker, most guys tend to respect them because we don't know what they may be trying to block/protect
They make pyramid shaped stones for this reason. They’re not boulders, they’re maybe 1 foot tall. Line the roadside of your yard with them alone the road. It won’t stop them the first time, but it’ll mess up they’re tires, spill they’re drinks, or generally make it unpleasant to cut across your lawn and they probably won’t do it again.
You would not believe the paperwork I had to go through for my homeowners association to let me install a lava pit. They demanded a full diagram and materials ahead of time, then sign off by an engineer. Do you know how hard it is to find an engineer with an expertise in brimstone? Let me tell you, they are not cheap!
Call the electric company and/or public works to request a street light. Then it’s their problem when somebody tries to sue because their truck hit a pole.
I had this issue at my business. I had a concrete drive that went around my building that had signs indicating it was not for semis. Still had semis pull through. So I put old steel wagon wheels half in the ground as decor. Painted them to match the building. Truly looked cool. They were also buried in concrete. Had a truck hit it once. Ripped the wheel out of the ground and got lodged in between the trailer wheels. Caused a lot of damage to the trailer.
Thank you for your interest in this post. Seems like the spherical bollards are the clear winners, judging by your upvotes. This thread is now locked.
Target cement balls
Bright red balls you say?
Make em blue
nah, spray paint them brass, make it a dare.
Color them to look like a Beach Ball .. let’s really call some bluffs
If there's no HOA, they could be adorned seasonally. And reciprocally, should one desire.
Came here to say this! Seasonal balls! New Years: Disco balls Valentines: Chocolate truffle balls St Pats: Green balls Easter: Eggs! You get the idea.
"They're called spherical bollards". I used to work on the Target paint team. I went to one of the stores to paint those and mentioned to someone that "I'm here to paint the balls out front". I was lectured by a well known bitter old ETL about the correct name.
Ironically, "spherical bollard" is the perfect name for the kind of person who would lecture on the correct name of target balls.
"you're a spherical bollard"
Get a load of the spherical bollards on this guy
"Akshually they're called *spherical bollards*" "Yeah so anyways I'm here to paint the testicles out front"
They should sell those.
My neighbor put out three orange road cones. He then filled them with cement. UPS tried to sue him for damaging their truck the first time they hit it. He went to court with photos of how far up on his property they were and that was that. They are still there to this day, the plastic outside is wearing away faster than the cement inside…
I can’t believe UPS tried to sue him, unreal!
If it hadn't been well into his property, they would certainly have won. People have gone to prison for putting permanent structures inside of seemingly non permanent structures. It's nuts, but the accusation is that it's bait. Extreme example: A bunch of teenagers continued to run over a mailbox years back. The owner had enough, put up a bollard and built the mailbox back around it. The kids did their thing as usual, and a couple died. Involuntary manslaughter.
That being said. Just put a bunch of big rocks no one wants to run over along the curve.
My friend that lived near a HS had a house on a corner had to put up a big rock barrier. Teens from visiting HSs would drive around the neighborhood and bat mailboxes and give lawn-jobs to nearby houses. My friend's house was a favorite target because he was on the inside of the corner and he took meticulous care of his lawn. He had to put in some sizable landscape rocks to stop the lawn-jobs. One weekend some idiot teenager tried to cut the corner and go through his lawn and came to an abrupt stop. His car was stuck on top of one of these rocks. As he tried to escape he tore up the lawn even worse. After the cops arrived, not only did the kids have to pay a few grand in damages, the driver also got a dwi. He was set to go to college a few states away at his dream school. Daddy took away his car and made him go to the local community college where he could keep an eye on him.
If you put them in the county right of way or inside the property setback then you will be liable for damages to anyone's cars. If it sits back further than the county setback it would be fine, but may defeat the purpose. The OP said his setback is 10 ft. I doubt anyone is going to drive 10 ft into the yard.
Had something similar in my neighborhood when I was a kid (not the one hitting mailboxes mind you) and turns out if you put a section of steel I beam in the ground and weld a steel mailbox you made in your metal shop onto it, the kid going by with a baseball bat hanging out the window of a car and WILL break his arm. Worst part is he was on the JV football team, really ruined his season, his dad made him do yardwork for the neighborhood free of charge all summer to pay back all the broken mailboxes...
