R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-B-L-E »
It's an easy enough word to spell. Too bad that it so difficult for the City of Charlotte to comprehend. While most normal people seem to understand the relatively simple rule of "you break it, you bought it", it looks like the city doesn't. It would appear that a city garbage truck recently caused some damage to someone's vehicle. Specifically, it knocked a basketball goal onto the vehicle, which broke the rear window and crushed the trunk.
This is where I get lost. If I'm out driving, and I hit something and cause damage, you can bet I'm going to be liable for that damage, whether it's on my property, the city's property or anyone else's property. Apparently this isn't the case with the city. Instead, they insist that you need an Encroachment Agreement. Anything to be constructed or installed into a right-of-way takes one of these babies. If you wanted to encroach twice, I'm not sure if you'd need two agreements or only one.
But I digress. The victim in this accident didn't have such an agreement, so the city says that she is out of luck. While the article doesn't say if this is a full-fledged in-the-ground installation or just a roll-out basketball goal, you can bet that even if Ms. Blue had paid out the mind-boggling $825 fee for such an agreement, the city would make darn sure that the fine print reads that they aren't responsible for anything they break in that area. After all, you're encroaching on their land by putting something there. If they break it, whose problem is that? Apparently not theirs.