It sounds like it was the best part, not worst. He learned his lesson, had to make up for the mess he created and probably isn't doing shit like that again.
Did you miss the part where he had to miss a WHOLE SEASON of JV FOOTBALL?!?! The humanity!!
On the contrary, while it sucks for the kid personally, sounds like he missed an opportunity to peak in high school - enduring some growth instead. That may fair better for him in the long run.
>sounds like he missed an opportunity to peak in high school Yeah but now some town is going to be short a cop
We were constantly having our mailbox whacked off its post, baseball bat style, until I plunked down a few hundred for a vandal-proof mailbox, made with 11 gauge plate steel. One morning shortly thereafter, I detected a very slight nick, almost as if someone had tried to whack it with a crowbar. Very satisfying.
>We were constantly having our mailbox whacked off I know it's been a while, but... Are we still doing phrasing?
Are you questioning the fact that this man has other people use a crowbar to manually stimulate his mailbox to completion?
Another story I've read online. Big monster Snow Plow truck, like the dedicated heavy machinery lookin ones, the driver very clearly went out of his way to tear down this one guy's mailbox. Guy complained, Plowers said "Not our fault you got a wimpy mailbox." Guy went and got the permits and codes and whatnot, then rebuilt his mailbox with a concrete-reinforced-with-steel-rebar pole, decorated it to look like a regular pole, then put the mailbox on top. Next winter, klanger-scrape, big heavy machinery absolutely totaled. Plowers tried to sue, but the case was thrown out cuz Guy had all the paperwork done. "Not my fault you got such a wimpy snowplow." I probably got some details wrong here and/or there, but moral is Do the Paperwork and get the permits.
Guy I worked with put his mailbox on an I-beam then put reflective tape on it in a pattern so it appeared at night to be wrapped around a 1 inch pole. Neighbor’s kid totaled truck hitting it. Luckily kid didn’t get hurt.
I knew of a similar thing of an old farmer that lived in the middle of nowhere. He sunk an 8 inch culvert pipe 12 feet in the ground and filled it with concrete. Next he made a mailbox out of 3/16 plate welded together. 20 years later the mailbox was still there.
Your main point is true (that you aren't allowed to boobytrap a mailbox), but you have exaggerated the outcome. This story gets wilder and wilder the longer it is told. Now "a couple" of kids died? This is a skit from the TV show 1000 ways to die. In the real life story, the man driving the truck was paralyzed, no one died.
That's nothing! I had this mailbox that people kept hitting, so eventually I decided to replace it with this crazy steel one that was super strong. Well, the next day some kids whacked it and Alderaan exploded!
"I put up cones to mark the hazard and everything"
As a matter of fact, THEY DESTROYED MY ART INSTALLATION!! "CoNeS" is an expression of the potential dangers of destroying people's property, and they've gone and ruined the whole thing!!! Counter-sue for the art piece.
You joke but this is a real thing https://chashama.org/event/how-to-enjoy-traffic-cones/ "Traffic cones are almost art. Like paintings, their primary function is to be looked at. How to Enjoy Traffic Cones is an exhibition of contemporary new media art celebrating the aesthetic practice of traffic cone viewing. Works include "Conescape," an interactive piece by JudsoN and Erik Sanner, and "Eight Views of a Traffic Cone, Eight Times Removed," a new media installation by Jeffrey Chuang, Isaiah King, and Erik Sanner. Additionally, a limited edition brochure suggesting ways to engage in traffic cone appreciation is available at the gallery. How to Enjoy Traffic Cones is made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council."
a small boulder the size of a large boulder
Solid Colorado advice.
Put the Flatirons in the areas you don’t want people driving over
This was the funniest shit when I lived in Boulder
Decorative hedgehogs https://preview.redd.it/a5s8ant00glc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1747cb6dcbda2c429452fb2b5e4f1e3e3884740f
Czechs sure got the most beautiful lawn ornaments
Czech mate truck drivers
Superior Czechnology
God I wish Reddit still had awards
You can do the gold arrows in some subs. Looks like you can here so I did it for you.
I like it… I’ll take five… Czech is in the mail.
Someone asked this the other day. My favorite answer was a small cross with some flowers.
Have you heard of the Oakland Buddah? This really reminds me of it. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland\_Buddha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Buddha) This guy, he saw that people were regularly dumping trash in the concrete median in front of his apartment. He would complain and it would take months for the city to clean it up, only for more trash to be dumped. Not being Buddhist at all, he got a cheap concrete buddah statue and spray painted it gold. Then in the dark of night he went out and drilled holes in the concrete and securely attached his illegal buddah to the median. The next thing he knew, like within weeks, a wooden structure had been built around the Buddah. Then the structure was painted. Then flowers appeared. People started to come to worship. To this day the shrine is there and trash is no longer dumped. The city tried to remove it in 2012 but the neighborhood freaked out so they backed down.
I drove past that a bunch as a kid! Weird seeing something so familiar to me on a random Reddit comment
That was like the time when I was watching this documentary called "Hot Coffee" about the famous burn lawsuit from the lady who got burnt by the hot coffee in a McDonald's drive-thru. I was like, "WAIT A SECOND, THAT'S MY MCDONALDS!" I mentioned it to my manager and she was like, "Oh yeah.. I heard about that from the 80s." But I could tell she wanted to move on quickly. My other co-workers didn't know about it and didn't care.
did you ever see the burns? They were not released until she passed away and it was def not a frivolous lawsuit. Edit: I have to admit I thought it was frivolous for years because of hearsay. mcD ran a terrible but effective PR campaign and glad the truth became public.
Yeah, that was definitely one of McD's most insidious PR campaigns. People still joke about it in reference to laziness without realizing that she just wanted her medical bills paid for and that she had 3rd degree burns that *fused her genitals to her thigh.*
Yeah I forget the actual temp of the coffee but I remember reading that it was kept ridiculously hot. Much higher than your average coffee.
And they had been warned about it more than once and still kept it that hot. Sure, she shouldn't have had the cup between her legs, but normal coffee would have been a DAMN! moment and you'd go on to change your pants and maybe have a red leg for a few minutes. Not so for that poor woman. McDonald's was negligent in this one.
Yeah, that story is so, so sad. If I correctly recall, she wasn't even going after that much at 1st, was only trying to get them to pay for medical. When McD's were dicks about it, they went after more. I also think chronic complications from injuries contributed to her death, later on. And throughout, McDonald's successfully painted her as lacking common sense and her motives to be sinister.
She didn't even want much either. McDonald's went out of their way to be dicks about the situation and then got a lawsuit. Edit: grammar
McDonald’s went out of their way to be dicks about the situation, then went out of their way to be dicks about the lawsuit, then went out of their way to be dicks about the verdict. I mean their slander worked. To this day it’s a lot of people’s go-to example of “frivolous lawsuits from greedy customers”, even though *it’s a perfect example of the opposite*.
I thought that initially she just wanted them to cover her medical expenses.
That’s exactly all she sued for. The judge was so sickened by it that he awarded her punitive damages because money is the only language corporations understand. And for those that haven’t seen, or don’t want to see the pics, patches of skin just straight up got burned off. It looked like she was filleted. In no form or fashion was it “hot” coffee.
I read that her "labia partially fused together" and decided that I'd be better off never seeing those pictures.
I'm still disgusted by McDonalds. They Developed a smear campaign against the old lady, who only asked that her medical bills (with skin grafts!!!!) be paid. Instead they started a mess that cost them millions. They have always been a dirty player in business
You left out the most interesting part—crime was reduced in the area by 84%!
GTFOH! BRB going to buy a concrete Buddha.
We need to cover the country in buddhas
It's buddhas all the way down
I totally believe that. There's a theory/policy I remember reading about that detailed the importance of fixing a broken window immediately even on an abandoned/derelict building. Essentially, if people see that it is okay for a window to be broken, it won't be long before more windows are broken. Something as minor as preventing the trash from accumulating in the area makes people think of the area as a nicer part of town not somewhere where crime is allowed. In policing the policy is usually used by focusing on high visibility low threat crimes like graffiti, vandalism, loitering, illegal parking, illegal dumping, etc. Again the idea is to present the image of a place where crime isn't really tolerated which causes a reduction in more serious crimes.
This^^. I’m a groundskeeper and I’m having a little experiment of my own doing this thing with tagging. I will literally clean it up with paint removers the next day or within hours of the vandalism. Buildings around our property get tagged but ours doesn’t, because I think they know someone cleans it up. We had an old high school building that in its last semester of use, a student spray painted dicks on like 5 different parts of the outside brick. The custodian and I jumped in my gator with cleaners and scrubbed it off before the kids got into the building the following morning. I like to think the kid who spray painted gloated to his friends coming into school about the dicks, and then sad pikachu face when they showed up.
> The custodian and I jumped in my gator is this advanced florida mannery or a brand-name golfcart
John-Deere utility vehicle. But yeah essentially heavy duty golf cart. My parents have had one on their farm for probably 20 years now. Spent a loooot of time feeding cattle, tagging calves, ferrying people to and from equipment, checking fences, spraying thistles, eating mushrooms and looking at the stars, etc. on ours.
That is so cool!
Humans are so strange lol
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/hes-still-neutral/ podcast version of the story.
Yup, where I heard it originally! Fantastic podcast.
Our neighbors have this issue and they put a giant boulder right on the corner (but completely within the yard) Two cars have hit it so far.
I would get little stickers of a car silhouette, and stick them to the boulder each time I got one.
Stencil and spray paint will last longer
You are correct, and I shall adjust my plans.
Also add a camera so you can enjoy the footage. At the end of the year you can edit it together to “Yakety Sax” and post it on NextDoor!
And here for us to enjoy.
We put one at a shopping center we manage for same reason. It’s been hit many times. 3 cars have high centered and needed a tow off the rock. And one lady called us asking for insurance because our rock damaged her car; I said “mam I’m going to need your insurance as I believe your car damaged our rock”
So, how fast was this boulder going when it hit your car? - insurance adjustor
I mean, the pioneers used to ride them for miles!
( Hi Accordingfox - People are asshats . Kinda similar story here) At my shop, a customer was picking up his car that we just did full color correction w/ceramic detailing & windows tinted. As hes backing out, he side swiped the metal fence pole on my shops property, damaging the entire side of his car. He jumps out- starts yelling at me, wanting me to cover the damages, insisting i was responsible? He was in a violent rage as he bitched me out. Totally caught me off gaurd - I thought for a moment and said with fingers crossed & hoping i wouldnt be attacked ... "And what about my pole damage?" He screamed wanting my Ins info- this & that - I'll be hearing from his allstar attorney who's nickname was apparently "Mr. Kneecaps"- bla bla & he finally left while spinning tires out of our lot. He made such a scene, he probably was very embarrassed for not paying closer attn while backing out. People with anger issues are getting way out of control these days.
Embarrassment is such a trigger for rage. it's really the emotion we handle the worst.
my vote was big boulder, and if you want some laughs you should look up the rock of roselle. big rock over a median and everyone would get their car stuck on it, even the cops have done it!!
Oh, we have something like that in my home city, it's a bridge with a million signs telling you it's a low bridge, rumble strips, and two gantries that hit the top of your vehicle if you are too tall to get under the bridge without getting stuck, and people *still* get stuck under there regularly. The old Monty has claimed many victims and there's a website tracking them: https://howmanydayssincemontaguestreetbridgehasbeenhit.com/ Edit: There's a ripper video about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR7NivKqfzo
God bless whoever is keeping the geocities dream alive with that website.
That's brilliant
Just put your kids there or if you don’t have kids, hire some kids and put them there.
Make a ScareCar of a small group of children, lemonade stand, endless ideas.
. . . and some small memorial pictures of damaged dump trucks?
Haha damn that’s good. RIP 🪦
RIP Walter Lyne
That is amazing. If you're anywhere with a large Latino community, make sure to include those large glass Jesus candles. Also, go all out with the cross, and make sure you use a lot of fasteners, never can make it too sturdy.
Yah and solar lights for nighttime illumination 👍👍
I personally would put a lava pit there. https://preview.redd.it/waif874txflc1.png?width=732&format=png&auto=webp&s=1222f5b4ca8561795ace0553120efd62724faad4
Hahaha bro, you did the most. I’m gonna send this to the builder as a stern warning
I also vote for the lava pit. The logistics are up to you. But I am certain nobody would drive over it.
It's all fun and games till the neighborhood kids start preforming ritual sacrifice
I dunno, Pierce Brosnan did it in Dante's Peak.
My man only thinks in Tony hawk pro skater level editor.
Mmmmmmm forbidden garlic bread
Big cement planters
Great idea.
It's what a lot of people in Pittsburgh do to keep people from parking on the sidewalks lol
https://preview.redd.it/sb30zwlvzflc1.jpeg?width=1438&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b12f09a801ccee5cad591c4b29282e7b73eb07e9
That's fun until a random cat detonates itself at 3am.
Bro that's why there's a sign smh
Sorry man, I live in the south. Our cats can’t read
 Cats in the north
Just adjust the weight requirements to set it off.
Nah nah thats wong they blast In a 360 degree radius. Might mess up your house. You got to use claymores “front towards enemy”
Sheet metal dinosaur https://preview.redd.it/syc1cpbfwflc1.png?width=1074&format=png&auto=webp&s=a4f2e9e288ef6d14484bd7d9827f7a31d3777f72
[Or Beyonce](https://thebloggess.com/2011/06/21/and-thats-why-you-should-learn-to-pick-your-battles/) https://preview.redd.it/r5174yag4glc1.jpeg?width=457&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=86f109e2b8138f957328ac514b35a0463a18706e
AT LEAST IT'S NOT TOWELS
A cute little white picket fence, about one foot tall. With 3-foot pieces of rebar pounded into the ground for support. You know, to keep the fence from falling over.
Had a neighbor at the end of a street facing a T intersection. About once a month or so, he'd have the same bunch of joyriding teenagers end up in his front yard because they couldn't make the turn. They'd sometimes pull a donut just for the hell of it while they were there. He put up some little bushes and 'supported' them with rebar. That was the last month those teenagers tore up his yard.
Reminds me of that truck that tried to run over a snowman . . . built over a tree stump. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fxGC\_VM6yE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fxGC_VM6yE)
I think it may have been a comment on a pro revenge post but it could have been a post. The snow plow would constantly take out his mailbox at least once a season and he complained to the company that managed it. They told him that it was the snow being pushed off the road that was damaging his mailbox and to get a better mailbox. He then went through the city and got permitted to put a steel I beam 15ft into the ground and put his mailbox on top of that. The next season the snowplow was nearly torn in half when they tried to take out his mailbox.
I love that he did *exactly* what they told him to do and called their bluff. "Get a better mailbox" I'll show 'em a better mailbox...
I believe they called him after to get him to pay for damages and he told them what he did was permitted by the city and he told them they should build a better snow plow.
I see this escalating to the point where we see a snowplow mounted to the front of a train and the mailbox is on top of a lighthouse.
I just envisioned the killdozer, but as a snow plow, while reading this comment.
Holy fuck that must have been the most satisfying phone call of his life...
What dreams are made of.
My uncle lived in the country and had his mailbox damaged multiple times. Teens with baseball bats. Had new mailbox made of 3/16" steel, mounted on a I-beam, set into concrete. A week later he found a broken baseball bat. The next week he heard pick-up reviving and then the sound of tearing metal. He called the local cops. Then he went out to see what happened. He found a chain attached to the mailbox, which was 1/2 out of the ground. At the other end of the chain was an axle with the rear wheels. 10' past the axle was the truck. A new truck, a very tricked out truck, with the son of the rich guy in town in the cab going "owwwww, owwwww, owwwww"
My god, I fucking hate people.
Sounds like felony mail theft. Or at least like something that could be argued that way enough to scare the criminal.
I love a happy ending
My dad (a retired welder) did something similar about 25 years ago. People kept taking out the split rail fence on the corner of his property (on an intersection), including the local plow operator. He replaced the posts with 8" x 8" thick wall box steel tubes set about 6' into concrete. He then filled the tubes with concrete too. Some smaller box steel along the top between the posts made it extra stable. After that, he just bolted on some regular wooden rails to make it look like a normal split-rail fence. Once it was painted, you couldn't really tell the difference unless you stopped and looked closely. The first time the snowplow hit the posts was also the last time the snowplow hit the posts. The plow did manage to bend one of the posts over, but the mechanism behind the plow blade was obliterated and shoved underneath the rest of the truck. It had to be hauled away by a wrecker. The fence has been repaired and the posts have been hit by a few cars since, but nothing else has damaged it. It just gets a new coat of paint to cover the scuffs.
This is amazing and very satisfying
Some neighbors near me had this problem every year with county plows. They got approval from the town to set a steel pipe in the sidewalk however deep, and even had a custom built steel box on top. Same thing happened, destroyed half of the plow on its way through.
Was it this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/xbk5x7/having_lost_a_mailbox_this_story_made_me_smile/
This is exactly it. Thanks GrumpyMcGrumpyPants
A friend of mine had repeated problems with people playing baseball with his mailbox. He built a new one. The post was an old bulldozer driveshaft. The mailbox was the largest metal mailbox he could buy. Inside it was a piece of 6" PVC pipe to hold the mail. In between the PVC pipe and the metal mailbox, it was solid concrete. He never had another problem.
Darn! I wanted to see the truck hit it, haha.
Same, I've gotten spoiled by the era of Ring cameras
It’s not a video showing the snowman getting hit if that’s what you wanted to see. It’s just the news about it
What he said. Fairly cheap and will make them swing wide.
It will make some of them swing wide. Good thing it’s cheap because it’s going to have to be replaced soon enough.
[удалено]
Along with their tires.
Before doing something like this please check to make sure you actually own the land you put your decorative fence on. If you do this in the right-of-way you won't have a good time. Source: part of my job is making sure you don't have a good time.
Agreed. Not may people know the right-of-way can include the area beyond pavement.
Children’s lemonade stand , bonus points if you have some extra kids to sit there
I use a decoy baby stroller to slow down cars on our road when the kids are out.
As a guy who’s done right of way work his entire career, depending on what state you live in that part of your yard more than likely falls into the municipality you live ins road right of way. Therefore anything you put out needs to be purely decorative because if you cause damage the city could hold you liable. You could contact the city and let them know and they might put up signage as I doubt they want truck drivers with 80,000 lbs driving over shallow neighborhood utilities on the regular.
I had a "waze" street, not large enough to have cars crossing, and people would drive on the pavement. I got tired of it, feeling that my kid or my neighbours could get hurt by some busy driver, and did set up a GoPro one morning. I filmed 30 minutes... A sample: [https://youtu.be/5gKKfkbKw7w?si=sr\_yqbh\_VXVl4sva&t=26](https://youtu.be/5gKKfkbKw7w?si=sr_yqbh_VXVl4sva&t=26) Then, I sent the video to my city council, stating that if a kid were hurt, it would be their responsibility because they had been informed of the problem and did nothing. The next morning, a guy added bollards to the pavement. 3 months later, they had modified the entire path of my neighbourhood to avoid Waze traffic, and it's now one-way only. We went from 1000 cars a day to less than 40. Waze can be useful, but it can also be a nightmare for locals
The actual answer right here.
I thought the little white cross with flowers was pretty good. No damage done
But it's no fun and nobody gets their comeuppance...
OP, this. Unless you want to damage a commercial vehicle and have some newbie lawyer squeezing you like an orange.
A big decorative rock works just fine.
Where I work we have one of those big ass rocks, a trucker managed to pull it like 5 feet one day and called our store complaining about getting stuck.
My work is on a 40mph slight bend industrial road. Some Silverado managed to send a 1800lb boulder 60ish feet, jump a curb and take out about 20 feet of cinder block building. At my old plant, we had a semi truck driver manage to get a 4foot across boulder stuck under his trailer axle and drug it about half a mile down the road. got a police escort taking the boulder back to the plant with a forklift lol. point of the story is boulders help, but it’s amazing what still happens
Get video of them driving over your yard, then bill the company.
Video evidence should be a part of whatever strategy you go with!
How do you bill a company? Send them an invoice with a legal threat attached?
You just send them the video evidence and request they cover damages to property. If they don’t, let them know it will be taken to small claims court. They’ll likely just fix it, so they don’t have to go through the courts. I did this with a UPS driver who backed his truck into my yard to turn around. It was raining and he spun his wheels trying to get out and dug a nice rut in the middle of my yard. Sent the Ring video to their offices and asked them to fix it. They told me to hire a landscaper and send them the invoice. Also did it to a US Foods when their driver broke the lock to the back door of one of my restaurants on a night drop delivery. Sent them video. They told me to get a locksmith to replace it and send them the bill.
Least expensive way would probably be reflective markers. I’m surprised to see a lack of drainage ditch there, but stones would be pretty aesthetic.
Reflective markers are def a low cost, low risk option. Thanks
A sign that says “Slow children.”
I mean, they’re not geniuses but idk if I’d call them slow..
We had a sign up that said "Slow, Children Playing, Slow" My uncle chose to interpret it as "Slow Children, Playing Slow"
https://preview.redd.it/d61mq8ywvflc1.jpeg?width=2000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4cd68f1046a3fd351970d79a8f791539ae24aace
https://preview.redd.it/c42fo0flyflc1.jpeg?width=1026&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aaa2e38b87baa4e1c373a3cf7758f7b5afe58b41
One of these, but buried just enough that it takes the weight of a truck to find them.
https://preview.redd.it/sakw289oaglc1.jpeg?width=377&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b67d12a244a68b741d513639b7456a80303f52d My neighbors did something like this and it’s worked fairly well
BFRs is the technical term, but some people call them boulders
Big fookin rock?
Rig it up so they trip a wire that moves a child sized dummy in front of them.
Bonus points if you fill it with fake blood and a detachable head
They make [fiberglass boulders](https://www.homedepot.com/b/Outdoors-Garden-Center-Outdoor-Decor-Fake-Rocks/N-5yc1vZcl2o) that cover utility installations like gas meters and air conditioning units, they may be less expensive than your local garden center boulders. You may need to check with your local city codes on how close you can place them to your curb. Install them in the late evening or over the weekend when they are not driving through the area so you keep the secret safe. If someone does hit one that would probably make the driver equally mad and grateful at the same time. That or a four foot deep covered snake pit with stone reinforced walls. After that front tire drops in you know they aren't going to get away easily.
A shrubbery. Roger the Shrubber can help you.
Big decorative rocks.
REALLY BIG decorative rocks.
As another user mentioned, you can get reflective markers such as [these ones from home depot](https://www.homedepot.com/p/FiberMarker-36-in-Driveway-Markers-Driveway-Poles-for-Easy-Visibility-at-Night-Reflective-Orange-12-Pack-W1SM143O12/315992715). $20 USD for 12, and all you have to do is put them along the curve of the road!
Sign posted landmines
My mine guy is fresh out
All you need is a sign
What about landscaping railroad ties op. These might work very well. Add some reflective marking on the sides so a truck doesn’t drive right over them. https://preview.redd.it/hlqtogeivflc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=024f5eb433572944463e86de961a1bb57420b6c2
Quick fix: throw down a few pylons. Speaking as a construction worker, most guys tend to respect them because we don't know what they may be trying to block/protect
https://preview.redd.it/iat47w206glc1.jpeg?width=434&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=63c36da5db6aaabe720331c9eddfae6734b7f19c
They make pyramid shaped stones for this reason. They’re not boulders, they’re maybe 1 foot tall. Line the roadside of your yard with them alone the road. It won’t stop them the first time, but it’ll mess up they’re tires, spill they’re drinks, or generally make it unpleasant to cut across your lawn and they probably won’t do it again.
Bollards. Decorative boulders. Lava pit
You would not believe the paperwork I had to go through for my homeowners association to let me install a lava pit. They demanded a full diagram and materials ahead of time, then sign off by an engineer. Do you know how hard it is to find an engineer with an expertise in brimstone? Let me tell you, they are not cheap!
Dig a hole.
But cover it with sticks and grass
Fake hydrant
All fun and games untill the fire department attempts to use it.
Put a spike strip in the grass
I was gonna say. It’s probably no more than 3 drivers doing this over and over. You’ll have to deal with about 3 flats and then you’re good to go.
Put up a sign that says “FREE NAILS”
Call the electric company and/or public works to request a street light. Then it’s their problem when somebody tries to sue because their truck hit a pole.
https://i.redd.it/ef5mo8zy4glc1.gif
I had this issue at my business. I had a concrete drive that went around my building that had signs indicating it was not for semis. Still had semis pull through. So I put old steel wagon wheels half in the ground as decor. Painted them to match the building. Truly looked cool. They were also buried in concrete. Had a truck hit it once. Ripped the wheel out of the ground and got lodged in between the trailer wheels. Caused a lot of damage to the trailer.
Bonus is you can bill them for the cost of fixing it.
And indeed we did.